Grow your card sales the easy way…

Award-winning Fron Goch and Haskins garden centres choose Woodmansterne as their greeting card category management partners.

Greeting cards are a growth area for garden centres - they drive footfall all year round, with a good margin that supports other garden centre gifting categories. When cards are retailed well, they create a visually-impactful area to grow sales. That’s where category management plays a key role, ensuring great availability, a varied product range from different publishers, day-to-day management, as well as sales reporting and analysis.

GTN spoke to Kati Taylor at the Garden Centre of the Year 2019, Fron Goch, and Michelle Martin from the successful garden centre group, Haskins, to understand their recent success with card category management.

Card sales up by over 30% at Fron Goch

Kati Taylor, Head of Retail & Marketing at Fron Goch Garden Centre in Carnarvon, North Wales, told GTN that they were looking for an improved greeting card department because of developments at the award-winning centre. “Fron Goch has evolved over the last decade from a trip for a couple of plants to a chosen destination for a relaxed shopping and dining experience.”

“Strengthening our developing departments of houseplants, we e ll-being, ll-being, cards, books and clothing alongside side the the introduction of new departments s was the driving force behind the new £1.5m improvements project started at the beginning of the year.”

Why did Fron Goch move to W-Select?

“Card sales had stagnated over the last few years and the ageing area no longer fitted the customers expectations in range. Changing the area, installing new fixtures and tailoring the range has had immediate results. After extensive research and visiting various suppliers at Spring Fair we decided Woodmansterne had the range, quality and look we were desiring.”

What was your experience of working with Woodmansterne?

“Throughout the whole process the team remained easy-natured and professional. From the initial conversation at Spring Fair, communication throughout to the installation, Woodmansterne have proven to be both professional and collaborative. Working together we designed the space and layout, colour matching with new and existing departments alongside the designated area and planned the specific card designs and collections we felt would fit our customers needs.”

How has the new card department at Fron Goch worked?

“Since the new department was installed the feedback from both customers and team have been incredibly complimentary. The merchandising support has proved invaluable and despite it being such a short period of time we have seen an instant increase in sales of over 30%. The fresh range, clear signage and the ability to include a large selection of Welsh cards into the collection meant we now have a unique display that we are proud of.”

Would you recommend W-Select?

“Highly. The whole process has been a joy. The fit out, range of cards and back up support has been exceptional.”

Emma Bridgewater cards for Woodmansterne

Haskins give their cards a fresh new look

At Haskins’ five centres in the South of England, Michelle Martin their Gifts and Seasonal Buyer explained it was time to give the cards department a fresh, new look. “Haskins were keen to move the department forward, whilst it wasn’t broken there was an opportunity to improve the selection, improve the sales and get greatereater visibility of what we were selling.

“The Woodmansterne team were very accommodating, quick to respond to queries and questions. During the changeover and installations, Woodmansterne managed the process extremely well to make the transition as seamless as possible.

“Since the installation we have had very positive feedback from customers. The focus on the selection and the placement of genres has also had a positive impact, resulting in positive sales growth in all stores since the installation.”

“I would very much recommend Woodmansterne to anyone looking to improve their greetings card sales.”

The new card department at Haskins Snowhill

Seth and Paul Woodmansterne, the second and third generation leading the brand that supplies over 30 million cards a year.

Why Woodmansterne?

Woodmansterne are a third-generation family business supplying premium greeting cards to leading independent retailers, all designed and manufactured in the UK. They work with the very best of British talent including the National Trust, Quentin Blake, RSPB, and Emma Bridgewater.

Woodmansterne pioneered the ‘Smart Seal’ in 2019, allowing them to remove plastic packaging from all their cards, saving a million pieces of throwaway plastic every week. Their cards are printed with vegetable inks on paper from sustainable forests and all their envelopes are made from 100% recycled postconsumer waste.

Smart Seal means no plastic packaging on Woodmansterne cards

Why W-Select category management?

Woodmansterne have become experts in visual planning and category management, working with leading retailers in the UK, meaning they can offer the following services:

• A bespoke assortment tailored to your customers • A unique caption calculator ensuring the optimum product mix • An assortment of designs from the very best publishers • Regular analysis and reporting • Less admin, meaning more time for you

Get in touch!

We would love to explore how we can help your business grow Get in touch 01923 200 600 or sales@woodmansterne.co.uk You can see more of what they do at woodmansterne.co.uk

From Garden Trade News September Issue 2020

Copyright Potting Shed Press 2020