Positivity surrounds retailers’ reactions to Father’s Day sales
Positive Father’s Day results are continuing, with indie retailers across the country recording that dads were being celebrated at the weekend.
Following on from the support for the last of the spring seasons events in PG Buzz earlier this week, it’s clear the dogfathers are very popular, and the Euros kick-off, with England’s first group match also on Sunday, 16 June, helped bring sales slightly earlier.
“We were very busy on Thursday, Friday and Saturday,” Jo Sorrell explained at Cardies in Stevenage. “I think people were trying to be a little less last minute because of the football.
“For us one of the most popular captions is Father’s Day from the dog – it generally means that many of our customers are buying at least two Father’s Day cards, which is a bone-us!”
Known for her Ponks team of rescue Labrador meeters and greeters, Jo laughed: “We also had Father’s Day from the cat but they were not as popular, but we always like to be fair and stock both.
“Many people prefer the simple cation of just Happy Father’s Day so that they can use it for anyone who is a father figure but not necessarily their dad, it covers all.
“Our FD sales were slightly up on last year, because we can put the cards out for a fairly long lead up the sales are steady and then we always have the last-minute rush.”
Up in Scotland, the national team had kicked off the Euros, playing hosts Germany on Friday, so there wasn’t as much impact from the football.
At her two stores in Elgin, Pencil Me In and Seasgair, Sarah Holmes was very pleased with results, especially as the gift store has only been going just over a year, and she’d been advertising the event on social media as can be seen in the reel here.
“I haven’t crunched any numbers,” she told PG Buzz, “but we had strong weeks at both shops for card and gift sales. The last two weeks at Seasgair have been very, very good.
“We were a brand-new store for Father’s Day last year so were trying to push that we were there. This year people have come back to use Seasgair as a gift store.
“With Pencil Me In we moved where we had our Father’s Day display so it was more in their face because it’s not as big and we wondered if people couldn’t see it. We’ve had not as many people asking if we had Father’s Day cards so it seems to have worked.
“We also put Father’s Day out much earlier – we have an M&S foodhall here and they put theirs out really early so we went with that. We didn’t see many more early sales but it think it reminded people to come back. It’s been good. Now we’re straight into teachers’ gifts because the schools break up earlier here, so June is always very busy, straight from one thing to another.”
Sean Austin was another who went with an early start to Father’s Day, at Austin & Co in Malvern, and the shop’s strapline of Cards, Stationery, Dog, shows his priorities with plenty of social media reminders beforehand about it being Dogfather’s Day too.
“Cards were definitely up, Sean said, “helped by going out with FD products six weeks before the day. In turn, cards drove up gifting sales and sales of everyday cards. I’m a happy bunny – the trick now is to carry momentum over the next three months before Christmas goes out!”
At MiMi in Hartley Wintney and Wokingham, owner Julianne Moore commented: “Our Father’s Day stats were really positive. Card sales were up 15% and gift sales were up 20%.
“The bestsellers were socks and all cards sold out by 12 on the day! We also put our Father’s Day area out earlier by two weeks, this year which helped with card sales, and blogged earlier on socials.”
Over near Swindon, Highworth Emporium co-owner Aga Marsden saw a 16% increase in overall trade for the event: “We had very strong Father’s Day trade, though cards were slightly down. General gifts did very well for us plus personalised balloons and chocolates from House Of Sarunds.
“Cards, as always from the dog, from daughter, from son sold out in no time and there’s no doubt humour is the bestselling category when it comes to dads.
“The daddy caption was much stronger and sold better than previous years, which is interesting. Overall, we are very happy!”
