GCA Benefits of Membership

Advice, Discounts & Professional Guidance

Discounts and free advice from many industry specialists are negotiated on behalf of our members. These range from trade show discounts through to specialist legal, licensing and copyright advice, plus insurance and website development help. Members can access these benefits through the GCA Library.

Promote Your Business

There are lots of free opportunities to promote your business to buyers, artists, writers, agents and others through our GCA and Thinking of You Week websites. Our Members’ Directory is a good resource for buyers looking for new card ranges, buyers can search by genre to find new suppliers. We have an active and informative blog where we often feature news and updates from our members.

With the volume of traffic the GCA websites receive each day, a link from the GCA site to yours can add a valuable SEO boost too. Members are encouraged to complete their directory listings with as much information as possible, including up to three web addresses.

Members can download the GCA logo to use on their websites and marketing material too, to show their support for the industry.

Events

We organise events that provide opportunities to build business relationships with other greeting card publishers, retailers, and established supplier members who are recommended and already working with other GCA members. For example Dragons Speed Dating is a popular events that connects publishers with greeting card retail buyers , plus our Conference and AGM is a fun annual opportunity to network with a broad range of industry leaders and keep up to date on key issues. The GCA is keen to bring together members across the country, so we are arranging small GCA Local ‘meet ups’ with other members based nearby. Have a look at our events calendar covering key industry issues.

Webinars

Widen your horizons through our online events – all designed to give you an engaging and interactive experience and provide members with additional support. Our webinars have a Q&A at the end.

Our online Lunch and Learn sessions are used to share knowledge on a topic/subject relating to our industry and present this within 60 mins. The sessions make excellent use of time, which can already be limited throughout the day. 

The GCA Library

We have a Members’ only Library that is full of useful information for greeting businesses of all sizes. The library is the main portal for registered members to find any information they might need relating to their greeting card business. Examples of articles in the library include:

• Latest information on the Popular Trade Shows for the greeting card industry
• Advice on how to survive your first trade show
• Everything you ever wanted to know about printing greeting cards and what pitfalls to avoid
• The in’s and out’s of Price Codes, Barcodes and GDPR.
• Advice and information on Copyright & Licensing
• Working with Sales Agents
• Sustainability – Greeting Cards and the Environment
• Learn about supplying a major retailer via Category Management or Brokerage
• Exporting your cards for the first time
• The History of Greeting Cards

… and much more! While some articles are publicly available, our members enjoy access to in-depth member only content designed to help grow their greeting card businesses.

The GCA Market Report

We compile an annual Greeting Card Market Report which is available to our Publisher, Supplier and Premium members free of charge (a saving of £750+VAT). The Market Report provides valuable insights into the performance of the UK Greeting Card market based on our members’ retail sales.

Free Marketing support

The GCA Library has a range of free marketing support, including free toolkits that can be downloaded.

Regular Communication on the Latest Industry issues

Our News and Insights blogs cover key information and news that affects our industry. Our regular newsletters keep members up to date on events and news.