Facebook reminded me of a photo I posted last January. I was getting Chinese New Year cards to mail to family and friends. Funnily enough, the cards were printed by Hallmark – an unmistakably American company. Perhaps they just change what they print on the same red paper. But the cards weren’t easy to find. I had to visit three Loblaws and two Walmarts to gather enough cards to mail. Then, I had to drive to the post office to get them mailed.
That got me thinking. What if I could send physical greeting cards without needing to go through the trouble of sending a greeting card?
Canada Post runs a one-stop circulation service for commercial advertising that offers to print and mail the flyers all for one price. All the client company needs to do is send the post office the digital file of the flyer they want to be mailed out and the postal codes they want it mailed to. Why can’t they do the same service for greeting cards?
If I wanted to mail my cousin in Vancouver a Chinese New Year card today, I’d have to go find a card I liked, visit the post office, and the delivery process by air would lead to massive amounts of carbon emissions for a single piece of paper. But all that could be eliminated if I could do the process online and have it delivered locally.
Imagine if I could log on to my Canada Post account, select a card design, type in a greeting, attach a pdf signature to it, tell them where to send it, and just click “send.” Then, a printer in Vancouver would produce the customized card the next day and have it delivered locally the day after. Canada Post could charge postage, the price of the card and envelope, and a $5 premium for convenience. They would make a killing!
Not only would they earn profit from the premium, but they would also charge the same postage while delivering a much shorter distance and earn profit from the $10 greeting card that costs nearly in material costs – paper is super cheap.
I could also set up a recurring list of recipients for every major festive date in advance, so I don’t have to go through the trouble of remembering who I need to send what to when. The system can just send me a reminder a month in advance of Chinese New Year or Christmas or whatever asking me “are these still the people you want to send a card to?” and “is this still your credit card number?” before letting me customize the design and message for each person and clicking “send all.”
The post office could even offer a discount for sending greeting cards early to alleviate demand on festive weeks. It probably won’t save the post office from being unprofitable, but it might just make them last a little while longer.
