Greetings to a post-covid world

The demand for some types of print is still very much in the ascendance. In these strange and isolated times printed books, packaging, and greeting cards are all seeing record-breaking volumes, despite the decrease in paper-based communications generally. One of the stars of this group is Moonpig.

Moonpig is the online greeting card company that was established in July 2000. Headquartered in London, it has by no means been an instant hit and has taken more than 11 years before it really hit the big time. 

Owned by Exponent Private Equity and due to its success, it is planning to float at least 25% of the business in a move that could value the whole company at more than ￡1 billion. 

They say that 'it's an ill wind', and this is obviously true because the Covid pandemic has helped Moonpig to see stunning growth figures and start to realise the ambition to take a leading position in the overall gifting market beyond “card-attached gifting”.

During the lockdowns and the restrictions around the Covid-19 pandemic, Moonpigs sales during the year to 30 April 2020 and its continental wing Greetz jumped by 44% to ￡173.1m. Moonpig also revealed figures for the pandemic-affected trading period covering the six months to 31 October 2020, which showed an astonishing increase in sales to ￡155.9m, up 135% on the prior year.

The exciting message is that Moonpig is by no means alone in benefiting from new ways of communication by sharing feelings. In fact, in the post-covid world where so many will fall by the way-side due to the self-inflicted erosion of 1:1 bonds through remote and online working, it is widely believed it will be those like Moonpig, who can either build for themselves or help others build a closer relationship that will be the success stories of the future.