Cardies’ Christmas Relief

Royal Mail strikes dented Christmas box sales

“I guess if there was one word to sum up Christmas, it would be Phew!” stated Jo Barber, owner of No.14 Ampthill, echoing the relief felt by many greeting card retailers that against the odds, Christmas trade delivered in the end, though it was a very late run.

“Considering the unprecedented number of headwinds, we were incredibly pleased with our final Christmas numbers, but the journey to December 24 was definitely not one for the faint hearted! In all my years of retail I have never known a year like it and one I hope is not repeated anytime soon,” stated Mark Janson-Smith, md of the Postmark group. “With postage sales removed we actually finished 2.4% up for November and December, helped by a bumper last week and some strong everyday and non-card sales figures. The most obvious and dramatic factor for us was the postal strikes, with our stamp sales alone being 32% down which had an obvious knock-on effect on our Christmas card pack sales, which finished 16% down.”

This sentiment was echoed at House of Cards, with co-owner, Miles Robinson commenting: “It was probably one of the most challenging Christmases we’ve ever had. Thankfully, a record final week helped and, once stamps were taken out of the equation, we were 2% up on last year for the Nov/Dec period.

Royal Mail definitely had a significantly detrimental effect, not just the strikes, but their inability to even deliver stamps to us on several occasions. This really didn’t help boxed card sales, which ended up being almost 20% down.”

While the postal strikes significantly dented boxed card numbers and slashed stamp sales, many like Earlybird Designs’ Heidi Early reported “single card sales were up again”.

It was the same at Mooch Gifts & Home in Stourport and Bewdley, with single cards doing well against lower pack sales.

Co-owner Jon May said the final three days preChristmas were the “busiest in our seven years of trading”.

While Caroline Ranwell, at Hugs & Kisses in Tettenhall enjoyed her best Christmas trading ever, the effects of the Royal Mail strikes were evident. “I was horrified to see how many boxes of Christmas cards we have left, I do usually get this spot on but, unfortunately, this year we had a huge amount left,” she revealed.

To read more Christmas trade reports see Viewpoints pages 27-31

Top: Postmark’s Greenwich store in full festive mode. Above: A Christmas box display in House of Cards.

The Deep festive spirit

Wrendale’s Hannah Dale inspires Prince George

It would appear that Hannah Dale inspired Prince George’s festive portrait - and the Wrendale Designs’ founder and co-owner has praised the young royal’s talent and eye for colour.

The wintery painting of a reindeer with snow on its nose and robins on its back and antlers was revealed on the official Prince and Princess of Wales Instagram and Twitter pages in the Christmas run up.

In addition to widespread press coverage, the royal social media post quickly garnered more than 658,000 likes from Instagram followers all over the world, and 11.3million Twitter views, with a number pointing out the similarity to Hannah’s Festive Friends Stag luxury boxed collection design.

“It was instantly recognisable as being inspired by my design so that I spotted it and then I noticed in the comments there were a few other people who had recognised it as well, which was also lovely to see,” said Hannah.

And it looks like the young prince may be following in his grandfather’s brush strokes as King Charles III is also known as an accomplished watercolour artist.

Hannah said the royal youngster has talent, with “an eye for form and colour - I think that’s always tricky with watercolour but he’s got some good shading and tone in there”.

Top: Prince George’s painting (left) is similar to the one from Wrendale Design

Below: Prince George (second left) with his siblings Charlotte and Louis, and the Prince and Princess of Wales in their official 2022 Christmas card portrait.

An independent newsagent showed the true meaning of Christmas with its recent festive event to ensure everyone has a little happiness and joy, with BBC London TV news covering the story on Christmas Eve.

Twickenham-based Meet & Deep News is run by the Patel family, named after Pallu and Shashi’s two sons and co-workers, and every year they open the doors on Christmas Day for at least a couple of hours to give out mince pies, hugs, spiced tea and Christmas samosas, With dad Shashi worrying that the customers they call “our family” are suffering due to the energy crisis, Deep added: “On Christmas Day we have a nice community party. We like to get everyone in the whole of the neighbourhood to come and spend Christmas with us - this year we told people that if they were struggling to heat to please come in and be with us. Our shop is always warm.”

Deep said the family’s Hindu faith, and its principle of kindness to all is the reason behind wanting to help the community: “This is another way of practicing good karma. If someone is feeling vulnerable, we want them to know to never feel alone - we're more than just a shop for them.”