Is 2014 the year the Christmas card died?

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/d ... nd-replace" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Last year Card Aid opened 30 temporary shops across the UK, often in churches and vacant premises, to sell Christmas cards benefiting a wide range of charities. This year it is opening just 10 – and it blames the cost of first class stamps and changing social habits among the young for a dramatic fall in sales.

Dame Hilary Blume, who runs the Charities Advisory Trust’s Card Aid scheme, said sales are tumbling, while others reckon that within a decade the traditional Christmas card could all but disappear.

The cost of a first class stamp – now 62p – is deterring many, and the decline in sales that first began at the onset of the credit crisis is beginning to accelerate.

It doesn’t help, she says, that teenagers brought up on email barely know how to address an envelope.

“At our own organisation we were planning to send 600 out to our members, but we won’t this year because it was going to cost us £400 or so in stamps, and we can’t afford it. People are taking the same decisions at home and who can blame them?” she says.

The Charities Advisory Trust lobbied the Treasury for years to allow Royal Mail to introduce a lower-priced charity card stamp, as she says they have in the Netherlands, but it was repeatedly rejected. “The fact that people can sit down at their computer and create a Tony Blair-style photo of the family at home, or playing with the dog or cat, is also a factor.

“I also think buyers are less engaged with it. In the past people would put the cards all over the house – it was a part of Christmas – but less so today. We had some 14-year-olds in for work experience this week and none of them knew how to address an envelope properly. All these factors have conspired against us,” she says.

Rob Jenkinson, who distributes Sreepur Cards, which are made in Bangladesh – the only charity Christmas card which sees 100% of the price paid going to the charity – says sales are down this year – squeezed, he says, at both ends.

“The older generation, which traditionally would contact old friends each year, is being put off by the new postage costs. The younger generation, which does everything online, isn’t interested in physically sending a card. It’s a real problem for the sector,” he says.

One card provider said they feared that in 10 years card sales will be consigned to history as people “simply move on”.

But Sharon Little, who runs the Greeting Card Association, is not so pessimistic. She agrees that the cost of postage has become a major factor, but says overall sales are expected to hold up this year with buyers choosing to hand deliver rather than posting.

“Last year we saw sales of single cards actually go up from £125m to £130m, while around 900m were sold as part of box sets. But it is an increasingly fragmented market. With the likes of Primark selling cards, they are now so cheap that the card itself costs a fraction of the cost of sending it. Buyers have responded by increasingly delivering them themselves.”

Little is dismissive of the threat of the rise of the “hated” e-cards – which she says all the research shows people really dislike.

Despite this, e-cards are likely to have been a factor in lower traditional card sales – particularly in the corporate sector. This week it emerged that Edinburgh council became the latest institution to abandon paper cards and opt instead for electronic greetings.

One charity bucking the trend appears to be Oxfam. It told Guardian Money this week that its card sales are up 23%, although that may be down to its improved designs and the fact that it is better at advertising the point that all profits go to the charity.

It claims a survey it conducted found that 88% people are planning to send Christmas cards this year with just 5% choosing e-cards instead.

“Christmas cards are an incredibly important source of income for Oxfam, so sales figures really count. This year around 60p in every £1 from the sales will go directly to support our work, particularly preventing the spread of Ebola in west Africa,” a spokeswoman says.

In 1843 the first Christmas card was invented by civil servant Sir Henry Cole, who worked for the Royal Mail and, three years earlier, played a key role in helping introduce the Penny Post service. Only 1,000 of these cards were printed and sold for a shilling each.

A spokesman for Royal Mail said that, on average, people sent 17 cards last year – the same as in 2012 – and that its research indicated that two-thirds of people who sent cards last year will be sending the same number this year.

[interesting]

This coming week will be a sign as to weather there are less Christmas cards than normal

[Chelseablue]

No way!

[Budfrog]

A lot of younger people, as well as a few older ones, will be using social media to send their Christmas messages, I don't think it is simply down to cost just changes in the way that we communicate with each other.

[interesting]

How many of send Christmas cards
Or hand them to someone personally
Or via other forms of messaging ?

[nickinoneck]

A recent poll of 100 people picked at random showed 89% are still great believers in sending Xmas cards. Royal fail of course will have us believing otherwise!

[ebbzie]

A recent poll of 100 people picked at random showed 89% are still great believers in sending Xmas cards. Royal fail of course will have us believing otherwise!

You can imagine it on Monday...... DOM saying xmas cards down we can lapse

[Chelseablue]

Mondays gonna be loverlyyyyyyyyy!

[NWpostie]

Parcels are still going up as a counter weight to the loss of letters, so its not all doom and gloom, Internet buying and eBay has been a boon to Royal mail (and other providers) we just need to keep the edge and be more proactive to keep our customers, all our jobs rest on this.

[silly suffolk]

bloody scouts nicking our work. neo Nazi uniformed militarist organization cheery picking our birth rite to deliver Christmas cards and protect the uso the rest of the year. the buggers.

[enskied]

" The cost of a first class stamp – now 62p – is deterring many, and the decline in sales that first began at the onset of the credit crisis is beginning to accelerate."


Put into perspective, you can send a physical card to anywhere in the UK for 62p or you could buy a Mars Bar without thinking about it. I know which seems better value to me.

[Budfrog]

Would it not have made sense to have reduced the price of Christmas Card postage in addition to the special offer on parcels or would that prove too complicated for the staff and revenue protection to administer.

[interesting]

" The cost of a first class stamp – now 62p – is deterring many, and the decline in sales that first began at the onset of the credit crisis is beginning to accelerate."


Put into perspective, you can send a physical card to anywhere in the UK for 62p or you could buy a Mars Bar without thinking about it. I know which seems better value to me.

But I suppose it's not about one stamp , it's about send 20 maybe then it mounts up

[5plusbonusball]

The cards that matter are big ones , then they get surcharged and some go unclaimed. Plus if stamps were sold LOOSE everywhere then there would be more posters, a book of 12 for £7.44 puts a lot off and large stamps are only from a post office which are a nightmare.

[NWpostie]

If Royal Mail did a special booklet set of Christmas stamps at near to the discount bulk rate that big customers get, it would have be marked "Christmas special period stamp" so it can only be used during the Christmas period and no other time. we may get some money in that might otherwise might not be spent and create traffic for us preserving jobs.