Christmas cards

E-Christmas cards! Sent from people who have left it too late to send out Christmas cards on card? Sent by people who are concerned for the planets resources?

Stephen Adams from a UK Newspaper (The Telegraph), writes:

The number of festive e-cards being sent is growing by more than 200 per cent a year, according to one estimate, while the number of paper cards is static. An increasing number of companies are sending email-based cards as the recession bites, with the Royal Opera House even doing so this year.

Many people are also keen to shave a few pounds off their Christmas budgets this year said Sam Heaton, managing director of Britain's biggest electronic cards firm, ecards.co.uk
He said: "Last December we sent 1,362,000 e-cards and year-on-year we are probably increasing at about 200 to 250 per cent." He commented: "I think e-cards will have an impact on paper card sales. It's not cheap to send them. "I don't think people have got the money this year. People need to save money and this is a really easy way to do it."

The number his company sends is still dwarfed by the 750 million that the Royal Mail says it delivers every year. But Mr Heaton pointed out that his company was a "minnow" compared to American e-card firms. He estimated 123 Greetings - the biggest e-card firm in the world - could send out "10 or 20 million a day" during Christmas.

Often criticised for being tacky and impersonal, e-card companies are launching a raft of more sophisticated versions in which the sender can embed pictures of themselves or video content.
Mr Heaton said: "That will give them a new dimension." Ray Sangster of Flip Video, a mini-camcorder about the size of an iPhone, agreed with Mr Heaton's prediction that paper card sales would fall. He said: "Whilst it is still of course special to receive a Christmas card, the impact a personal video message from a granddaughter or grandson has on the recipient can't be underestimated."