Amy Watson, Negosentro | Print industry has been sluggish of late, courtesy the numerous challenges it faces. Ironically, the boost required to break free of it resides in the opportunity hidden in those challenges. While the print industry has been busy printing and selling stuff thoroughly ignoring the changing trends, the industry is transforming with plummeting demands from the traditional consumers and a shifting base towards digitization. See how online greeting card design tool helps print businesses to boom this Christmas holiday season.
The Shifting Trend
As per the research, paper card industry is running out of steam gradually on account of not adapting to the latest techniques and innovation. Hallmark and American Greetings are two of biggest shareholders in the $7 billion American greeting card market. Hallmark saw its revenue shrink from $4 billion in 2012 to $3.8 billion in 2014. American Greetings, despite major restructuring and subsequent privatization under the Weiss family in 2013 is still struggling with just $2 billion revenue and shrinking. The greeting card industry is set to downsize to $4.3 billion in 2018 from $7 billion.
But, this sudden surge in the number of online greeting card design softwares to create custom greeting cards has breathed a new life in this sector. People have shifted towards digital greetings but it still lacks the personal touch and the element of genuine sentiment attached. And that’s where the online greeting card design tools come in as it finds the perfect middle ground between the convenience of digital greeting and the genuineness of a tangible token of love.
The sprouting up of these online tools in recent time indicates a revitalization of the greeting card industry is in works. The kick starter campaign by an American greeting cards making start up, Lovepop gathered a support of 450 investors and raised $23,000 in 2015 and are now a very successful company specializing in custom handmade greeting cards sold via their e-commerce portal lovepopcards.com. Their revenue is growing at 10x rate annually like clockwork.
Old is Still Gold
Paper cards are still special. People absolutely show appreciation for the trouble you took to pick a card, write a personal message and send it via the mail. According to a Hallmark store employee, he has heard from innumerable folks that they cherish the cards they received through the years. People save paper cards and will put them on bulletin boards for others to see. That’s where digital greetings fail. Yes, they can be insanely innovative with the flexibility and customizations they offer they still lack that personal touch of tangibility.
The Way to Go
So, what’s the middle ground?
A mix of paper and digital is the new trend rising meteorically in the market leading to an almost certain boom in the print industry. Print-on-demand companies are the online portals that allow you to upload images and add your own sentiments and then they print and mail either one or one million cards for you. Such is the impact of this booming sector that even the post office has jumped aboard with print-on-demand cards. One significant strategic edge this has is that costs are lower than a Hallmark card or having to print 250, 500 or 1000 cards and mailing them yourself. This is the perfect fusion of an E-card and a Greeting card.
A Tool of Convenience
Image Source: https://www.designnbuy.com/greeting-card-design-software-tool.html
Today we all know about online greeting card designer. Create a card of your vision with just a few clicks in the form of reliable templates, complimenting fonts and lovely innovative messages. Online design tools powered by AngularJS and HTML5 offer the flexibility to design multiple types of greeting cards. Online greeting card designing is certainly is a blue ocean opportunity because of the convenience of designing your card and also getting it printed by the card making company, but all handled at the same place and very efficiently.
UK Shows Signs of Promise
Stats for UK market adhere to this trend, proving it’s not a fad but a paradigm shift and economic boom for the greeting card industry. According to GCA Market Report 2017, the total retail value of single cards sales in the UK stood at over £1.526bn in 2016. There has been an increase of £28.7 million from 2015 and currently stand at £1.178.8 billion. The greatest growth has been demonstrated by sales of ages, occasions and relations at £680.6m. Single Christmas cards sold accounted for nearly 100 million totaling up to 1 billion cards sold for Christmas market in UK. In addition, Christmas cards sold in boxes and pack stacked up to 900 million approximately, worth around £230 million. A giant chunk of this was contributed to by online retailers like Moonpig.
Dominated by the Ladies
The greeting card consumer base has been predominantly female. Statistically, over 80% of greeting card sales are accounted for by women. Out of five four cards are bought by females. Even male themed cards are bought by females. Males tend to buy cards only on special occasions. Thus the trends in this industry are defined by females.
Conclusion
Increasing demand of innovation by the consumer in the greeting cards market has created a vast ocean of opportunity for the print on demand companies. The added features of custom designing greeting cards in the same place puts a cherry on the top. With customers looking towards digital solutions and shunning the traditional stores for their lack of adaptation to modern trends, the online greeting card designing and customizing firms in coherence with the print industry are set to boom in the coming Christmas holiday season 2017.
