Leading greeting card publisher and franchisor, Card Connection, has today announced it has appointed Penny Gelman as its new Business Development Manager for East Anglia, East Midlands and the South East.

Leading greeting card publisher and franchisor, Card Connection, has today announced it has appointed Penny Gelman as its new Business Development Manager for East Anglia, East Midlands and the South East. Penny worked for South African Greetings, for eight years prior to her move back to the UK 18 months ago. Penny’s role will now be to support Card Connection’s 18 franchisees within her region and help them develop and grow their individual franchise businesses.

“I am delighted to be joining the Card Connection team who have a genuine interest in how well franchisees continue to perform at the grass roots level,” confirms Penny Gelman, business development manager, Card Connection. “As an area manager responsible for helping South African Greetings’ franchisees on the retail outlet side, I will be using my experience to support and assist Card Connection’s franchisees as they supply the retail trade, in every aspect of their operations.

“I will spend much of my time on the road nurturing a supportive and proactive environment for the franchisees,” she continues. “I will be looking at how time and cost saving can be improved and encouraging the adoption of best practice throughout the network. In addition, I will work with national account area retail managers to ensure Card Connection is top of mind as the preferred supplier of greeting cards.”

Card Connection’s franchisees use a proven system to place quality greeting cards and gifts in retail outlets on a ‘consignment’ basis. This means the stock and display equipment are installed on free loan to the retailer. This is one step beyond ‘sale or return’ as Card Connection customers never have to buy the stock initially, only paying for what they sell. Card Connection’s award winning merchandising service provided to retailers by local franchisees has proved popular with retailers all over the UK and Ireland including Card Connection’s key national accounts such as Budgens, Londis, Spar, Costcutter, Nisa and Shell.

Card Connection is part of UK Greetings, which is a subsidiary of the largest publicly owned greeting card publisher in the world and has limited vacancies for franchisees that are keen to run an expanding business. Suitable candidates would ideally have some management experience as, once established, and depending on the size of the territory, they could be expected to employ a small team, operate a small warehouse and have several liveried vans on the road.

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 £7k + Stock + Card Connection fee with earnings potential in excess of £50k per annum.