The recent GCA Speed-dating with Dragons event gave 60 card publishers a great opportunity to pitch to leading greeting card retailer buyers. Buyer Andy Adamson, director of Calliope Gifts was one of the ‘dragons’. Here he gives his top tips on how publishers can help buyers
My top advice: “Look at what everyone else is doing… and do something different! There are so many card designers out there and we are spoilt for choice by the beautiful designs, but there are too many that are similar. There’s nothing wrong with them, but once we have a selection of bird/dog/unicorn/Prosecco cards we don’t need anymore. Also, please be a bit more creative with male cards – we’re not all beer swilling, motorbike riding sports fanatics.
Importantly, do get the logistical side right: barcode your products, have captions in the upper part of the card so that customers can read them in a browser, think about how this will look in our shops and how it will stand out among all of the other cards.
Finally, have a big enough range so that we can make up a reorder without paying carriage.”
How can publishers and retailers work together better: “I’d love to have some of the publishers who were involved in the recent event work in the shop for a day to see how customers shop.”
