I’ve been a greeting card buyer for my shop More Than Just A Gift at Narborough Hall for almost 30 years. I started out aged just 16 when my parents opened an art gallery-cum-antiques shop and decided to sell a few gifts and cards alongside it.
I loved the shop from the very beginning. I still remember unpacking our very first delivery of products and putting everything out on the shelves ready to open. Soon though I left home to study archaeology at university. I didn’t forget about the shop though. My parents still have one of the very first letters I sent home. I start off by saying I hoped they were keeping the shop tidy in my absence and remembering to restock straight away! I kept on helping out in the shop during the holidays (and kept on bossing my parents around) but at this point I had absolutely no plans for going into retail as a career.
Despite it not being in my plans at all it turned out that after graduating from university I was irresistibly drawn back to the shop. I started by mixing things up. Changing the focus from art/antiques to just cards and gifts turned out to be a great decision and the business really began to take off. Along with my creative and talented husband Simon, who I’d met on the first day at university, we’ve been successfully running More Than Just A Gift at Narborough Hall ever since.
Even long before the shop existed, I’ve always loved cards. When we were teenagers my sister had pop star posters on her bedroom wall, I had a collage of greetings cards! I’ve always treasured my favourite cards. Each one brings back a memory of a particular time and a special person. I still have every card my sister has sent me since my 8th birthday.
So being a greeting card buyer and retailer was my dream job. I still find nothing more satisfying than putting together the perfect card collection to not only look beautiful on the shelves but also fulfil all of my customers needs. We are privileged in this country that we have a world-leading and innovative greeting card industry led by the most creative and talented designers. I count myself very lucky to have been able to support their work for so long and I look forward to continuing that for many more years to come. So, although I’ve always loved cards, I never dreamed that I could design anything that could come close to what was already on offer so continued to dismiss any ideas of my own.
Last year though, I supported our son Oscar, in his GCSE art. I’d had no art education myself since I completed my own art GCSE back in the day so it had been quite a while! But, he was studying different artists’ work and it was all over the house. We visited galleries and exhibitions together. Suddenly I felt inspired. I started to play around with his art materials myself and then we both learnt how to make digital art using Procreate by watching videos and through trial and error. This was a game changer as I understood the possibilities of digital now but I still hadn’t thought of designing my own cards just yet.
That moment came when I started the buying for 2023 spring seasons. It was weird, there were far fewer valentines cards to choose from than I’d ever experienced in all my years as a buyer. I ordered what I could from my current suppliers and then started casting around for other options but couldn’t quite find what I wanted. I began to get ideas of my own and this time, I didn’t just dismiss them!
I knew absolutely nothing about the practical side of designing and printing greetings cards, but I set out on it anyway. I’ve had to learn to use additional design software, again just using online videos and lots of trial and error. Luckily I can be pretty determined and single minded when I need to be. I put the hours in and eventually cracked it.
As soon as I got going with designing, I found that I just couldn’t stop! Idea after idea kept popping into my head. My family said that I was obsessed, I prefer to call it passionate. By late autumn I had my first cards printed and put them out on the shelves. I held my breath in suspense and waited.
I couldn’t believe it when I sold one in the first few moments, not long after I sold another! And sales kept on coming. Customers really did like them and I’d hardly even got started yet. I began experimenting and expanding my offering. Obviously I couldn’t possibly do all the artwork by myself in the volume and timescale that I needed so I collaborated with some other artists. They create individual elements which I work up into fully designed cards. Despite this it was still incredibly time-consuming but it was amazing to have immediate feedback from customers as to what worked best. Although it was our busiest time of year in the shop, I kept on designing and testing more cards. I even managed a couple of Christmas ranges in December. They were really well received too.
Up until that point I’d only envisaged selling the cards in my own shop but given the customer response, it seemed selfish to keep them to myself! So I started to build a trade website for my cards. Looking back, I have no idea how I found the time. I do know I had a lot of support from Simon (my husband and partner in the business) our daughter Dulcie (who works with us too) as well as the rest of our wonderful team in the shop.
2023 arrived and so did my Valentine cards. I was absolutely blown away by the response to these. Not only were my customers loving them but I was starting to get some trade orders in too. It was scary and so exciting! When I analysed our Valentine sales data from the shop, it turned out that our top two bestsellers were both my designs. Altogether in the top 15, my cards occupied 8 positions. I still can’t believe how well they all went.
Luckily, I’d got lots of Mother’s Day designs lined up ready and they performed incredibly well too. This time, competition was tougher as there were so many beautiful designs from other publishers. Even so, many of my cards sold out well before those others so that’s built my confidence too.
Alongside this I experimented by having my card designs put onto other products to create a coordinated Mother’s Day gifting range. These were also a great success. In fact one of the fragranced candles was our best selling line of that period overall (and we had hundreds of alternative gifting options to compete with). Although I’m not ready to launch these to trade just yet as currently the costs are too high to give me a wholesale margin, I’ll certainly hope to work on that for the future.
Right now my plan is to concentrate on my first love, greetings cards. As an experienced buyer I think I’m better placed than most to understand what a buyer wants and needs from a publisher. It’s my aim to be a complete one stop shop for design led greetings cards. I understand that customers come to our shops to buy cards for all sorts of people. They really value having options to perfectly suit the person they have in mind at that moment. So that’s why I’m working to design cards to suit all sorts of customers, for all sorts of occasions and for all sorts of shops. Luckily, I’ve always got all sorts of ideas just bursting to get out!
I so enjoy the process of designing cards I think I’d probably carry on with it even if they didn’t sell, just for fun. But, customers have demonstrated, they do sell, and that is very motivating indeed. I can’t wait to show them to a wider audience at my very first trade show PG Live. I do still have a bit of imposter syndrome. When I think of my cards being in the same exhibition as so many amazing designers, I’m tempted to hide mine away, but I’m going to go for it anyway. After all these years in my dream job as a greeting card buyer, I’m enjoying my other dream job of greeting card designer alongside it. I hope I can carry on with both for years to come!