Mark Brett is the UK agent for both Boland Party and ITI (UK) and has years of party industry experience under his belt. In his latest blog, Mark wonders why the UK has no party retail chain.
“Despite being a major market for the party industry, an established chain of party shops does not exist within the UK and this has puzzled me for some time. Is it more to do with high street rents, cost of operation or too much online competition?
Oddly, Covid has helped with my enlightenment. For many years, the UK has been considered key for party products outside North America, and is known for being a nation which doesn’t need much of an excuse to throw a party!
The biggest chain in the UK was never really bigger than five stores. Several years ago the American franchise chain Partyland established 12 branches, but there are now none at all. The remains of Partyland became Pure Party (a subsidiary of the card shop chain Birthdays). I think at it is peak the Pure Party chain was over 40 stores, but both have long gone.
In France there are various chains with 20+ stores, in Spain Party Fiesta has 130 (not all in Spain), and Germany boasts the likes of Karnevalswierts with 10 (1 in Holland) and Dieters with over 30. Needless to say the largest is in North America, where Party City has the best part of 1,000 stores. In the UK there have been attempts by large multiples to try add on ‘party sections’ but all have failed.
Enlightenment came via Covid lock-down. What I saw during lockdown and the eventual opening of retail was the split between those that had an alternative during lockdown and those that did not. The successful operators generally had a good relationship with their local community and were active on social media.
The common factors did not stop there. On the whole the successful retailers were family-owned and run, and were single unit stores offering a strong balloon business.
This local independent party retailer is a bit like a favourite local Italian restaurant. When the owner goes home to Italy in the summer , the restaurant is never quite the same until their return. Depending upon the location, the independent party retailers I know generally only go away when their locals go away.
That, in my opinion, is why there are no real chains and there are not likely to be in the near future unless the structure of the market changes dramatically.”
This truncated article was taken from a blog post on Mark’s personal website which can be read in full here.
