Port Washington, NY—Just in time for the Holidays, busy consumers can buy, address and mail a greeting card while conducting other Postal Service business under a pilot program launched earlier this month.
New greeting card displays arrived at the Port Washington Post Office located at 1051 Port Washington Blvd last month. The Port Washington Post Office now joins 1500 other postal locations nationwide where greeting cards will be offered.
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.
“Greeting cards are a great way to reach out and touch someone” says Port Washington Postmaster, Cassandra Louie. “I know Port Washington postal customers will love the convenience of having greeting cards right here, at the Post Office, where they can buy a card and mail it in one stop.“
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.
“The next time you are in the Port Washington Post Office please visit our card display and even though the holidays are a great time to send cards, you don’t really need a special occasion to send one” concludes the Postmaster.
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A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 150 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars. With 36,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, the Postal Service relies on the sale of postage, products and services to pay for operating expenses. Named the Most Trusted Government Agency five consecutive years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $68 billion and delivers nearly half the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 26th in the 2008 Fortune 500.
