Leading greeting card publisher and franchisor, Card Connection has announced franchisee Ian Scarbro has grown his business by 9.5% within his first year of trading. Ian took over the franchise from Eric Knight, father of his partner Suzanne, last autumn when Eric retired after 12 years with Card Connection.

Franchise manager Penny Ellis explains: “Ian actually worked with Eric for five years before he retired and so knew the Card Connection franchise really well. It enabled him to hit the ground running and capitalise on the existing relationships he had already fostered with retail managers within his territory of Worthing and Portsmouth. Now he is in-charge, Ian’s experience plus a dynamic injection of enthusiasm has really helped him focus, invest in and grow the franchise.”

“Now I’m able to implement long term plans, I’ve made investments in new fixtures within my retail customers’ stores to help improve greetings card displays,” confirms Ian Scarbro. “This approach results in more sales and combined with careful analysis of performance, means I have met the targets I wanted to in order to grow the franchise.

“I have been quick to adopt Card Connection’s new iPad application too which helps as everything is accessible online,” continues Ian. “There was a big investment from Card Connection in its development and it really means information is at your fingertips. As soon as I leave a store it means I can record the sales in a live system so it’s easy to compare with previous figures and see what’s working and where improvements can be made.

“Although my partner Suzanne has a full-time job, she’s been instrumental in helping with the back office admin in her spare time, to keep things up-to-date,” continues Ian. “We are both really motivated to succeed and so we make a great team! We are both very much looking forward to working with our retailers to continue to improve their sales of greetings cards, as when they make money so do we!”

Card Connection is part of UK Greetings, which is a subsidiary of American Greetings Inc., one of the largest greeting card publishers in the world and has limited vacancies for franchisees that are keen to run an expanding business. 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 £12,500 + Stock + Card Connection fee with earnings potential in excess of £50k per annum.

Territories currently available include: Fife, Edinburgh/Scottish Borders, Stirling, Brighton, Reading, Plymouth, Bath, Northampton, Liverpool, Macclesfield, South West Region Ireland.

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