In October last year, Hallmark closed a Kansas City plant and let go of 300 workers. In the United States, where Hallmark makes most of its cards, workers are already expensive, creating tension in an industry facing a slow decline in the face of a cultural shift toward paperless greetings. sound chips) are often produced, wages are rising quickly. In China, where greeting cards with "special treatments" (e.g. High-grade paper is necessary to distinguish greeting cards from something you could print from a home computer, and it's getting more expensive. To understand a greeting card's price, start with its most important costs: Paper and people. "But the fact is that they have more bells and whistles, and I don't think that a plain printed card is usually very expensive unless it's a larger size." "Even my own mother sometimes says to me, 'Why have cards gotten so expensive?'" said Kathy Krassner, director of communications at the Greeting Card Association. But as people move to e-cards, the industry is sensitive to concerns that their product is not sensibly priced. One Lincoln greenback won't relegate any loving couple to bankruptcy. That suggests an average price of more than $5 per card. The answer starts with classical economics, takes a world tour to China, and ends with you.Ĭonsumers are expected to spend $860 million on about 150 million Valentine's Day cards this year. It made me wonder: If so many greeting cards are just cheesy photos and easy quips on tradable pulp, why do they cost so much? Other greeting cards in the turnstile were selling for closer to $5. I'm a reasonable man, but that seemed rather high for a stock photo on a mass-produced paper followed by eight words, at least three of which require no thinking at all.
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