The gifting and greetings card retailer, with 848 stores, has a vertically integrated operation and has carried out its own printing since 2010 when it acquired Printcraft. The printing operation was subsequently relocated to a larger site in Shipley, Yorkshire.

Card Factory acquired www.gettingpersonal.co.uk in 2012.

In its interim results, sales at Card Factory for the six months to 31 July were up 5.1% at £162.3m, while sales at Getting Personal were flat at £6.9m.

Group sales grew by 4.8% to £169.2m.

However, while EBITDA margins at Card Factory nudged up from 20.2% to 20.5%, margins at Getting Personal slipped from 18.3% to 13.9%.

Card Factory chief executive Karen Hubbard said the firm was now targeting like-for-like sales growth “of at least 10%” at Getting Personal and was investing in a number of initiatives to achieve this aim. The reduction in EBITDA margin at the operation reflected this investment, she said.

A £1m investment in new digital printing kit means the business can now produce a wide range of personalised paper products in-house.

The Getting Personal offering includes cards, books, notebooks, diaries and calendars and encompasses wire bound and hardback products. Notebooks are available in A5 and A4 formats.

The site also sells a raft other personalised products including engraved gifts, jewellery, bags and clothing.     

At the time of writing details about the equipment involved in the print spend were unavailable.

Card Factory aims to increase its share of the circa £100m personalised greetings card market that is currently dominated by Moonpig, and where Card Factory is currently “under represented” with a market share of less than 1%.

It also has a separate transactional website, www.cardfactory.co.uk for that brand. “We believe that there is a significant opportunity to use the new cardfactory.co.uk website to leverage our existing in-store customer base to grow our share of the personalised card market considerably,” Hubbard added.