Doesn’t everyone enjoy getting a greeting card in the mail? Of course we do. I always thought that I would make a good greeting card writer. Over the years, I’ve crafted some pretty darn nice homemade birthday, anniversary and holiday cards for my friends and family. Below is a sampling of a Get Well card I recently sent to my sister.
Comets, meteors and asteroids
Sorry to hear of your aggravating hemorrhoids
A warm bath, ibuprofen and cream
Would be any “roid” sufferers dream
I realize your inflammation and itchiness
Is likely the cause of your bitchiness
Everyone hopes you’re feeling better soon
(Trust me when I say that you don’t want to see my cut and paste graphic images.)
Until recently, the typical greeting card customer has been somewhat limited to fairly generic choices found at a drug store or specialty card shop. Finding a card that was unique, customized or personalized was extremely difficult. Enter www.GreetingCardUniverse.com, one of many websites that husband and wife team, Mindy Rosso-Gaemi and Nasser Gaemi, operate under their company BigDates Solutions. Located in San Ramon’s Bishop Ranch all of Big Dates’ services revolve around reminder services (birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, etc.) since 2000. Suggesting gifts, e-cards and paper greeting cards in important date email reminders was the onset of BigDates’ venture into the greeting card space. Greeting Card Universe (GCUniverse) is a greeting card website. Not electronic greeting cards like many people may think, but real paper greeting cards that you purchase online and have mailed to you or directly to the recipient.
GCUniverse is an open community where freelance artists from around the world join and sell their art in the form of paper greeting cards. With over 3,900 artists and counting in the GCUniverse community, artists earn commissions when their cards sell. Much like Amazon.com might fancy itself as the largest bookstore in the world, GCUniverse has quickly become the largest greeting card store on the planet with an inventory of 400,000 cards and growing. With over 1,000 new cards a day GCUniverse expects to reach 500,000 cards by year’s end. The company carries no physical inventory. Everything is printed on demand, which means all cards are digital until ordered then are printed and mailed, so shoppers can order just 1 card or 10,000 cards. “Due to our virtual shelf space we’re not limited to offering a collection of best selling cards that are typically pretty generic,” Mindy says. “We have all the every day cards you’d expect at a typical card shop, but we have so much more. Unique, specific and personalized cards are quickly becoming our hallmark”, she adds in a “no pun intended” play on words.
If you let your imagination run wild you can imagine all types of creative and memorable occasions to send a card such as a special day for your pet, a mine rescue, a vasectomy or augmentation, in addition to birthday cards for every age 1 – 125, not just the landmark years. There are also design features which allow for ethnicity/skin tones (dark skinned groom w/ light skinned bride, etc). Now, in addition to getting a card for the prototypical mom and Grandmother, you can add step mom, birth mom, neighbor mom, room mom, team mom, partner mom, sorority mom and Mr. Mom aka Dad. Personalized cards for every name ever imagined can be created from traditional names like Mike and Mindy all the way to the more Bohemian names such as Asia, Austin, Boston, Savannaugh, Summer, Autumn, Rain, Race, North, Ocean or Apple.
Even though you ate my hamster, rabbit and rat
And I’m pretty sure you swallowed Twinkle – the neighbor’s cat
But snakes will be snakes
And you’re my best friend/boa constrictor “Jake”
So Happy Bar Mitzvah on your special day …..another Mike Copeland original
GCUniverse isn’t afraid to get specific and address niche markets. In fact, that is what the site is all about. Lesser known holidays now have their place such as Persian New Year, Diwali, Feast of St. Joseph, Festivus, Canadian Boxing Day, Teacher Appreciation Day, Talk like a Pirate Day and Ride Your Bike To Work Day to name a few. Unique occasions will now be marked in perpetuity when someone gets a card commemorating events such as obtaining an Eagle Scout designation, hitting a Hole in One, becoming a US Citizen, Graduating from boot camp, getting out of jail, making the cheer squad, becoming an on-line ordained minister or selling the most girl scout cookies. We can also give thanks to our coaches for anything from Lacrosse to Lamaze, religious training to personal life enrichment. The possibilities are limitless and if you can’t find what you’re looking for GCUniverse artists can create it at no additional charge, typically within 48 hours. Colors, names, relationship, subject matter all for $2.79 a card plus 44 cents postage with a real, honest to goodness stamp.
Today’s modern bride is a staple at GCUniverse with daily sales of cards asking and thanking members of their wedding party like Bridesmaids, Flower Girls, Readers, In-laws, Ushers, Ring Bearers and even Best Man and Maid of Honor.
“We are making it possible for people to send greetings that truly hit the mark and show the recipient that the sender really cared to find or create exactly the right card,” says Mindy. It’s empowering people to celebrate special, nontraditional moments and occasions in a very traditional way. With the trend of electronic communications this is never more appreciated. Ecards don’t cut it. Email and Facebook don’t scream “I care” either. However, receiving a special paper greeting card in your mailbox is I think a timeless delight.”
“I recently read an article that really shed some light on these changing times which will have a direct impact on our offerings. The article was about a generation of gay / lesbian couples who came out in the 70’s and are now becoming grandparents.” Mindy recounted. “Shoppers will undoubtedly be asking for cards for same sex couples for weddings, anniversaries, Valentine’s Day, Grandparents Day, not to mention Mother’s and Father’s day. Our collection of cards will grow to serve them all”. Similarly, with multiple births now commonplace, GCU has baby announcements, baby congratulations and birthday party invitations for twins, triplets, quads and more if you happen to know Kate Gosling (Kate Plus 8), Nadia Suleman, the Octo-mom or the Duggars. “Our collection of cards really journals the changing landscape of our lives individually and collectively around the world. We don’t lead cookie cutter lives anymore-” adds Mindy.
To the best two Moms in the world
Who have six little boys and three beautiful girls
Our house might seem at times crazy
And our surrogate dad a bit lazy
But who says families have to be perfect to work?
Happy Mother’s Day …a Mike Copeland Original
The Gaemi’s seem to be pioneering a revolutionary concept within the monstrous $7 Billion a year industry where three companies command a staggering 85% of the market share. “Our goal from day 1 was to revolutionize the age old paper greeting card industry. To bring it online and offer shoppers cards limited only by their imaginations and not by the shopkeepers’ shelf size. To date most of our sales and traffic come from natural search via Google and the like. It’s evident that shoppers are not finding what they want in the stores and go online to find unique and hard to find products.” When asked what is next for GCUniverse Mindy replied “We’ve had great success with our Birthday Calendar application which has 45 million users on Facebook and 150 thousand on the iPhone so we’ve set our sights on bringing GCUniverse cards to shoppers right at their fingertips via the iPhone. When coupled with our core competency of reminder services it just won’t get any easier than that.” While my greeting card career may not yet have a market, Greeting Card Universe shows all the signs of being an innovative company with (a universe of) unlimited potential.
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