Franchise Director at Card Connection Andrew Cutler says: 'Andy Thomson has now upgraded his Card Connection franchise territory to what we call a Platinum franchise. This is a great achievement, and now means that he is managing his own mini-business rather than simply distributing greeting cards.

'At the moment Andy runs two vans, and with his wife, employs a full-time merchandiser and a part-time helper to pack the greeting cards ready for distribution. By taking advantage of the economies of scale achieved by running a larger operation, Andy has been able to significantly improve his profit margins to the extent that he has doubled the size of his business within three years.'

Greeting card publisher and franchisor Card Connection was established in 1992 and has 99 franchisees operating in its network. Although the UK and Ireland franchisee networks are complete, investment opportunities are still available by acquiring an already-established territory from an existing franchisee.

Andy comments: 'Card Connection's greeting cards and the merchandising service is very popular with retailers and this has been largely behind the success of my own franchise. Good growth of the business in the last few years has meant I have been able to develop my area and even recently acquire an additional, neighbouring territory. Despite the forecasted downturn, I anticipate continued growth for my franchise in what has been described as a 'recession-proof' industry.'

Published: 16 September 2008

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