Leading greeting card publisher and franchisor, Card Connection, has announced several new additions to its range of party accessories.

Flashing ‘It’s My Birthday’ badges, drinking straws, Happy Birthday confetti, and a new Party loot bags, have been added to the existing offering of birthday candles, banners, streamers and balloons.  The party range complements Card Connection’s extensive selection of greeting cards to make any occasion special.  The updated Party Packs are distributed by Card Connection’s network of franchisees across the UK and are available now in stores including: Spar, Nisa, Costcutter, Londis, Total and Shell.

“We are always looking for new and exciting new designs to complement the greeting cards delivered by our franchisee network,” confirms Michael Johnson, Managing Director, Card Connection.  “For next year, we have some ambitious targets to increase the market distribution of our party packs to at least 25% of our customer base.  This means our franchisees will have the chance to optimise their revenue from individual retail accounts.”  

David Rabaiotti Card Connection franchisee for Bath has been dubbed the ‘Party King’ as he has already introduced the party range to 70% of his retail customer outlets.  He explains: “I use clips strips which attach to displays in as many stores as possible.  They look great, adding to the theatre and quality of the display and because the party packs complement our greeting cards they encourage impulse purchasing behaviour, which means more sales.”

“We have already seen strong initial interest from our retail customers and we anticipate excellent sales of this innovative product line,” continues Johnson.  “As the Party designs are delivered at the same time as our greeting cards, both retailers and our franchisees will benefit from this an additional revenue stream.”

The Party range is displayed on its own specially designed boards or on clip strips and looks professional and appealing for consumers.  Like Card Connection’s range of around 1,500 greetings cards, the new products are available to retailers through Card Connection’s franchisees on a consignment basis.  This means the stock and display equipment is installed on free loan to the retailer by Card Connection franchisees and retailers only pay for what they sell.

Card Connection is part of UK Greetings, which is a subsidiary of the largest publicly owned greeting card publisher in the world and has limited vacancies for franchisees that are keen to run an expanding business.  Suitable candidates would ideally have some management experience as, once established, and depending on the size of the territory, they could be expected to employ a small team, operate a small warehouse and have several liveried vans on the road.  

Since the franchise network in the UK is complete, the available opportunities now consist of acquiring an already-established territory from an existing franchisee. These vary in price according to their level of development, but start at £20k (+stock) with earnings potential in excess of £50k per annum.