Trial success sees CF’s service expanded across 1,000-plus stores
As part of its ambitious growth as an omni-channel retailer Card Factory has rolled out its Click & Collect service across all its stores in good time for Father’s Day and the busy wedding season.
The national roll-out follows the success of trials across 87 stores and Sam Davies, digital director at Card Factory, said: “Our digital data has shown that more people want to access the high-quality, affordable range of gifts and cards we provide with ease.
“The introduction of our Click & Collect service for ordering products at the click of a few buttons offers flexibility, more choice, and adds an extra layer of convenience to shopping with us.”
The service has been rolled out across the retail giant’s 1,000-plus estate as well as via its website, app – apart from Jersey and the Republic Of Ireland – allowing shoppers can choose gifts, cards, personalised cards and selected personalised gifts.
They’re given access to the retailer’s online store locator tool to select which outlet they wish to collect their items from, and will receive a confirmation email when the items are ready to collect.
There’s no processing fee for orders over £10 and customers have a collection window of 10 days to pick up their order with the customer service team available to assist as required, and shoppers can pay for any additional items picked up in store too.
Sam continued: “The success of the new service presents the opportunity to roll out click and collect across even more of our range – hundreds of products are available from wedding cards and hen party accessories to a huge range of Father’s Day gifts and personalised items – and in the future we hope to offer a next-day collection option for those last-minute gifts.”
“With shoppers returning to the High Street and connecting our stores and online channels, we can offer our customers a great experience and added convenience. We are well positioned to make good progress in our transition to becoming the market-leading omni-channel retailer of cards and gifts.”
Earlier this month, Card Factory announced profits had tripled, boosted by strong store performances and shoppers embracing the High Street. The company saw annual revenue reach £463.4 million in the year to January 31.
The retailer also revealed very positive insights into the UK public’s greeting card-buying habits, sharing findings of its extensive research at its Capital Markets Strategy presentation a few days ago as well as in its recently-published Annual Report.
Ceo Darcy Willson-Rymer reinforced the “ongoing resilience” of the UK greeting card market, “continuing its post-pandemic recovery, with a volume growth of 2%”.
He shared that the number of UK adults purchasing greeting cards rose to 40.3million, a 7% increase from the year previous, and 827m cards were bought in total, up from 811m.
Even more heartening for the future of the industry, is that there has been “positive growth in the younger audience categories”, highlighting this is especially the case in the 16-24 age group with the research confirmed this cohort’s card-buying habits have been increasing sizeably since 2020, 14% up in the last 12 months year-on-year, taking numbers to an average of 24 cards per head in the period.
Top: Dashing into Card Factory will be quicker with its click and collect service
