Time to Meet The Member! We asked Anneke Driscoll of Lucilla Lavender Ltd to tell us a bit about their story.
What’s the name of your company?
Lucilla Lavender Ltd
When was the company first set up?
2008
Where is your business based?
Putney, South West London
Who set up the company and why?
I am the founder of the Lucilla Lavender Ltd and the joint owner of the company. I had worked in the greetings card business for many years and decided that I wanted to utilize all the skills and knowledge I had acquired by setting up my own greetings card business. Whilst I had the skills to run the business, I was looking for a highly accomplished designer who could create popular cards for this highly competitive market. One day, I met Lucilla Lavender at the school gates and we got chatting about work and I told her about my business idea. She talked to me about her work as a designer in the world of brand and advertising and I realised that Lucilla was exactly who I had been looking for. And so we started working together and now we have a highly successful greetings card business.
What is the Unique Selling Point of your business? What makes your products particularly special?
Our special sauce is the designs themselves. Some of our best-selling ranges are simple drawings – but they stand out on the shelves because they convey such clear and engaging emotions. That’s why the cards sell so well – they say really clearly exactly what our customers feel.
Tell us about one of your best-selling greeting cards?
‘Little Quirks’ is perhaps our most iconic range – deceptively simple designs with a wealth of charm and character. The best-seller within this range is called ‘Sod to Cake’, and it features a Little Quirk character with a lighted candle stuck into the neck of a wine bottle, instead of a cake. It has sold like hot cakes for over 7 years now and we expect is will continue to do so!
How do you sell your products?
We sell our cards in many ways. We have a wonderful network of physical shops who sell our cards directly to the public and we also sell directly on our website at www.lucillalavender.com.
What do you like most about the industry?
The people in this industry are fantastic! There is so much goodwill and so much talent – it’s a privilege to work with them.