![\"How](\"https:\/\/www.blueeyedsun.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/HowtoWinAtCards.jpg\")
Great product is good for everyone: retailers, publishers, suppliers and, most importantly, card senders. If the product is good it\u2019ll sell well. But if all the cards in the industry are good, how do you make sure yours are the best? We can\u2019t all be winners and it\u2019s a very competitive market. It’s always a gamble launching new ranges. To be successful you have to learn how to win at cards.<\/p>\n
Market Challenges<\/b><\/p>\n
Competition amongst publishers is fierce, with new talent starting up businesses every week. The Ladder Club which supports new publishers had one of its busiest years ever this year and PG Live\u2019s Springboard area continues to grow.<\/p>\n
In addition to the plethora of great start ups, larger publishers have launched smaller brands in order to compete. Paperlink have Meraki, Five Dollar Shake with Counting Stars, Second Nature have Lime, Woodmansterne with the Proper Mail Company and Carte Blanche have Hotchpotch.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve also seen an influx of Giftware companies joining the party with Widdop & Co, Katie Loxton and Transomnia all launching card ranges. Lesser and Pavey have followed suit with their Hearts Designs brand.<\/p>\n
On top of all the new players, the space available in the independent sector has been shrinking as as many indies go under or decide to hang up their boots by not renewing expiring leases. This is further compounded by brokers sweeping up large chunks of the sector effectively closing doors that were previously open to smaller outfits via sales agents, trade shows and direct marketing.<\/p>\n
As the market shrinks and consolidates and casualties are lost along the way there is a rush by all publishers to create best selling designs to win the race and become one of the top ten \u2018must haves\u2019 in any retailers store.<\/p>\n
The trouble is that many end up\u2026<\/p>\n
Playing it Safe<\/b><\/p>\n
The card market has always swallowed up good ideas and innovative product. New looks and trends get absorbed by other companies and reincarnated in all sorts of interesting ways. I\u2019m not talking about blatant copying here (a bugbear for all of us). I mean the very nature of creativity, that is constantly influenced and stimulated by the environment in which it is working. Following trends feels safer for everyone, but it has cost.<\/p>\n
Trends come through like big waves and the result is that lots of product ends up looking the same. At the moment it\u2019s foiled messages on stripes and flowers, flamingos, unicorns, llamas and drink related cards.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a strong temptation to follow trends and keep adapting with (rather than to) the competition. The trouble is you end up looking like everyone else and have no discernible point of difference. This leads to a lack of loyalty with customers and price becomes the dominant deciding factor at the point of purchase.<\/p>\n
Worse still, you don\u2019t take risks and your creativity becomes constrained and restricted by the urge to make money. In the end, vast quantities of unicorns, flamingos and llamas end up sitting in warehouses across the country as the party fizzles out and moves on to the next \u2018big thing\u2019.<\/p>\n
The real power lies in staying different from the pack and creating great cards that consumers love to buy. Staying different over the years has always been one of the biggest challenges we\u2019ve had at Blue Eyed Sun and I imagine that it\u2019s the same for most publishers.<\/p>\n
What is the secret to long lasting success? It\u2019s simple and I\u2019ve been teaching it to Ladder Club delegates and new publishers for the last fourteen years:<\/p>\n
Create something different that sells well.<\/p>\n
And yet asking someone to create a best selling card range that\u2019s different from everything else is like holding a gun to someone\u2019s head and asking them to relax. The truth is\u2026<\/p>\n
Nobody Knows Anything<\/b><\/p>\n
Screenwriter, William Goldman<\/a>, famously wrote of Hollywood that \u201cNobody knows anything.\u201d What he meant is that nobody in the movie business knows for certain what is going to work commercially. It\u2019s a guess (and at best an educated one) every single time. I think it\u2019s the same with most creative businesses.<\/p>\n If it were a straight forward affair to create best selling cards, we wouldn\u2019t such a variety of publishers. There would be just one player serving all of the market’s needs. Inevitably the magic would disappear as the market became commoditised and eventually it would become obsolete. People don\u2019t buy cards because they have to. They do it because they choose to.<\/p>\n That it\u2019s not easy to create best sellers means that the card market continues to present opportunities for companies to enter and rise quickly when they execute well and meet its needs.<\/p>\n Understanding these needs is crucial. So what are they? Having spent the last year visiting over 50 stores and buying cards every week on The Greeting Card Project<\/a>, I\u2019ve tried to get inside the minds of consumers and retailers to understand them more closely. Here\u2019s what I\u2019ve learned so far:<\/p>\n The consumers\u2019 needs<\/b><\/p>\n At it\u2019s simplest level, the consumer needs a card that allows them to connect with the recipient they are sending it to. The card can represent the seller, the recipient, something about the relationship between them or a combination of these elements. When this works well there is an emotional connection and an intuitive sense that the card is \u2018the right one\u2019. It\u2019s a lovely feeling when you find the right card and you look forward to sending it.<\/p>\n We\u2019re all different though, so variety is important as we don\u2019t all like or choose the same things. Consumers want the right amount of choice. Too much and they can feel bamboozled. Too little and\u00a0 they can\u2019t find a card that suits. They want nice designs, meaningful or humorous sentiment and they want cards that \u2018feel right\u2019 for them (this can change over time). Price is important, but is not always the deciding factor. If the card is right, the design will win out over price on most occasions.<\/p>\n Retailers\u2019 Needs<\/b><\/p>\n Like all good businesses, good retailers pay attention to their customers and their needs. They gain an intuitive sense of what will work for them and what won\u2019t by watching their best sellers over time. The best retailers track their sales data and are ruthless at culling cards that don\u2019t sell (and filling the space with better sellers). Most importantly they make sure that they never, ever run out of stock of their best sellers (and they know every single one of them well).<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy for a retailer staring at the same best selling stock every week to get bored of seeing it. Ordering something else because you feel that you\u2019ve \u201cdone that\u201d range is all well and good if it\u2019s not selling. It\u2019s a costly mistake if it\u2019s in your top twenty percent of sellers and you don\u2019t know it.<\/p>\n Retailers also want their own businesses to stand out on their high streets from the competition. They\u2019ll often ask for exclusivity on cards in order to do this, or they will try to be first to find new ranges and publishers. Another reason why larger players have created sub brands in order to target different sectors more effectively.<\/p>\n Others\u2019 Needs<\/b><\/p>\n Other people within the market have needs too. There are sales agents (what\u2019s new?), distributors (language changes, rectangular), brokers (size, shape, colour), suppliers (volume, finishing), multiples (consignment, barcoding, alpha codes, text positioning) and warehouses (communication, sizing, volume). All of which affect the market in a variety of ways.<\/p>\n Despite their importance, I\u2019ve decided to pay less attention to them in this post, because it\u2019s the end consumer that pays all of our bills and the retailer is still the dominant route to the end consumer.<\/p>\n How to win at Cards<\/b><\/p>\n There\u2019s no silver bullet to creating best sellers that are different. Where do good ideas come from anyway? Nobody knows. If someone tells you it\u2019s them, they\u2019re kidding themselves. Everything new has a source of inspiration, an element of play, some experimentation and a connection to the collective subconscious.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve seen a lot of businesses come and go in our industry over the years. The companies that clearly define themselves as different from the competition are the ones that most often stand the test of time. Whether you are a retailer or publisher, understanding your niche, your point of difference and playing to your strengths is essential if you want to win at cards.<\/p>\n How to create best selling greeting cards<\/a><\/p>\n