Merrifield VA.—Busy consumers can buy, address and mail a greeting card while conducting other Postal Service business under a year-long pilot program launched earlier this month.

New greeting card displays arrived at the Merrifield Post Office this month.

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 let someone know you’re thinking about them,” says Merrifield Customer Service Manager Sherri Evans. “The feedback from our customers has been very positive. They like the convenience of having greeting cards right at the Post Office, where you 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.

“There is always a reason to send a greeting card,” says Evans. “In today’s busy society, this puts a Postal spin on one stop shopping.”

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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.