The Washington Post has an article that says less people are sending postal cards the old fashion way. Snail mail greeting cards are falling according to data from a couple sources. The U.S. Postal Service says first-class mail was down about 11% for the first two weeks of Decemeber.
For the first two weeks of December, said U.S. Postal Service spokesman Michael Woods, "we are seeing about an 11 percent decrease in first-class cancellations from last year, which is a good proxy for the number of cards and letters coming through the system."
A company named Datamonitor told the Post that they are seeing a 10% to 15% decrease in greeting cards delivered via snail mail.
"We see a 10 to 15 percent decline in the overall volume of mailed paper greeting cards this year," said Neil Hendry of Datamonitor, a New York-based retail analysis firm. "There are two principal reasons: technology and the economy."
As Datamonitor says this is partly because of the recession but it is also part of a trend. People that keep in touch with Facebook and email may see less of a need to mail greeting cards. Home printers can also reduce the need for maiing a greeting card. If you are going to be visiting someone you can hand deliver a greeting card made with your fancy home color laser printer. Companies are also embracing the printed method. Amazon.com recently starting offering printed gift cards that include a holiday greeting.
Sets of whimsical business card-size reminders dubbed "Hint Cards" are available in select California-grown flower bouquets in Safeway, Vons and Pavilions stores throughout California and Nevada. They can also be found online at FlowerHintCards.com.
CCFC designed the cards to make it easier for flower lovers to not only drop a hint that they would like more flowers in their life. One of these cards should help deliver the message that you would like some flowers if other hints and suggestions are not working.
Tracy Morgan has launched a series of funny ecards to promote his new book, I am the New Black. You can find the ecards here on the Random House website. It's a clever way to help promote a new book. Maybe more authors will use the concept.
American Greetings has announced its Halloween lineup for 2009, which includes sound envelopes and Talking Heads cards. The National Retail Federation has
said overall Halloween sales will be down significantly but people will still be buying some cards, candy and costumes.
"It's no surprise that people love Halloween--there's fun, fright, and a
little magic in the air," said Mary McClain, creative director, new product
development at American Greetings. "We've infused that same excitement and
spirit into the card aisle so that there's something special to share with
anyone, and we think these new innovations do a great job of that."
American Greetings sound envelopes are now available in fun Halloween themed designs. When opened, the card provide sounds of bubbling cauldrons and cackling witches, ghostly moans, creaky doors and screams. Halloween for American Greetings also marks the return of its popular summer card line, Talking Heads, with an all-new cast of characters including a vampire, witch, skeleton and zombie.
Another addition this year for American Greetings is a line of greeting cards with visual tricks. As the cards are flipped open, a haunting image magically comes to life as skeletons dance and black cats cross your path. Sweet vintage-inspired looks and charming extras have been added to greeting cards that can double as holiday decor such as pop-ups, banners, shadow boxes and word garland.
Recycled Paper Greetings Launching The Onion Greeting Cards
Recycled Paper Greetings (RPG) is introducing a new line of cards from The Onion, a online fake news website. The line includes 12 cards that have the look of an article torn from a newspaper, and include The Onion's funny headlines. One example reads, "Search For Self Called Off After 38 Years," and features a disheveled man lying on a couch in a robe and pajama bottoms as cereal and junk food form a protective barrier around him. Another card, shows a picture of a woman with the headline, "List Of Friends Revised After Birthday Party."
"We are thrilled to introduce these new cards with The Onion because we know that many of our consumers are big fans of the publication," said Jude Rake, CEO, Recycled Paper Greetings. "At RPG we always focus on offering topical humor that shoppers will stop and notice, and few, if any, do that better right now than The Onion."
A greeting card company called Quiplip carries a unique line of greeting cards called graphitudes. Graphitudes use charts and graphs to convey the meanings of birthdays, thank yous and other holidays and intentions. Quiplip was featured on CNN's Anderson Cooper's segment in 2006.
Hallmark has launched Hallmark Mobile Greetings, a new product for cell phones. Senders can also add their personal message to any of the greetings Hallmark has created.
"Millions of people rely on cell phones as part of their daily routine of connecting with others," said Mike Adams, Hallmark Mobile manager. "With Hallmark Mobile Greetings, consumers can creatively connect right away over everyday moments and occasions like a shared joke or words of encouragement. We are taking the skill Hallmark has of helping people connect and are bringing it to the mobile world."
Hallmark Mobile Greetings is available by downloading to a cell phone the free mobile phone application from mobile.hallmark.com. Users can then send greetings to other mobile phones. Consumers also can send greetings directly from mobile.hallmark.com for delivery to a mobile device. Each Hallmark Mobile Greeting costs 99 cents. Fees are billed as part of monthly service-provider charges and the sender is only charged if the recipient opens the mobile greeting.
Pigspigot is a user-generated greeting company. The site lets people upload the art for e-cards on its website. People can both create and send friends e-cards. Cards can also be sent as a $3.99 snail mail card.
Pigspigot is an online, user-generated greeting card company that will allow customers to send both e-cards and snail-mail cards to friends and family. We like to think of it as a sort of anti-Hallmark with a wiki twist.
Browse our collection, using our editor's picks or check out what's "popular" to see the cards people love the most. We offer free e-cards, but try sending a paper card for the insanely low price of 3.99 (including shipping). We're sure your loved ones would love you more if you send them the real deal (and we're pretty sure the converse is true, too; yikes!). Check out our FAQ section for more technical details or contact us with any questions.
Or, if you're feeling clever and art-tastic, submit some cards! You can upload designs that you've created on your computer or you can use our nifty card template. Please do it. Por favor. Because without you, we'd have no cards.
Pigspigot is not currently offering any payment for art submitted to its website although they do mention ways contributing artists may be rewarded in the Faq. The terms they take for using artwork are described here.
American Greetings has announced in a press release that they are launching sound envelopes. When the envelope is opened it activates a song or a recorded sound to play. The envelopes will retail for $3.49. Here's more from the press release.
This patent-pending design has an innovative mechanism in the opening flap, which triggers music or sound to be played each time it is opened. These mailable envelopes allow consumers to add a surprising burst of sound to almost any greeting card. The new envelopes also feature themed designs to create an exciting way to package a greeting card that's not only visually appealing, but also a lot of fun.
"We know that consumers want to create memorable experiences when celebrating special occasions to show their friends and family just how much they care," said Mary McClain, new product concepts creative director American Greetings. "Music and sound envelopes are a unique way to customize a song or sound clip to an already carefully selected greeting card and it adds such a wonderful surprise when the envelope is opened."
Featuring a variety of songs and sounds, the collection has everything to delight recipients, ranging from "What I Like About You" by The Romantics, "You Got It (The Right Stuff)" from New Kids on the Block, and "Happy Birthday" to people cheering and animal noises. The envelopes are perfect additions to any birthday or other festive occasion.
Ray Olson explains how to recycle greeting cards in this video from eHowgreen.
Some of the ideas including cutting off the front and using it as a gift tag. You can also use the front flap to create a new greeting card. Multiple greeting cards can also be put together to make wrapping paper. Take a look:
New Greeting Cards Contain Audio Clips From Movies
Cleveland.com reports that American Greetings has teamed up with Paramount for a line of print audio greeting cards that contain lines from movies. A Godfather card is one of the first 10 from this new line of birthday cards.
The $4.99 cards, which are just starting to appear on store shelves at American Greetings and Carlton Cards stores, will also be sold at drugstores, supermarkets and mass retail outlets such as Wal-Mart and CVS.
Other cards in the series feature characters from the movies "Airplane," "Clueless," "Dreamgirls," "Major League," "The Naked Gun," "Old School," "Road Trip," and "Tommy Boy."
The "Tommy Boy" card features Richard (David Spade) and Tommy (Chris Farley) with the phrase: "It's your birthday - Do something exciting!" Inside, the two say, "Have fun!"
The sound chip adds, "I can't believe you've never been cow tipping before! Get ready to live!"
The cards cost $4.99 and can be purchased at American Greeting stores, Carlton Cards stores as well as drugstores, grocery stores and other retailers that carry cards.
Here's a fun postcard that's also a toy. The postcard aeroplane includes a basla wood guider that kids can pop out. It's sold here on Suck.uk.com for 5 pounds, which is about $7.16 U.S.
s it a plane? Is it a postcard? No it's a postcard aeroplane! Excellent for kids and grown-ups who are just big kids, it's made from balsa wood and the pieces easily pop out to form your very own loop-de-loop, flying glider. It's much more fun than ordinary mail and once you write a little message on it, it becomes post with a bit more love and personality. Don't forget to send it by ‘air mail' though, get it? Air? Because it's a plane and it flies through the air!
Hallmark has announced its fifth online greeting card creation competition. This one is called "YourBloopers" and it involves laugh-out-loud cards. The 60 finalists' designs will be sold in more than 10,000 stores nationwide this summer.
From Jan. 12-Feb. 1, Hallmark will accept submissions online here. Hallmark judges are looking for cards that have photos and writing that work well together, could be sent to many different people and are laugh-out-loud-in-the-card-aisle funny. Each eligible photo must be funny, intriguing and in a vertical format. Wording inside the card should wish the recipient a happy birthday.
"This is our fifth card competition," notes Hallmark editorial director Sarah Mueller. "We're finding people have really funny photos that seem to be meant for a greeting card, so this is an opportunity to pair a great photo with a hilarious birthday wish."
American Greetings Seeks to Acquire Recycled Paper Greetings
American Greetings is seeking to acquire rival Recycled Paper Greetings Inc. Recycled Paper Greetings filed for bankruptcy as part of the proposed sale. RPG Investment Holdings strongly opposes the actions taken by American Greetings reports Reuters.
RPG Investment Holdings and funds affiliated with private equity firm Monitor Clipper Partners LLC said in a separate statement on Friday that they "strongly oppose the actions taken by American Greetings" prior to the bankruptcy filing.
According to Recycled Paper's website, it is a Monitor Clipper portfolio company.
"Through its unlawful actions, we believe American Greetings is attempting to eliminate Recycled Paper Greetings as a competitor, in an effort to gain more widespread traction in the lucrative market segment in which Recycled Paper Greetings excels," the investors said.
There are other article about investors complaining about the sale here, here and here.
American Greetings Corp. is eliminating 275 jobs because of the weak economy. Internet Retailer reports that the economy will cause the company to fall short of its expected Q3 earnings. The cuts will be made at American Greetings' headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio. The company employs 18,000 people and 2,200 of them work at the Cleveland headquarters. Ohio.com has more details on the layoffs at American Greetings.
American Greetings is seeking to acquire rival 
American Greetings Corp. is eliminating 275 jobs because of the weak economy. Internet Retailer 