Didn't mail out any Christmas cards this year? You're not alone. People are finding other ways to send holiday greetings, and card sellers are feeling the pinch.
Growth has been flat for the last four to five years, said Clancy Delbarre, executive director of the Gift Packaging & Greeting Card Association of Canada. Before, the industry was accustomed to growth of 4 to 5 per cent a year.
The recession is only partly to blame. “Aside from the economy, what has halted that growth has been the growth of Internet greetings,” he said. “That has probably captured between 5 and 7 per cent of the total paper and ink market.”
The trend is on the rise, especially among businesses. “Online cards are kind of the norm now,” said Elyse Heckman of New York-based Stylesight, a trend forecasting firm that monitors the style industry. The company sent holiday greetings by e-mail for the first time this year. Its card looks like a vintage poster for a 1930's era revue, with a drawing of bubbles bursting from a champagne bottle. The team e-mailed the image to their contacts, some with a personal message attached.
Work colleagues are used to communicating through e-mail, Ms. Heckman said. “I think it's become more acceptable. In the past it used to kind of lose that personal touch … But you know they're going to get it, they're going to look at it, and it's going to make a quicker impact than it would if you sent it through the mail.” Ms. Heckman herself still sent her personal Christmas cards the old-fashioned way.
In the United States, mail volumes are down about 12 per cent this holiday season, said Dave Lewin, a spokesperson for the Postal Service. It's difficult to say how much of those shipped items are greeting cards. Canada Post's holiday crush is down about 3 per cent compared with last year, said spokesperson John Caines.
Individuals are still buying boxes of print cards, said Sharon Avery, vice-president of development at UNICEF Canada. The charity has been selling greeting cards for 60 years, and usually pulls in roughly $2-million in holiday card sales each year.
Businesses, however, are cutting back. “Where we're feeling it, is with our corporate greeting card program … every company is cutting the Christmas parties, and their cards. That's the message we've been getting.”
Canadians buy roughly 600 million greeting cards each year, Mr. Delbarre said, and the holiday season accounts for about 30 per cent of sales. If holiday greetings are moving online, that could take a big chunk out of the industry's margins.
Paper cards with some kind of high-tech element have been a hot commodity this season, Zev Weiss, chief executive officer of Cleveland-based American Greetings Corp. AM-N told investors on a call yesterday after the company's third-quarter earnings release. “Movement, lights, or some kind of 3D element … that's the product that's been selling over the last four weeks,” he said.
The company's website also offers a subscription service that allows users to send e-cards all year long, at a cost of $19.99 (U.S.), with a limited selection of free e-cards as well. Hallmark Cards Inc. offers a similar service for $9.99 (U.S.) Still, sellers are optimistic that paper cards will still have an appeal, even in an age of digital communication. At a Carlton Card store in downtown Toronto yesterday, staff member Mel, who declined to provide her last name, said sales were brisk. “Every day, people are buying lots of cards.”
E-mailed cards are for the young folk, Mr. Delbarre of the Greeting Card Association said, so online cards will always have a share of the market. “But the Internet greeting has become too informal … People are saying, well, I think highly enough of Aunt Mary or my friend Joe, I'm going to take the trouble to actually send a paper and ink card.”
