Craft Focus - Oct/Nov (Issue 63)

Tell us a bit about the company and how Personal Impressions started. Personal Impressions is part of the EM Richford Group, which was founded by Edwin Miller Richford (a chemist). The business started manufacturing rubber stamps in East London in 1878, and quickly grew into one of the largest stamp makers in the UK. In the early ’90s, EM Richford saw an increase in popularity in the craft market as hobbyists started to stamp their handmade cards and paper projects. To complement this market growth area Personal Impressions was created in 1995. It began as wholesaler and distributor of well-known craft brands to the UK’s papercraft market. Today, Richford’s is still family-run and Andrew is the fourth generation Richford to have ownership of the company (Edwin Miller’s great, great nephew). Brand management is a dying trend with more and more companies deciding to go down the route of manufacturing their own products. Personal Impressions is concentrating on promoting the brands it works with. Explain why this is a crucial marketing role and important to driving sales of the business? Brand distributors like Personal Impressions are important for the growth of the arts and crafts industry for a number of reasons Customer expectations are increasing with the rise of internet shopping, mobile, social and cloud technologies. More than ever customers demand a more seamless experience on all levels for inspiration, purchasing, distribution, returns and customer service. This can be very difficult for overseas manufacturers to manage as a result of geographical differences with things such as time differences, legislation, and shipping challenges to contend with. We can offer both our brands and our customers a ‘market- specific’ distribution option with extensive product expertise and an established supply- chain infrastructure. Established brands have the knowledge, expertise and experience to produce a better quality product than those that are new to the manufacturing scene. While some customers don’t have any brand preferences, there are many consumers that prefer to work with established manufacturers for these reasons. Brands sometimes need to consolidate their customer base in order to lower their service costs and keep prices down. For instance, if a company has 5000 customers and each customer buys one unit at a time then this has a heavy impact on resources, and will result in increased costs. It can be more cost-effective for a brand to find an established re-seller like Personal Impressions. Also large brands often invest in research and development to invent new products. We believe every industry needs innovation to grow and this is a strong reason why Personal Impressions support established brands. What makes the company stand out as a brand manager and what benefits are there to the retailer in dealing with one business? Our longevity in business, our established Jenny Hawkins, Group Sales & Maketing Director explains how Personal Impressions is concentrating on managing its brands for success looking after the brands 38 craft focus