S Cuttlebutt
We’ve been firing on all sixes here this past month and, as we hurtle towards our ECMOD Direct Commerce Show dates, the excitement is building and everyone here has been literally swamped with show enquiries. We must thank everyone for the amazing
number of nominations we’ve received for the ECMOD Supplier Awards—a full 36 percent more than we processed last year with more than 53 percent of those making nominations voting in two or more categories. A lot of the nominations have come from regular Direct Commerce readers and we can safely say that there are going to be some very happy suppliers out there when the winners get announced on 30th November. If you’re not coming along to the Supplier Awards party at
Business Design Centre, then do take a look at the results on our website on 1st December and read all the news coming from the show in our Direct Commerce Buzz show updates. We plan on covering all of your news, so do come along and seek us out and share it with us. We’re also keen to hear how you think we’re
doing and to let us know if there are any areas you’d like to see us cover in 2012. Fittingly, this year’s show is focused on the sharing of success stories from some truly amazing businesses and the discussion will be on strategies that make the all-important difference. Some are having a tough time of it, while others are doing very well—so if we can get some of the “success magic” rubbing off on everyone we’ll have all done our job. If you haven’t already registered
News
to visit the show—do it now; it won’t cost you anything to come, meet your peers and see some of the great new solutions and services on offer. There are also some pretty amazing show offers—some of which you’ll have read about in our show pages and as we’ve always said ECMOD brings all we cover in our magazine and on our website to life. Miri and James really look forward to seeing you, as does the business development team, so let’s make a date. Register today at
www.ecmod360.co.uk and we’ll get the red carpet out to welcome you.
Tactics Views
S-cuttlebutt@catalog-biz.com September Catalogue Log
The last few months have seen catalogue volume seesaw. We noted the biggest percentage decline in 2011 to date in July, when volume fell 30 percent year-on-year. In contrast, the following month (August-on-August) experienced the biggest rise, up 43 percent on the previous year. Moving into September and another drop; we logged 165 catalogues in September 2011, compared with 185 last year, a decline of almost 11 percent. The decline is even more significant when you consider that two years ago we received 212 catalogues in September. Nevertheless, 165 catalogues in one
month is a record for 2011. Until now, the highest number was 140, received way back in March. September also broke the 2011 record for lowest number of covers touting special offers. That month, more than half of all the
catalogues we received featured no mention of a promotion on the cover. Of the catalogues that did include an offer, a sale or discount was once again the most popular, promoted on 65 covers (39.4 percent).
Six reasons every channel every angle ISSN 1362-2315 Issue 194 September 2011 Growth on the cards By Miri Thomas
Brits may be sending fewer letters, but when it comes to personalised gifts and cards, the market is growing apace. The online greetings-card sector is estimated to be worth £80 million, having doubled in size in the last 12 months. Although impressive, this represents a mere 5 percent of the overall greetings-card market, which has annual sales of some £1.6 billion.
Over the moon Where there’s growth, there soon follows the jostle
for market share through mergers, acquisitions and strategic partnerships. In July, online photo printing firm Photobox bought
Moonpig.com in a deal valuing the greetings-card business at £120 million. Following the acquisition, the companies will continue to operate as separate businesses but enjoy the benefits of a complementary customer base and increased scale. Photobox chief executive Stan Laurent becomes group president and chief executive, while Moonpig’s founder and executive chairman Nick Jenkins will serve as an adviser on the group’s board. For Laurent, the merger means huge growth
potential. With only 30 percent of the photo market and less than 5 percent of the greetings- card market online, Laurent has ambitions to become the global sector leader. “It’s still early days in this market, with lots of opportunity to grab market share,” he says. This is not the first merger for £72 million
Photobox, which joined forces with France- based Photoways in 2006. In turn, Moonpig is no stranger to international expansion, turning over £38 million selling cards, flowers, mugs and T-shirts in the UK, USA and Australia. Laurent says that for now, he is concentrating on integrating the two companies, but he does not rule out further acquisitions, even beyond the companies’ core product offering.
From bricks to clicks Traditional high-street retailers are also
News
pages 2-7 Zuneta merges with LoveLula, Lush avoids ICO fine, Derby House restructures, more
Tactics
pages 9-24 A focus on mobile commerce, an introduction to our Because Print Works campaign, and much more
recognising the opportunities the online greetings card and “personalised publishing” market offers. Card Factory, which has sales of £230 million and more than 570 UK stores, acquired personalised gifts etailer
GettingPersonal.co.uk from private- equity owner Isis in July. The deal, for an undisclosed sum, sees GettingPersonal become a wholly owned subsidiary of Card Factory. In the year to April 2011, GettingPersonal generated sales of £11.5 million—an increase of 22 percent on 2010. Hilary Large, GettingPersonal’s marketing
director, says the acquisition means the business now has “access to an enviable retail store network—600 by Christmas—and to a team of people who are great retailers. We can lead more customers to the
GettingPersonal.co.uk site because we can leverage the massive footfall that the average Card Factory store offers”. At Christmas, Large says the company will run a number of initiatives to offer Card Factory customers incentives to try out the personalised gifts from
GettingPersonal.co.uk, further driving awareness for the online business. Another development this summer was the
partnership between Flying Brands and Hephalump. com. Print-on-demand business Hephalump will provide the software, manufacturing and fulfilment for the new venture, allowing Flying Brands to broaden its product offer and enabling customers to purchase personalised cards via the Flying Flowers and Flowers Direct websites. In a reciprocal arrangement, Hephalump will start selling Flying Brands’ flower bouquets on its site. Flying Brands first entered the greetings-card market with the takeover of Greetings Direct in 2006, but shuttered the operation two years later. Photobox’s Laurent says we will see many more
of these deals—both from high-street brands tapping into the online market, and mergers in the online space. “I’m expecting more M&A activity in general—especially with a developing market where there’s a successful player,” he says. Competition, he adds, can only be a good thing—for consumers and businesses alike.
Sponsored by Views
pages 26-35 A review of the Born Gifted website and a Q&A with
Feelunique.com’s Aaron Chatterley
Free delivery was promoted on 18.8
percent of covers. Almost the same percentage as August, but appreciably less than in 2010, when almost a quarter of all catalogues promoted some sort of p&p offer on the cover. Continuing the record-breaking
theme, in September we received just 11 catalogues (6.7 percent) promising us a free gift with purchase, this is the lowest figure since December 2009. Here’s one final fact for this issue
of the Catalogue Log: we’ve received more catalogues in 2011 to date than we received at this point last year. For the first nine months of the year we logged
964 catalogues, compared with 952 catalogues received between January and September 2010.
Miri Thomas, editor
miri@catalog-biz.com
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