Holiday Cards Gain Popularity
The Thanksgiving turkey isn't just on the dinner table any more. It's showing up on greeting cards, especially from businesses.
As usual, they just want to be ahead of the competition. Cards wishing traditional messages like "Happy Holidays" and "Happy New Year" now are being mailed before Thanksgiving, sometimes with fall scenes and harvest symbols replacing wintry landscapes and Christmas wreaths.
"A lot of companies want their customers and clients to know that they understand and appreciate the importance of family," said Jody Zitsman, executive vice president of Columbus-based cardSupply.com, which sells holiday cards online to businesses and individuals.
"What better time than Thanksgiving to say, 'We're thinking of you and are thankful for your business or support in the past year?'"
CardSupply.com's Thanksgiving card sales are up 200 percent from last year and now represent 25 percent of the company's holiday-card sales, said Zitsman, who declined to give exact sales figures.
Clients range from businesses, to business schools, such as the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
"They don't like to be stuck in the crunch of 10,000 Christmas cards on somebody's desk around the holiday season. So this card arrives early and it's noticed," Zitsman said.
She said businesses make up the majority of cardSupply.com's Thanksgiving sales, and she doesn't expect that trend to change.
Debbie Nover, Marketing Manager for Allstar Real Estate Services in Fort Myers, Fla., ordered 1,000 Thanksgiving cards this year. She sends the cards, which picture a town scene and a cornucopia, to clients and past clients.
"We've been sending Thanksgiving cards for 10 years," she told CBS.com. "We feel that at Christmas, our card would just get lost in the shuffle."
Cleveland-based American Greetings, the nation's second-largest card company after Hallmark, aims its Thanksgiving cards at family members separated by distance ("missing you") and friends who are like a part of the family.
Grace Zafra, manager of a Hallmark card store in Manhattan, said their Thanksgiving card sales are increasing. "We did much better than last year," she told CBS.com.
Hallmark shipped her enough to fill 12 feet of shelf, and some of the bigger stores get 20 to 24 feet. She predicts the Thanksgiving cards will sell out.
One of those waiting until the last minute was Michelle Ross, 25, who combed over the Hallmark cards at a store in Columbus, Ohio, trying to find the perfect one for family and friends she won't see Thursday.
"Unfortunately I don't live close to a lot of the people that I'm close to," said Ross, a business analyst who grew up near Huntington, W.Va. "It's my way of showing them I care."