Retailer Perspective

In The Zone

While never ones to court the limelight, Cardzone’s trio of recent triumphs - winning two awards in The Retas, founder Paul Taylor being presented with the Honorary Achievement accolade at The Henries and the company’s acquisition of the Northamptonbased Mooch gift shop group - has certainly shone the spotlight on this independently-owned specialist retail business.

PG met up with directors Paul and James Taylor to find out what’s on the cards for 2022.

Above: Paul Taylor holds The Retas 2021 Greeting Card Retailer of Year trophy on stage with James (third left), members of the Cardzone team and The Art File’s Ged Mace (fourth left), who as sponsor of the category presented the award. Below left: Cardzone opened a store in Seaford last year, in a former Clintons unit. Below: The Cheshire Oaks store is one of 23 outlet stores in the Cardzone estate. The retailer joined forces with Fedrigoni and Hallmark on a Cards for the UK activation last summer in which members of the public wrote their thanks inside giant cards. Bottom: The Mooch shop in Rushden Lakes which is now part of the Cardzone family.

“We have never felt that comfortable with being the centre of attention, but cannot deny what a lovely feeling it was to receive two awards at The Retas, including the prestigious Greeting Card Retailer of the Year, especially as so many of our team and our suppliers were in the room,” said Paul Taylor, managing director of Cardzone. “And to come a month after The Henries, when I felt so humbled and surprised to be presented with the Honorary Achievement Award, was lovely. I love this industry that I am proud to have been a part of for almost four decades and still feel there are more growth opportunities out there for Cardzone,” he added.

Cardzone has certainly not rested on its laurels, despite the challenges that the pandemic has thrown in its way, by not only navigating its way through, but growing its estate through acquisitions, forging a joint venture with London-based Postmark, instigating several relocations to larger units, investing in new look branding for Cardzone while also being incredibly fair in its financial support for suppliers.

As Paul’s co-director and son James explained: “On the one hand we have faced falling footfall and sales in our existing stores (which thankfully gradually improved since coming out of the third lockdown); and on the other we have been opening roughly a new store every fortnight.” He added, that strategy meant “explaining to our staff that this growth was a means of supporting the business’ financial health in the longer term. It may have often felt like we were prioritising growth ahead of the performance of our existing stores when truthfully both aspects are of equal importance and without these combined elements we wouldn’t be where we are today, almost 17 years on since opening the first Cardzone store.”

Making The Retas 2021 all the more memorable for the Cardzone team was that half an hour into the event came the news that its acquisition of the Northamptonshirebased Mooch gift shop group of five stores (owned by Rachel and Paul Roberts), had been signed and sealed, taking the Cardzone group up to 191 stores and boosting its profile on the gifting retailing front. “We are thrilled to welcome the Mooch brand to our group portfolio and its team of dedicated staff who have all been excellent throughout this transition period,” said James Taylor. “We had been aware of the growing Mooch brand for a couple of years and so were delighted to start discussions

back in the late summer about a potential sale. Paul and Rachel have built an excellent business in a very short space of time. We love the brand name and we are now learning from them what makes Mooch so popular with its customers so we can then look at expansion across different parts of the UK. Two thirds of its supplier base are companies we have never dealt with so that presents new opportunities for us to diversify our gifting offer too,” believes James, who heads up gift buying as well as the acquisitions.

The addition of Mooch, which comprises two stores in Northampton, as well as one in Olney, Towcester and also one in the Rushden Lakes shopping centre (where Paul has always wanted to have a store), gives Cardzone another string to its bow.

“As ever in retail it is about finding the right locations, but while historically our growth has largely been as a result of acquiring existing greeting card shops, we do believe that the Mooch brand would lend itself to some organic expansion whereby we take an empty unit, but we need to first understand the business and learn from the existing team,” suggests Paul.

Having dipped their toes in on the ecommerce front, launching Cardzone’s first trading website last February, the ‘pause’ button has been pressed, preferring to keep their feet firmly on the ground in physical bricks and mortar.

“The desire to launch a website was massively amplified while we were closed through the first lockdown, as you can imagine!” James explained. “It’s always been a market which has fascinated us, but with it being so different to bricks and mortar retail we feel it will be better to acquire an existing online business.”

So, this coming year, Paul and James have set their sights on adding 20 stores to the Cardzone estate, which would take it to over 200 shops. Top of their wishlist is to find “independently owned existing good quality card shops. We love buying existing businesses as they have the goodwill from customers and a team that is dedicated to offering that personal customer service,” explains Paul. “The ideal scenario would be if the owners and their staff wanted to stay on for a while to work with us. There are still so many great independent card shops out there and we hope that if any owners are thinking of selling up that they come to us first. We are prepared to offer good money!” Paul added, citing its acquisitions last April of the two Romantica shops in Bristol from owner Nik Gornall as well as Carolyn Bieda’s Cards, Gifts & Balloons stores in Shaftsbury and Blandford Forum as perfect examples of this approach.

“Both Carolyn and Nik were a pleasure to deal with and we are very happy that their former staff are continuing as part of our team,” reinforced James.

While Cardzone now has stores pretty much throughout the UK, some areas are higher on the expansion wishlist than others.

“We already have a strong presence in the Midlands, the North and the South West and our acquisition of Gallery Cards in Wales gave us a foothold there on the value front,” recounts Paul. “We are desperately keen to expand in Scotland and Northern Ireland, as our stores there have performed better coming out of the pandemic than those in other areas,” Paul revealed.

He also acknowledges that the group has a weakness in the South and South East of England, but stresses than any growth in the London area will be through the joint venture forged with Postmark’s owners Mark and Leona Janson-Smith last Spring, which has resulted in stores being opened in Blackheath and Wimbledon under this new partnership.

“Mark and Leona know the Postmark business inside and out. Their attention to detail on the product front is second to none and we would love to open more shops with them,” said Paul enthusiastically. “I was 22 when I started working in this industry, so much has changed since then, but I still believe greeting cards have a massive role to play in people’s lives and I am going to make sure that as many of them as possible have the opportunity to buy from one of our shops,” Paul added, still fully in the ‘card zone’ almost four decades on!

Top: Paul (left) and James Taylor had a good reason to celebrate at The Retas 2021. Above: Having started in smaller shop units, in some instances Cardzone is now considering relocations to larger shops to better accommodate its extensive card and gift offer. Below: Inside Postmark’s Wimbledon Village shop.