Riverside Greetings invests in re-launch to grow opportunity in convenience

Riverside Greetings, one of the challenger brands in the greeting card sector, has announced making significant investments in its business including a re-launch of its brand.

The Yorkshire-based business has unveiled a series of initiatives designed to accelerate the growth of the greetings category in the convenience sector. These include new marketing activities designed to demonstrate to convenience retailers how important and profitable the greetings category can be.

The new branding uses a less formal font and a raspberry pink background which communicates friendliness, care and approachability. The new brand is “front and centre” on point of sale, a brand-new fleet of company vehicles, new workwear, new stationery and a new website which has launched this week.

“Over the last year we’ve delivered a number of ground-breaking initiatives which have made us leaner, quicker, more flexible, better informed and able to add significant value for convenience retailers. We’re using those attributes to drive our customer’s businesses forward,” said Andrew Glen, Riverside’s managing director.

“The re-launch enables us to market the value which we add for our customers in a more effective way and differentiate ourselves from the traditional offerings. Our unique category management approach is delivering spectacular results in the stores we take over, in some cases we’ve seen growth of over 200 per cent and we are driving significant like for like growth for existing customers.

Glen said an on-going research programme which operates in stores has been the key to the success.

“The insights which this programme generates in terms of design performance and category management are incredibly powerful. We have the knowledge to make relatively small displays, generate significant sales and profits and we’re sharing that knowledge with an ever-growing number of retailers,” he said.

“Our brand re-launch is the start of a new phase in the growth of our business and the businesses of the retailers we work with. It represents a significant investment on our part and is a demonstration of our confidence in the category, the convenience sector and our own ability to add value for our customers and their shoppers.”

Riverside Greetings specialises in providing category solutions for the growing convenience and forecourt trade sectors. The business covers the whole of the UK and works with independent retailers as well as all the national and regional symbol groups.

Riverside said they supply the stock on consignment meaning that retailers only pay for what they sell and the category in managed by Riverside’s team of experts who visit sites to merchandise and replenish displays.