Dear friends and colleagues,
The speed at which the coronavirus outbreak has escalated has taken us all by surprise, with, for now, everyone having to adapt to a new way of life. Never has it felt more important to feel connected and part of a community, with the gift industry wasting no time in stepping up the challenge. Already, suppliers are doing everything they can to support retailers, to include discounts and minimum order reductions, with gift retailers, in turn, supporting their customers in any way they can, such as free deliveries and more for those in self isolation.
At Progressive Gifts & Home magazine and GiftsandHome.net it’s very much business as usual, where we will be doing everything we possibly can to keep you up-to-date by bringing you the very latest, breaking news stories on how the industry at large – retailers, suppliers, reps and agents – are pulling together, so we want to hear from you! For example, if you’re a company that’s working from home, tell us how you’re keeping staff morale up, or if you’re a retailer, let us know how you’re staying engaged with your customers and what are you doing for the wider community.
Progressive Gifts & Home and GiftsandHome.net are both fantastic resources for sharing information and celebrating success. Now, more than ever, this remains vital.
Retail buyers as always, will be relying on us to keep them up to date with trends, products, analysis and insights. Suppliers too, rely on us, and indeed other media outlets, to deliver this for them. This will absolutely not change. In fact, across our wide range of print titles, we have seen a spike in subscription requests and an increase in open rates across our digital news websites in the last week. Out of bad does indeed come some good, and we hope for a lot more of it.
Our message to you is simply this: we’re here, we’re here to stay, and we are here for you. We all hope that this is a short-term problem and while it will, of course, affect us all to some degree, by continuing to work together, sharing information, planning ahead and being present, we can limit the degree to which we are all affected.
It is crucial that we continue to support each other. We can confirm that there will be no interruption to our print and digital offerings – retailers will still receive our magazines and read our digital news. We really do look forward to seeing you soon whether that’s at the summer trade shows, or at The Greats Gift Awards on September 30. The show(s) will go on and we can’t wait to catch up with you all again.
As a company we are working to highlight your messages. Our marketing team has increased activity to ensure the best possible spread of magazine readership and digital news following, as well as making the most of our social media channels. This pool of readers across our group is 87,743. Send us your news, send us your views, call for a chat. We are here. We will help.
Meanwhile, Max Publishing extends its heartfelt, very best wishes to all those who are affected either directly or indirectly by covid-19. We remain focused on ‘the other side’ and have high hopes for a return of consumer confidence and a renewed affection and appreciation for the high street.
It is, of course, a very unsettling time for everyone, but we feel confident that we can get through this together.
Stay safe and stay well.
Sue Marks, Angie Bryant and the rest of the PG&H Team
Editorial: Sue Marks e: sue@suemarks.co.uk
Advertising: Angie Bryant e: angieb@max-publishing.co.uk
