In the past decade greetings card publisher Card Connection has quadrupled in size, with its franchise network now selling four times the number of cards that it did in 1999. Card Connection, which was established 1992, has expanded at an impressive rate, it now distributes greeting cards to around 15,000 outlets through its network of 85 franchise owners.
These latest figures, which was revealed at the Card Connection conference in Warwickshire, confirms the growth and demand in the greeting cards sector.
"We believe Card Connections' increased command of the market place is partly due to developing the range of our quality greeting card designs from around 250 in the year 2000 to more than 1,500 today," said Sale Director at Card Connection, Andrew Cutler.
Cutler believes that Card Connections success is not only down to its high quality products but also the driving force behind the franchise, he said: "As well as providing a far greater diversity and range of products than our competitors, we have backed this up with a superior merchandising service from our dedicated national team of franchise owners. The past two years have been tough for many businesses, however the Card Connection management team and our franchise owners have responded with innovative ideas to keep one step ahead."
Card Connection has successfully focused on expanding its existing franchises and has developed new business techniques to maximise profits. These include introducing new hand held terminals designed to dramatically reduce admin time, new point-of-sale displays to improve merchandising and signing up national account customers such as BP.
To keep the momentum of card sales going, Card Connection has expanded their market and products by developing Gift Connection and Party range. The new figures also highlight popular trends in the greeting cards sector, Cutler said: "During the past 10 years we have seen a 40 per cent increase in added finishes, the introduction of square cards and growth in the tall card ranges. We are now looking forward to further product additions from our in-house creative department, which backed by the continued enthusiasm of our franchise network, will undoubtedly take us towards our next decade of company growth."
Published: 20 August 2010
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