By Randy Tucker
The Cincinnati Enquirer

With Christmas just around the corner, Tristate residents have begun flocking to drug stores, supermarkets and gift shops to buy holiday greeting cards for friends and loved ones.

And thanks to the ethnic and cultural differences that make America a true melting pot, consumers have more choices than ever in greeting cards that reflect the influences of our diverse population.

CARD SALES

Christmas remains the most popular card-giving holiday, accounting for more than 60 percent of all individual seasonal cards sold. The next most popular holidays in order are Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Easter and Father's Day. The greeting card industry generates more than $7.5 billion in retail sales from consumer purchases of more than 7 billion cards. Everyday card sales account for about 50 percent of the industry's sales, with seasonal cards contributing the other estimated 50 percent. Cards range in price from 38 cents to $10, with the average card retailing for $2 to $4. The two dominant greeting card publishers, Hallmark and American Greetings, represent some 90 percent of the category's sales. Source: Greeting Card Association

Today, there are cards for nearly every relationship, occasion, ethnicity, age group, gender and l interest.

The expanding Christmas card market includes cards for motorcycle enthusiasts, depicting Santa on a Harley, instead of a sleigh; dogs and cats with reindeer antlers to appeal to pet lovers; and even a meditating Santa for those who take a more holistic approach to the holidays.

But the fastest-growing segment of the Christmas card market are cards associated with Christmas but reflect cultural differences, such as cards for Ramadan, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, said Marianne McDermott, executive vice president of the Washington-based Greeting Card Association.

"Kwanzaa cards, for example, have grown every year since they were introduced, and they really just appeared on the market about five or six years ago,'' McDermott said. "These cards are growing at such a fantastic rate because the population is growing and becoming more ethnically diverse, and people are looking for cards that relate to them and the people they're sending them to.''

Pam Danziger of Unity Marketing, a market research firm that tracks the spending patterns of different demographic groups, said the shift to more ethnic cards has helped revive the estimated $7 billion greeting-card industry, which has seen stagnant to slightly down sales for the past several years.

"Your talking about family centered populations that spend a lot of money on each other during the holidays, including buying greeting cards,'' Danzinger said. "But the generic 'Happy New Year' and 'Merry Christmas' greetings have little appeal for people from different cultural backgrounds.''

Even people who have relied on more traditional cards in the past are searching for something new, said Matthew Garon, store manager at M. Hopple & Co. card shop downtown.

"We probably have a broader variety of Christmas cards now than ever before because we have gone where the demand has taken us,'' Garon said. "We sell to a very eclectic mix of people."

Mary Gergine, who lives and works downtown, is one of those customers.

She was shopping for Christmas cards Friday afternoon at Hopple.

"I used to buy a box of Christmas cards with angels or snowflakes on them and just send the same card to everybody,'' Gergine said. "But that just seems so boring and impersonal to me now. I'll probably get five or six different types of cards, and then go down my list and decide which types of cards suit each person.''

To meet the demand, manufacturers are turning to attachments and adornments, cards that double as tree ornaments, pop-up cards and even cards that enclose gifts.

E-mail rtucker@enquirer.com