A gift supplier is building its overseas sales with backing from the 海角视频 government.
Ohh Deer is now exporting to 51 countries, with overseas sales accounting for more than a third of annual turnover.
Based in Loughborough, the greetings card, stationery and gift company was founded in 2011 by Jamie Mitchell and Mark Callaby.
The name was picked from a shortlist that they drew up – helped by the fact that the dot-com address was available.
It has 53 staff at its Leicestershire base, including casual warehouse staff, and a team of 100 illustrators and artists around the world designing its quirky, arty products which have been sold by outlets including Tate, Paperchase, Urban Outfitters, Selfridges and Sainsbury’s.
Products range from personalised cushions to calendars, mugs, posters, necklaces and candles.
The company’s biggest revenue stream is wholesale, followed by a monthly subscription service called Papergang, then e-commerce and retail.
More than a third of Papergang subscribers are from overseas and with every box of stationery sold, a tree is planted by Tree Aid, Ohh Deer’s charity partner.
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So far 36,037 trees have been planted.
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The Department for International Trade (DIT) has helped it build overseas sales since its launch, supporting the team with things such as customs regulations and paperwork requirements.
It has also provided the services of trade advisors and offered specialist international embassy consultations, as well as grants to help the business take part in international trade shows.
Laura Philbin, sales manager at Ohh Deer, said: “In the lead up to Christmas we see a big increase in sales particularly from the end of November onwards, as Black Friday becomes more of a key trading period in the 海角视频.
“We have also seen an increase in international customers over this period.
“We are most well known for our greeting cards, particularly our humour-based cards which we won a 海角视频 Greeting Card Association Henries award for this year, and we have won numerous Louie awards for our designs in the United States from the US Greeting Card Association.
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“With greeting cards as a market growing we only envisage this to continue to be the main part of our business going forward.
“At the same time we have our Loughborough shop as we believe passionately about keeping the local high street alive and want to play our part in this – the revenue of the shop is less important to us and plays a small role in turnover overall.
“We want to be visible and do what we can to support other local businesses and play our part in the local community.
“We also make a lot of bespoke product for people like Urban Outfitters and ASOS in the stationery category.
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“We stock thousands of independent stores across the globe as well as many retail chains – Sainsburys, Waterstones, Oliver Bonas, Waitrose, Papyrus, Indigo, Paper Source, Urban, ASOS, to name just a few.
“In terms of export, about 37 per cent of all our sales this year have been export.
“We only see this growing as we focus on our brand presence overseas and connect with more distribution partners.
“In terms of markets we see the most export in the USA, Germany, Scandinavia, Canada and Australia.”
The DIT said total exports of greeting cards from the 海角视频 in 2018 were almost £63 million.
Key destinations include the US, where sales almost doubled to £3.9 million between 2015 and 2018, while exports to Australia also doubled in the same period.
Ian Harrison, the DIT’s director of exports in The Midlands, said it was good to see brands such as Ohh Deer capitalising on seasonal trade overseas.
He said: “Success stories such as these illustrate just how profitable exporting globally can be with overseas consumers increasingly looking for British products and premium quality brands.
“DIT has a network of expert trade advisers on the ground in the Midlands to support businesses as they look to start or build their exports.”