trade season – SABIVO Design's Blog

Wednesday, February 3, 2016Friday, September 29, 2017

Are you ready for Spring?

Spring Fair is just around the corner and we will be launching 60 new designs at the weekend. It is the biggest trade show in the UK and hosts 300000 products from 3000 exhibitors and 64000 visitors attend it every Spring. It is where the planning for the year ahead happens.

We will be showcasing never seen before designs from three different ranges. First one is our new range Cockatoo, which we have been delighted to have been featured in Progressive Greetings. page 119. We are tapping on the tropical trend and it features parrots, flamingos, cocktails and tropical flowers and has true summer feel. The first 20 designs are across everyday and popular occasion captions. All designs are hand-illustrated and hand-finished with cup flower jewels and polka dot bows. We proudly design and hand-finish our cards here in England. The cards are 145 mm square and wrapped in rib craft envelopes and cello bags.

Then, we have our glamorous and chic range Bijoux. The monochrome line work features hand-illustrated elegant designs of fashion shoes, posh teacups, champagne flutes. The artwork is accentuated with gold paint and hand-finished with colourful cup flower jewels and organza bows. The 20 designs are across everyday and popular occasion captions. All cards are competitively priced to delight your customers. The cards are 145 mm square and individually wrapped in gold envelopes and cello bags.

And at last, we have expanded our popular Garden range with 20 new everyday and occasion captions, featuring chicken, sheep, birds and abundance of colourful garden blooms. All designs are hand-illustrated and hand-finished with cup flower jewels and polka dot bows. The cards are 145 mm square, wrapped in rib craft envelopes and cello bags.

We have undergone the mighty task to totally revamp our product shots and the catalogue. As such, more that 250+ designs have been re-shot and re-touched and we are really pleased with the result. You can download the ranges when you click here and if you require trade prices or paper catalogues and a sample, please get in touch.

We would also like to invite you to visit us at Spring Fair so you can see the cards in the flesh and there would be all best-sellers too. So, if you are at the show come and see us on stand 3W18. If anything, we will have chocolate to top up your sugar levels and keep you going those long miles at the NEC.

We look forward meeting you and doing business with you.

Best wishes

Tuesday, October 27, 2015Saturday, October 31, 2015

A Card For Mum, A Card For Easter

We know is really early and Christmas hasn’t really passed but us, suppliers work in a parallel universe and now is the time when we generally release our Spring Season cards for 2016.

We have now expanded our Spring season range Bloom and added 24 new designs across Valentine’s, Mother’s day, Easter and Father’s day.

The first ones we are sharing are our handmade greeting cards for Mum and Easter.

For Mum, we have abundance of gorgeous flowers, quirky birds, delightful tea, cakes and bunting, all in lovely fresh pastel colours.

We are delighted that our range had lovely mentions in two of the trade magazines: in September issue of Greetings Today (read here) and in October’s issue of Progressive Greetings (read here).

For Easter, we have more pretty flowers, birds and chocolate eggs, but also the typical symbols like Easter cross, covered in spring blooms and a church.

Our contemporary cards are designed and printed on hammered board, here in England. We have combined hand-lettering with delightful illustrations and pops of neon pink colour.

All cards are hand-finished with polka dot cotton bows and cup flower jewels, which we are sure will be true delight for the recipient. The cards are 145 mm square and wrapped in complementary envelopes.

Hope there is something in the shop for you this Mother’s Day and Easter.

In the next post we will share our trendy Dad and Valentine’s greeting cards.

Best wishes,

Friday, February 13, 2015Friday, February 13, 2015

Have You Seen Our Hot New Ranges For Spring 2015?

We have just come back from Spring Fair and here are the three new ranges we launched at the show as well as the ‘wild card’ range we added literally in the last minute. All ranges were launched exclusively at the trade show, so here is more about them.

First up is ‘Garden’. The range has 12 designs to cover the celebrated birthday milestones, including 65, 75 and 85 birthdays. We have used soft pastel palette with graphic accents. Every card is hand-finished with pastel cup flowers, cotton polka dot bows and hand-glittered with golden spots. The range was really popular with garden centres and independent shops and we are very pleased with the reaction.

We also had a nod on the craft trend. ‘Gift Wrap’ is fresh modern range inspired by gift wrapping and fusing contemporary illustration with crafts. There are 6 female and 6 male open birthday designs. Our cards are printed in the UK and hand-finished with jewels and a craft/twine bow. This range was popular with quirky independent boutiques.

Our final planned range is ‘Mon Chérie’. It is French inspired range with 40 designs across everyday and milestone Birthdays and special occasions like Engagement, Wedding, Anniversary and Babies. Our cards are printed in the UK and hand-finished with polka dot cotton bows, pastel cup flower jewels and hand-glittered spots.

This is our first large range, which we launched without any preliminary test of the ground so to speak. We had such an excellent reaction from department stores and independents with elegant and feminine gift and product offerings that we are really pleased the gamble has paid off. The cards may soon fly far away as well but we shall keep you posted.

Last but not least is ‘XO’ range. This fresh, modern range is inspired by current social and design trends. It fuses simple typography of handwritten messages with ornaments and drawings, which are really hot at the moment. It has contemporary feel where graphic captions are enhanced by pop of neon red colour. There are 12 designs, from birthday to occasions and as usual the cards are printed in the UK.

Personally, this is my favourite range and I called it my ‘wild card’ as I happen to come up with it just 2 weeks before the show. The reaction on this range was amazing and I can’t wait to share where it is going. It has been so successful that as soon as we manage to ship all orders I am back on the drawing board as there is a queue for further designs. The only problem with this range is that neon does not photograph well. My homework now is to find a way to show it better in the catalogue and if any of you lovely readers know a trick or to about neons, please share. I shall be most obliged for your help!

So, this is the range showcase we had at the current trade show and the reaction we got on them. I am very excited about their future. Don’t forget that all our ranges are available directly from us and you can view the entire collection on the trade side of the SABIVO Design website.

Happy browsing and ordering!

Best wishes,

Friday, January 23, 2015Friday, September 29, 2017

Trade Show Season Is Open – Where Will You Go?

Trade show season is now pen and with so many tightly squeezed in two months there is so much to think about, whether you are an artist or a retailer. So, I decided to do a little round up of the most important ones in the UK and some abroad.

Everybody from the supplier side of retail knows that Christmas is the golden time for retailers (sometimes accounting up to 20% of their business) and January and February is the Christmas time for suppliers. In the greeting card and gift industry the Spring Season is when everybody shows up their sleeves their most exciting everyday designs, i.e. the products they are going to sell throughout the year. In order the suppliers to meet the retailers, ‘trade only’ shows come into place. They would normally be attended by buyers from department stores, multiples, mail-order, online, tourist attractions and independent retail outlets.

First up is Giving and Living, down in Exeter where 500 companies display their products to around 7000 trade buyers. The show has strong coastal and tourist feel and this year it runs 11-14 January 2015.

Next one is Top Drawer, which sees over 800 leaders in UK and international design, who are all pre-selected for only the best suppliers, the ones combining great design with commercial acumen. As it is located in London, it attracts strong following of trendy, design-led retailers and upmarket galleries and luxury multiples. This year it runs 11-13 January 2015. You have now guessed right that as an exhibitor or visitor, unless you have several employees, you can’t possibly exhibit at both shows mentioned above.

We launched our publishing business at Top Drawer in 2013 and it is said that you never forget the first of everything. It is certainly true, we had an absolutely amazing show! This was our stand when we just finished setting it up.

Wales is also running its own Welsh Trade Gift Fair (Llandudno) from 18-21 January 2015 but at time of writing there are ~40 exhibitors, so my best guess is that it is suitable for the welsh market only and not a massive one.

The Scottish Gift Trade Fair is in Glasgow and this year it runs 18-20 January 2015 and is heavily influenced by all things Scottish, as you can imagine. Over 500 companies exhibit thousands of products across 3 areas, so if you love to design and make puffins, tartans, shortbread etc. around 5000 trade buyers will hopefully see them.

Undoubtedly the biggest trade show in the UK is Spring Fair, at the NEC in Birmingham and it’ll be in a couple of days running 01-05 February 2015 (the image at the top of the post is our first exhibition at Spring Fair in 2014). It is massive as 3000 exhibitors would be there and the show normally attracts 70,000 retailers (from the UK and abroad), so if you have missed the other shows, this one is definitely not to be missed. The show is famous for having anybody and everybody as there is no pre-selection criteria, which makes it very easy to enter the exhibition arena. We will be returning again and if you are reading this post and planning a visit, we would love you to pencil stand 4J05. Until then, this is our show profile and we hope you like what you see.

If you would like to venture across the pond good ones are NYNow in New York, Mason & Objet in Paris and Paperworld in Frankfurt.

Hope this post was helpful for your planning and in the next one I will round up the new ranges we are showing at Spring Fair.

Best wishes,