Papyrus Is Shutting All Its Stores - The New York Times

The latest victim of the retail apocalypse? Birthday cards.

Papyrus, the greeting card and stationery chain, will close all its stores in the United States and Canada after its parent company filed for bankruptcy, another casualty of the long-running decline of mall-based retail.

Schurman Fine Papers, which operates 254 stores, including the Papyrus brand as well as the American Greetings and Carlton Card chains, filed for bankruptcy protection on Thursday. All three store chains will close, but the branded cards they sell will still be available at other retailers.

“We regret that we are closing all our stores,” Papyrus wrote in a message on its Facebook page. “We hope that through our artistic, thoughtful greeting cards and our personal expression products that we were able to inspire you to celebrate and honor the special people in your lives.”

In its filing, Schurman Fine Papers said business had declined as part of “the general downturn in the brick-and-mortar retail industry.” In recent years, greeting-card sales have dropped and retailers have cut back on the amount of aisle space devoted to paper cards, as consumers switch to digital alternatives.

But the store closings are not the end of the Papyrus brand. While Schurman Fine Papers operates the Papyrus stores, the brand itself is owned by American Greetings, which supplies Papyrus products to more than 300 retailers, according to a spokeswoman for American Greetings, Patrice Molnar.

American Greetings will continue to supply cards to those retailers “without any interruption,” Ms. Molnar said.

Schurman Fine Papers, which is based in Tennessee, has also struggled with the costs of closing and refurbishing a number of underperforming stores it acquired in 2009, according to the filing. The company has more than 1,000 employees in the United States, the filing said, none of whom are unionized.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Retail - Latest - Google News
January 24, 2020 at 10:26PM
https://ift.tt/2TTQLVL

Papyrus Is Shutting All Its Stores - The New York Times
Retail - Latest - Google News
https://ift.tt/2JDvGsM
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update