About The Regal Greeting Card Shop
The Regal Greeting Card Shop is Part of the Regal Gifts Corporation network of sites.
Regal Greeting Card History
In 1928 a young Canadian envelope salesman named William McCartney began to notice that more and more greeting cards were being used for Christmas, birthdays and other occasions. At that time greeting cards were hard to find so this budding entrepreneur had a vision to sell greeting cards door-to-door and expand the greeting card market.
So he found a small greeting card printer in Toronto and an investor with $500 and Regal Greeting Cards was born! Intriguing to this story is that the investor was a woman who later became Mr. McCartney's wife and she was the one who gave Regal Greeting Cards its name.
Since those early days, Regal Greeting Cards has continued to stand for the business values young Mr. McCartney set as his guideposts:
- A great selection of unique greeting cards, quality greeting cards, value-priced greeting cards,
- A commitment to providing Member Representatives with the means to earn extra money by selling greeting cards,
- And an unwavering commitment to customer service excellence.
In August of 2005 Regal Greetings began a restructuring the closed down the Retail stores across Canada and re-established the company heritage of "direct selling" through a huge base of Independent Sales Representatives in every province and territory.
Regal Future (Today)
Regal Gifts Corporation is an e-commerce, catalogue and direct marketing company operating in Canada using the Regal brand which has been part of the Canadian landscape for 8 decades. Regal Gifts re-entered the market in February of 2006, as the dominant player in the gift and gadget market for the direct selling industry in Canada.
The Regal catalogue is a true "institution" in Canada, with over 80% brand recognition. The brand is emotive, holding a strong, warm, connection with hundreds of thousands of direct member customers and millions of consumers. A large segment of the Canadian population has fond memories of selling, fundraising and shopping with the Regal catalogue.
Regal is known for its unique products that include greeting cards & gift wrap, handy household helpers, kitchen gadgets, home & seasonal décor and unique family gifts, all sold at great prices with average item pricing below $20. There is no other catalogue like it in the Canadian market.
The new Regal is growing quickly through a unique business model that utilizes a virtual product warehouse. Owning no inventory, instead partnering with third-party product and fulfillment vendors, Regal leverages the inventory and operating efficiencies of these product vendors to their significant base of customers.
The brand is sold through three main customer (or member) channels that are proven profitable:
- Direct selling members who operate micro-businesses reselling Regal products to friends, family, co-workers and neighbours. These members sell to consumers at retail and earn their revenue through a discount based upon their sales level from the previous year.
- Group buying members who join with friends, family, co-workers and neighbours as a buying group to achieve a catalogue discount (ex. like sharing the Costco card).
- Fundraising members who capitalize on the brand recognition and long history of fundraising to raise money for their school, church, sports-club, daycare, etc.
Almost 60,000 Regal members returned after the new Regal re-launched in March 2006 and over 250,000 customers have purchased within the last 36 months, going back into 2005.
Regal's direct selling members in turn have a base of over 1 million consumers, an incredible 8.1% of Canada's 12 million households. Direct selling is one of the most vigorous and dynamic segments of the Canadian economy, representing retail sales of CAD$1.3 billion in 2004 and the industry association reports recent growth rates in the 9-12% yearly range.
Regal is an integral and irreplaceable source of income for thousands of Canadians. Made up primarily of women, they operate their own small business selling Regal as an independent representative.
Following the March 2005 re-launch Regal Gifts, recruited a talented new team of direct marketing veterans and opened its new headquarters in Barrie, Ontario, in November of 2006.
Over all these years we have never stopped being a Canada only brand. One of very few Canadian catalogues, in honour of William McCartney we have gone back to our roots and are now manufacturing our own cards, right here in Canada.
These "Made-In-Canada" Regal exclusive greeting cards cannot be found in any other store in Canada AND we continue to be a value priced leader beating most other stores prices for cards made in China!
We are very excited about the future of this new line and growing something that everyone at Regal can be proud of... our own line of cards, made right here in the country we love!
