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Mother’s Day: The UK Card and Gift Shop Hotspots from GMAP’s RetailVision

24th March 2022

Will EG Group buy Health & Beauty Retailer Boots? We've explored this using RetailVision by GMAP's retail location data
LeisureVision Points is a competitively price dataset of over 250,000+ leisure locations across the UK. Points is a comprehensive dataset of locations across 4 product types including Food & Beverage (F&B), Entertainment, Competitive Socialising and Sport & Fitness. Each Point is also assigned to one of over 100+ categories. The attributes associated with each point are: Name, Brand, Location, Product & Category.
This Sunday not only marks the start of daylight savings, but also Mother’s Day in the UK!

From around the 16th century, on the fourth Sunday of Lent it became tradition to attend a church service in the nearest important church or cathedral, known as the ‘Mother’ church. Over time, Mothering Sunday became a celebration of the role of the mother. Children typically give a card and a gift to their mother’s, or even make them breakfast! After Christmas and Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day is the third most popular holiday to buy greeting cards for. 

We have used the RetailVision Points dataset in our MVPLUS software to explore where the hotspots for card and gift shops in the UK are. 

Card Shop Hotspots in the UK
In Figure 1 we have mapped where the hotspot for card shop brands in the UK are. Greater London is a key hotspot for the chain card shops, followed by other key UK cities including Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, and Glasgow. 

Retail revenue spend in UK retail centres by centre tyoe
Figure 1
Over 20% of the card shops fell in Small Secondary Trade Zones, with 15% falling in Large Tertiary Trade Zones and 15% in Medium Secondary Trade Zones. This suggests that card shops are not just located in the core central parts of UK cities, but in the more accessible Trade Zones close to where people live.

When looking at the RetailVision Retail Centres in which the card shop locations fell, over 50% were in Shopping Districts and 30% in Shopping Centres.

Card Factory has the highest number of stores in its UK portfolio, with over 1,000 stores. Clinton’s is the next largest brand, with under a third of the stores of Card Factory. Other key brands include Paperchase, Hallmark, Cardzone, and Scribbler. However, none of these brands come close to Card Factory in terms of number of stores.

Gift Shop Hotspots in the UK 
Figure 2 below shows the hotspots for gift shop brands in the UK. London stands out as the main hotspot for gift shops which are part of key chains. This is followed by Bath, Bristol, Cheltenham, Manchester, and Brighton. 

Retail revenue spend in UK retail centres by centre tyoe
Figure 2
Unsurprisingly, the retail environment that gift shops fell in were similar Trade Zone and Centre Types to the location of card shops, albeit slightly more London biased. Oliver Bonas is one of the top gift shop brands, which has around half their stores within the M25. 

Get In Touch
Don’t forget to go get a card, perhaps a gift, and to turn back those clocks! To find out more about the RetailVision store locations or how our MVPLUS system can be used for retail profiling or location analysis, please get in touch at info@gmap.com.
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