Father’s Day – celebrating the UK’s Dads!

Father’s Day is celebrated around the world on the third Sunday in June, the day when Dad’s are treated!

In the UK we spent nearly £43m on Father’s Day cards in 2023, sending 22 million cards to our Dad’s on their special day, according to the Greeting Card Association’s Annual Market Report*, with 87% of consumers saying that they plan to send the same or more Father’s Day cards in the future according to the Greeting Card Association Consumer Survey Report** conducted in the summer of 2021.

Celebrating our Dad’s

The origin of the British Mother’s Day can be traced back to the 17^th century, however the roots of Father’s Day go back to early 20^th century America: In 1910 a Washington woman, Mrs JB Dodd, asked for a sermon on the value of fathers, her own having raised six children after the death of their mother. Shortly afterwards her wish for a permanent date to be set aside became reality when President Woodrow Wilson designated the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. Now millions of Dad’s across the world also get a card and a lie in on that day too.

Early greeting cards to Father’s were often either very serious or jokey. In recent years, as our Father’s have become more involved day to day family life, a wider variety of designs has become available.

British Tradition of Greeting Card Sending

Greeting cards have played an increasing important part in British communication since the first Christmas card was sent in 1843 by Sir Henry Cole. Card sending in the UK increased dramatically in the early 20^th century, with cards playing a particularly important role in communication during the two world wars.

Father’s Day cards grew in popularity following the post-war increase in greeting card sending in the UK. Cards increasingly became the chosen way to mark special occasions, express sympathy and just say Thinking of You. Scientific research undertaken in 2017 by Royal Mail demonstrated the impact of receiving a greeting card. Greeting cards are precious links to loved ones that are often kept for many years as reminders of relationships at any period in time, as one Dad demonstrated sharing a card he’d kept from his now-grown-up son.

Father’s Day is now an established calendar event where we annually remember and celebrate our Dad’s. The Greeting Card Association provides free down-loadable toolkit for retailers to use remind everyone to buy their cards!

Retailers Toolkit

Use the GCA’s free Fathers Day Toolkit to promote the season with your customers, included are social media posts as well as signed that can be used in stores.

Fascinating Father’s Day Facts

In 2023 we sent our Dad’s 22 million cards in the UK, at an average price of £1.98*
The UK population are a nation of cards senders – sending more cards per capita than any other nation.
We spent £1.5 billion on single greeting cards in 2023* [NB: This figure excludes packs and boxes of cards]
Over three quarters of these sales [77%] are for everyday cards, sent for birthdays and other occasions throughout the year*.
Sales for Valentine’s Day, Mother’s day, Easter and Father’s Day account for just 11% by value of the total single card market*.
Greeting cards are a world-leading British Creative industry; we send more cards per capita than any other nation, and lead the world in innovative and design, exporting our cards all over the world.
Cards are a good tangible way of keeping in touch, and mean more than a social media message which are sent all the time.
18-34 year olds sending more cards than a generation ago. People are on social media all the time, this is being seen in US too – 44m more cards between 2017 and 2018, according to the US Postal Service, and this is due to Millennial’s’
Increase in ‘all occasion’ cards, sending cards to people just to say hello, share a joke, image provoking a memory, express how you feel, thinking of you.

*Source: The Greeting Card Association Annual Market Report which covers UK greeting card sales for single greeting cards in 2023 compared to 2022.

** Source: Greeting Card Association Consumer Survey Report conducted in summer 2021. This includes information on changes in purchasing during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.