Coming as music to the ears to its many retail customers, The CD Card Company has pressed the ‘replay button’ as the company has relaunched under its own steam with an expanded range of products which build on the success it has enjoyed with its year-based ranges.
This follows on from the news that longstanding music distribution company Arabesque, which was the distributor for The CD Card Company’s products, went into liquidation several months ago.
Chris Leaning, who has headed up The CD Company since it started over 20 years ago, is now the majority shareholder of the business with general manager Laura Jablonski also a shareholder.
Chris was part of the Arabesque team for 38 years, but latterly spent a lot of his time on developing The CD Card Company.
“It was extremely sad to see Arabesque go after almost 50 years as a distributor of, initially music and then cards and gifts,” commented Chris. “The pandemic has been ruthless in its effect on businesses, and Arabesque had, for some time, been carrying the weight of heavy overheads, having been a huge record and then CD distributor in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. Thankfully, we managed to ensure all of our suppliers and employees were paid, which is always the biggest worry in cases such as Arabesque’s,” added Chris.
As it turns out, these enforced changes with Arabesque gave “the perfect opportunity to streamline the business and brought an acute focus to what our priorities are for The CD Card Company,” says Chris, which has seen an expansion of the product portfolio, including those incorporating a video streamed element as well as music downloads.
“It’s been obvious to us for some years because of our continued sales growth that the consumer isn’t bothered about the status of CDs or DVDs as a physical format when it comes to our products. They buy into the year of birth concept in an instant,” explained Chris, referring to its Classic Years, Birthday Star, The Birthday Gazette CD ranges andThe Time Of Your Life and Birthday Star DVD collections.
The company built its own music downloads platform some time ago and so have been offering that with its CD cards for the past couple of years, but has also just launched its own video streaming platform too, “so anyone receiving one of our cards now has multiple options of benefiting from additional high quality
music or video content,” says Chris. “Introducing the video streaming has been a priority for some time and I’m pleased to finally get that in place, and we’re developing some exciting new products in the arena we know best, that of nostalgia and retro,” he adds.
The company has licences for 14,000-16,000 songs, all hits from over many decades.
Chris pays tribute to the ongoing support from the company’s retail customers as the new set-up for The CD Card Company was being finalised. “Closest to our hearts will always be the bricks and mortar store and we have been particularly touched by the incredible support we’ve had from our retail partners. It’s at difficult times such as the last year that you find out who your friends are.”
Another area of expansion for the company is drop shipping, whereby the company’s products are featured on a third party website but are dispatched direct from The CD Card Company. “There are some products, such as our Booklet Card range, which involves a 24-page booklet, which just does not work in a retail environment as it needs to be explained, but online it works a treat.”
Chris says that he is delighted to have The CD Card Company very much back in the industry, “thanks hugely to Laura who manages the relationships with our retail partners on a daily basis. We couldn’t have done this without her!”
As an ardent music fanatic (owning 3,500 CDs and 7,000 vinyl records), with The CD Card Company relaunch now underway and lockdown easing, Chris is now also looking forward to getting back out to concerts. “I can’t wait. I have tickets booked already for 1975, Wolf Alice, Inhaler and Elton!”
As for which four tracks would be on his personal ‘mix tape’, Chris is in no doubt: “London Calling by The Clash; The Jean Genie by Bowie; Alphabet St by Prince and All Along the Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix.”
Top: The CD Card Company has several CD and DVD product ranges, based on its many music licences.
