How To Chose A Birthday Card

How and why we choose a particular birthday card depends on a large number of different variables and it is mostly for this reason that greetings card suppliers have to offer the level of choice that we as consumers are familiar with encountering when we visit a card retailer / supplier. Taking the simple birthday card as an example it’s possible to see the types of buying decisions and the degree and level of choice and variety that modern card buying consumers encounter.

Gender

Birthday cards can be gender specific e.g. from a male or female to a male or female friend or relation. This has a strong effect on the appearance, message, theme and tone of the card, and greetings card customers have to therefore make the choice if this is the appropriate route to go down, or whether to choose something more open, or based on humour or theme rather than gender.

Formal or Less Formal Relationships

Birthday card buyers may also pick cards which are specifically designs and labelled based on the relationship to them (and gender) of the recipient. These cards could also either use a formal or less formal name for that relationship, and there is a huge variety of these e.g. father, mother, mum, dad, brother , sister, grandfather, granddad, grandmother, nan, cousin, in-laws, niece, godfather, godmother, boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, husband, friend etc.

Age

Birthday cards based on age prove to be most popular for children / young people from their first to their 18^th birthdays, and to mark the many ‘special’ birthdays which follow e.g. 21^st, 30^th, 40^th, 50^th, 60^th, 70^th, 80^th, 85^th, and 90th, 95^th and even 100.

Themed

Themed cards are popular choices for birthdays and could for example incorporate sport e.g. football or popular characters e.g. Hello Kitty, Pepa Pig, Thomas the Tank Engine. Many cards with these themes however are more likely to be linked with certain younger age groups.

Funny

There is a large variety of funny birthday cards which could feature funny cartoons, photos, slogans, gags / jokes.

A Combination

In many cases the birthday card that is chosen incorporates a combination of elements.

Other Situations

Forgetting or not being able to send a birthday card on a person’s birthday is relatively common and as such card retailers usually stock some good belated birthday cards.

Choice

What these different variables boil down to is a large degree of choice for the greetings card buying customer. Greater distribution for greetings cards e.g. online has also meant more choice in for the consumer in how and where birthday cards are purchased.