Postal Service Retailing Greeting Cards

Year-long test in 500 outlets; expands sales of printing products to 1,000 more sites in 2010.

Source: USPS -- Graphic Arts Online, October 29, 2009

WASHINGTON — Busy consumers can buy, address and mail a greeting card while conducting other Postal Service business under a year-long pilot program launched earlier this month.

The Postal Service is testing a limited line of greeting cards in about 500 Post Offices. Initial sites were chosen based on availability of display space, the number of customers visiting the location and convenience to customers. An additional 1,000 locations will begin offering cards after the first of the year.

Offering greeting cards on a limited basis serves as a market test to determine if customer interest is high enough to warrant expanding the program throughout the country according to Robert Bernstock, president, Mailing and Shipping Services.

“Greeting cards are a great way to let someone know you are thinking about them,” Bernstock says. “This will be a real time saver. We believe our customers will like the convenience of having greeting cards available while doing business at the Post Office.”

More than half of the 7 billion greeting cards sold in the U.S. are sent through the mail. “Cards are incredibly linked to the mail,” notes Bernstock. “What better place to sell them than at our Post Offices.”

The assortment includes cards for birthdays, baby announcements, encouragement, sympathy and wedding anniversaries. Additional seasonal displays will offer cards appropriate to various holidays and times of the year, including Mother's Day.

Greeting cards join the selection of shipping and mailing products at the Postal Service designed to better meet the needs of customers. In addition to items like mailing tape, envelopes and packaging, decorative mailing boxes make sending a gift easier than ever.

According to the Greeting Card Association, Christmas and the winter holiday season is the biggest time of year for greeting cards, but Valentine's Day isn't far behind. And birthdays, anniversaries and other life events happen all year long. The most popular everyday cards are birthday cards, followed in popularity by cards celebrating anniversaries, and cards of encouragement including get well, friendship and sympathy cards.