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Greeting cards still the children’s choice

BERHAMPUR: Children have become the main customers of greeting cards while the e-generation has started to shy away from them.

Like earlier years, seasonal shops of greeting cards have come up all around the city. But they do not have much customers like past. E-cards, e-mails and SMS have started to replace the conventional New Year cards. Even for the aged it is better to have a video chat over the net rather than sending a card to relatives who are outside, says Prashant Das, a retired government servant who has all his sons and daughters outside the state. For the new generation youths on the fast track the SMS and internet are the fast ways to convey New Year wishes. Moreover these are quite cheaper than conventional greeting cards.

But cards still have their value for the small children. They throng greeting card stores to buy them in large numbers. The marketing strategy of card sellers has also changed keeping in view these new customers in the form of small children. The owner of Nirakar Bhandar, a shop selling greeting cards, says they now prefer to keep more cheaper cards which the children can afford from their pocket money. And the cards mostly bought by children are priced 50 paise to Re. 1 each. The parents are not objecting their children to buy these cards in large numbers as they are not much of a burden on the pocket.

For most children like Sipu, these small cards are part of their decorative collections which they collect and exchange. Another child, Bui says she has enquired about the choice of flowers and scenery from her friends and has bought cards as per it. She has also told her friends about her choice of cards. Manas Panda, a greeting card seller, says the sale of cards has nosedived. Last year he had a business of over Rs. 12,000. Till now he has made business of Rs. 5,000 that too only due to the small low priced cards bought by children. According to him these small children will surely add up some more business as they would continue to search for these cards for at least a fort night after the New Year day. He says he has planned to totally devote his shop to small cards and cheap innovative play things for children when he would repeat his New Year business in December 2009.

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