02 December 2017

UK’S OLDEST POSTCARD FIRM SET TO CLOSE

J Salmon, the family-owned firm, which has been publishing postcards and calendars since 1880, will close this December.

It says instead of penning a card, people are putting photos up on Facebook or Instagram or using WhatsApp to show friends and family at home just how much fun they're having.

Brothers Charles and Harry Salmon, the fifth generation of the family to run the firm, said the popularity of social media had had a huge impact on the business.

People are also tending to take shorter holidays, meaning they are likely to have arrived home long before their postcards, the brothers - joint managing directors of the firm - said.

As a result the business was no longer viable, they said.

"Increasingly challenging trading conditions and changes to the nature and size of the market for its publications have resulted in uncertainty over the viability of its trade," the brothers wrote in a letter to suppliers and newsagents.

As a result they were announcing "a proposal to withdraw from publishing".