BOISE, ID — Busy consumers can buy, address and mail a greeting card while conducting other Postal Service business under a year-long pilot program launched last month.

The Boise Main Post Office, 770 S. 13th St., is among the first postal locations nationwide to sell greeting cards. The Postal Service is testing a limited line of greeting cards in about 1,500 Post Offices. Five Hundred initial sites were chosen based on availability of display space, the number of customers visiting the location and convenience to customers. An additional 1,000 locations will begin offering cards after the first of the year.

Offering greeting cards on a limited basis serves as a market test to determine if customer interest is high enough to warrant expanding the program throughout the country according to Robert Bernstock, president, Mailing and Shipping Services.

More than half of the 7 billion greeting cards sold in the U.S. are sent through the mail. "Cards are incredibly linked to the mail," notes Bernstock. "What better place to sell them than at our Post Offices.”

The assortment includes cards for birthdays, baby announcements, encouragement, sympathy and wedding anniversaries. Additional seasonal displays will offer cards appropriate to various holidays and times of the year, including Mother’s Day.

Greeting cards join the selection of shipping and mailing products at the Postal Service designed to better meet the needs of customers. In addition to items like mailing tape, envelopes and packaging, decorative mailing boxes make sending a gift easier than ever.

“We think our customers will like the convenience of having greeting cards right at the Post Office, where you can buy a card and mail it in one stop,” said Boise Postmaster Dan Frasier.

According to the Greeting Card Association, Christmas and the winter holiday season is the biggest time of year for greeting cards, but Valentine’s Day isn’t far behind. And birthdays, anniversaries and other life events happen all year long. The most popular everyday cards are birthday cards, followed in popularity by cards celebrating anniversaries, and cards of encouragement including get well, friendship and sympathy cards.

“You know you don’t really need a holiday to send a greeting card,” said Frasier. “Sending greeting cards lets someone know that they are important to you and this makes it easy to do.”

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An independent federal agency, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that visits every address in the nation — 146 million homes and businesses. It has 37,000 retail locations and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to pay for operating expenses, not tax dollars. The Postal Service has annual revenues of $75 billion and delivers nearly half the world’s mail.