Franchisee: Alun Mort
Territory: South West Wales
Franchise: Card Connection

This year Alun Mort celebrates his 20th year anniversary as Card Connection franchisee for South West Wales. Alun’s territory covers Swansea, Neath, Port Talbot, Carmarthen, Fishguard and Cardigan Bay. Alun, supplies more than 200 retailers with Card Connection’s extensive range of top quality greeting cards and accessories and in the past year has grown his business by 7%.

Tell us about your franchise:

“It’s a fair sized territory,” confirms Alun, who originates from The Rhondda Valley and who ran a petrol forecourt before joining Card Connection in 1995. “Therefore, I work with another merchandiser and also have three part time staff to help pick and pack the greetings cards ready for the next day’s deliveries.”

Card Connection franchisees supply greeting cards and accessories in retail outlets on a ‘consignment’ basis, also supplying the display equipment free on loan, minimising the retailers’ costs and maximising retailers’ profits. This is one step beyond ‘sale or return’ as retail customers don’t have to buy the stock initially; they only pay for what they sell. Card Connection’s award winning merchandising service provided to retailers has proved popular all over the UK and Ireland.

What is a typical day for you as a franchisee?

“We tend to start early and finish early missing the traffic,” continues Alun. “This can be worse in the height of the tourist season so route planning is all important! I encourage my merchandiser to be on the road before 7am and on the way back before 2pm. From my point of view, keeping these kinds of hours does mean I have plenty of time to go for a run after work. My van doubles as a mobile ‘changing room’ so wherever I finish I can park up, put on my trainers and just head out into the Welsh hills! In this way, I love the flexibility the franchise offers.

Is franchising in Wales different to launching elsewhere?

“Franchising in Wales is really very similar to any other location in the UK,” confirms Alun. “One difference however, is that we do provide some Welsh cards which are popular in the villages and also with tourists who like to send them as postcards! Card Connection is always looking for new design ideas and my ‘claim to fame’ is the production of one card depicting yours truly trying my hand at rock climbing, pictured half way up a rock face. However, most of the cards we sell are birthday designs which generally have a more broad appeal!”

A different perspective

Fellow Card Connection franchisee Kevin Fry runs the more urban territory surrounding Cardiff. In addition, Kevin covers Barry Island, Porthcawl and Trowbridge delivering and merchandising Card Connections’ greetings cards and accessories to around 170 retail stores in the region. Previously, Kevin ran a newsagent for 35 years.

“The Card Connection franchise is certainly easier than running the newsagents!” confirms Kevin. “A shop is a seven day per week job and after a while that becomes pretty tiring. I found out about Card Connection through word of mouth. I was just chatting to someone and they mentioned they knew of a franchise for sale so I decided to take a look. That was 11 years ago and I haven’t looked back!

“My area is more compact than Alun’s,” explains Kevin. “The territory is near the docks and the cities and towns have a diverse cultural base like many other places in the UK. We also sell Welsh cards but these are mainly in the rural Welsh speaking areas. These cards do demonstrate the breadth of the range we can offer though and have often ‘opened the door’ for business for me. When I talk to a new retailer I use them as examples of the extensive range we can provide and often they want to learn more about how we work.”

About Card Connection

Card Connection is one of the UK’s largest card publishers and is the market leader in the franchised distribution of greeting cards. The business’ unique model of consignment sales has resulted in a strong brand and established reputation which has been proven over many years. Through its franchisees Card Connection supplies about 12,000 retailers throughout the UK.