A standalone physical greeting card store, which doesn’t have a strong e-commerce tie, “I don’t see that as a viable option.” “It’s not going to be some short-term collapse where the whole industry is going to go under and be dedicated to online,” he said, but added that those physical retailers that will survive need to integrate their businesses. “The consumer nowadays wants to say, I know this person really well, so if I’m really going to send a personal message I want it to be more personal,” said Kennedy. Maybe most importantly, Paper Source let customers personalize their cards online, such as by uploading photos or adding custom text. “Their ultimate story was over-expansion in the retail space,” he said.īy contrast, Paper Source had long paired its physical stores with an e-commerce approach: customers could order cards online to be picked up in store, and cards they bought online could be returned in person. When mall and physical retail traffic dwindled, so did sales. (It doesn’t disclose figures, but its online sales are up ten times.) Papyrus, said Kevin Kennedy, an analyst at IBISWorld, bet on physical retail, opening a series of physical stores without a complimentary web presence. After accruing $54.9 million in debt liabilities, Papyrus has disappeared, while Paper Source is reportedly having a good year. The dichotomy between Paper Source and Papyrus, two of the largest brick-and-mortar greeting card chains, offers a window into the future of the greeting card business. Both large and small greeting card businesses told Modern Retail that what’s helped them stay afloat has been new programs to bundle their in-store and online businesses - in some cases even filling out and mailing greeting cards on behalf of their customers. A lot of that might be driven by the fact that greeting card businesses have finally figured out how to efficiently sell online - in part by catering their e-commerce stores to last-minute gift buyers. And Shutterstock has estimated that holiday card sales would be up 7% this year compared to 2019. The declines in the past several months were not as bad as at the height of the pandemic. But there are some reasons for optimism for the industry. (That figures also includes other niche published materials, like yearbooks, so it’s difficult to find an exact estimate.) Physical retail, which comprised the vast majority of greeting card sales prior to this year, played a large role in these stores’ demises. Overall, greeting card sales are down somewhere around 11.6% compared to last year, according to IBISWorld. The pandemic only made the situation worse.
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