12 Hobbycraft achieves robust Christmas results Hobbycraft, owned by Modella Capital, reports strong performance, with sales of its Christmas products up +21.6 percent. Top sellers included Ceramic Baubles, Wooden DIY Advents, Colour-in Cardboard Houses, Artificial Garlands, Dried Floral Wreaths and Velvet Ribbon, reflecting continued demand for DIY festive décor, handmade gifts and kids’ activities. Total revenue over the past six weeks grew by +6.3 percent, with e-commerce up by +13.8 percent, highlighting the ongoing importance of Hobbycraft’s digital platforms in inspiring creativity across the UK. The festive season saw strong growth for Hobbies and Collectables, with sales for this category increasing by +52.6 percent. Model Making Kits led the way in this space, with sales increasing by +61.1 percent, demonstrating a new generation of modellers and a hobby brought further into the mainstream spotlight by actor Danny Dyer, who has spoken openly about his love of model-making. From 3D model tanks, cars, motorbikes, ships and soldiers; best-selling brands include Transformers, Airfix, Gunpla, Warhammer and Revell. Popular collectable character figures come from franchises such as Star Wars, Marvel and Dragon Ball. Other popular hobbies during this period included knitting and crochet, boosted by the ‘Tom Daley Effect’, which first gained traction when Daley was spotted knitting in the Olympic stands in 2020. Since then, he has helped challenge the traditional image of needlework, making it feel cool, inclusive and accessible to a younger, more diverse audience, including men. Building on this momentum, and ahead of his appearance on The Traitors and the launch of his TV show Game of Wool: Britain’s Best Knitter in November, Daley introduced Made with Love by Tom Daley: beginner-friendly crochet and embroidery kits sold exclusively at Hobbycraft. Designed to inspire newcomers to pick up needlework, sales of the kits rose by +32 percent, making them a popular seasonal gift choice for budding craft enthusiasts. The seasonal surge was further fuelled by DIY gifting and festive downtime. In the six weeks leading up to Christmas, the retailer sold more than half a million balls of wool, while sales of knitting accessories and knitting yarn increased by +11 percent and +12.8 percent, respectively. Sewing continued to rise in popularity among consumers in the lead-up to Christmas, boosted by shows such as The Great British Sewing Bee, which attracted 4.5 million viewers for the final. For hobbyists, sewing machines proved to be the perfect Christmas gift: the 12S Beginner Sewing Machine saw sales increase by +72 percent, while the 19S Sewing Machine and Sewing Kit Bundle surged by +155 percent. Meanwhile, the Haberdashery category grew by +14.4 percent, including small sewing items such as buttons, ribbons and fabric, which were used to create personalised festive decorations and gifts. This year, Hobbycraft saw growing demand for handmade gifts and DIY seasonal decorations, driven in part by viral social media trends such as the ‘velvet ribbon chain garland’ craze on TikTok which propelled ribbon to the top of shoppers’ decorating wish lists, with sales of Hobbycraft’s velvet ribbon increasing by +206 percent. The handmade trend has also been influenced by festive crafting content on national TV, such as Kirstie’s Handmade Christmas inspiring viewers to get creative at home from personalised gifts to decorative wreaths. Sales of the plain artificial fir Christmas wreath rose by +65 percent as more customers opted to create their own. DIY Framing proved popular for thoughtful DIY gifts, with sales of this category up +11 percent. This craft involves customising blank frames using paint, embellishments and meaningful keepsakes, offering shoppers a way to give truly original presents. Workshops were a particularly popular seasonal activity, with Traditional Wreath Making the most popular option. Kids’ festive workshops were up by +38 percent - examples included ceramic ornament making and advent calendar crafting. All sessions gave customers the opportunity to craft in-store or online with expert guidance. Separately, sales of Hobbycraft’s Christmas gift card grew by +37 percent, showcasing that people were giving the gift of craft. Ancient Wisdom launches new dropshipping website Ancient Wisdom has been supporting retailers with dropshipping since 2009, long before it became the mainstream business model it is today. This year marks a major step forward: a new dropshipping website built from the ground up with modern integrations, faster navigation, and a far more intuitive setup for busy retailers. Retailers can now connect Shopify, WooCommerce, and eBay directly to the new platform, making product syncing and order automation effortless. More integrations are already in development, giving sellers even more flexibility over where and how they trade. The updated site brings the full AW Dropship catalogue into a cleaner and stronger digital space. Users get transparent stock visibility, improved search and filtering, and the ability to instantly import product descriptions and imagery. Customer orders flow straight to the AW UK warehouse team, who pick, pack, and dispatch letting retailers expand their offering without holding a single box of inventory. The new platform also introduces a broader selection of dropship-friendly ranges, including curated gift sets, trenddriven collections, home fragrance, crystals, and handmade artisan goods sourced from India, Indonesia, and beyond. With better tools, better data, and smoother automation, retailers can update their online shops in minutes rather than hours. For sellers looking to scale without the overheads, this launch signals a stronger, smarter way to work. Ancient Wisdom has taken 15+ years of dropshipping experience and turned it into a platform built for modern retail - faster, cleaner, and ready for whatever comes next. Visit: www.ancientwisdom.biz or www.aw-dropship.com
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