Single-vendor card programs proliferate - discount store greeting card sales

Discount Store News, Oct 4, 1993

When it comes to the greeting cards department, discount store managers report they have virtually no influence over merchandise assortment or display, responses in the 1993 Top Brands survey reveal.

The greeting cards department is the lone area of the store where only one vendor's program is available. As such, buying and display decisions are made at corporate headquarters with the supplying vendors and then rolled out chainwide or by region of the country. Store managers, apparently, have no input.

As a result, store managers failed to mention greeting cards when they were asked for an example of a department in which national brands have increased in the past year.

Overall, store managers reported an average of 1.1 top performing brands in greeting cards, compared to the store average of 2.5 top performers per department.

Despite the one-brand design of the greeting cards department, the 1.1 brand average does represent an incremental increase of one-tenth of 1% over last year's 1.0 brand per department, indicating that at least some discounters are experimenting with secondary card programs.

For example, Recycled Paper Products is on the Top Brands list because one in 10 Target managers named the card manufacturer a top performer. Target, like other mass merchandisers, offers greeting card departments furnished mostly by American Greetings or Ambassador, Hallmark's mass market division.

Overall, American Greetings remains the dominant player in the greeting cards business in the mass market with two-thirds of all manager responses. Ambassador, No. 2 with a quarter of the manager mentions, was strongest at Target and Wal-Mart, where the brand received four in 10 manager mentions, respectively.

Unlike any other discounter, Kmart's No. 2 greeting card brand is Sangamon. Although a distant No. 2, Sangamon does command a sizeable portion of Kmart's greeting card business and is responsible for the new look of the card department at the discounter's Auburn Hills, Mich., prototype. The department features an angled aisle display that incorporates cards, wraps and gifts in a contemporary setting located off of the front power aisle. [TABULAR DATA OMITTED]

Gibson, tied with Sangamon for the No. 3 spot, in the Top Brands list, was No. 2 among conventional discounters, other than Kmart and Wal-Mart, which include Jamesway, Ames, Jack's and Pamida, among others.