28-29_GF.qxp_Layout 1 18/05/2023 15:53 Page 2
cardsharp
Talkin’ About
My Generation There was a feeling a decade ago, recalled Cardsharp, that the Millennials the generation that were children or teenagers in 2000 - would eschew greeting card sending. This was the first generation that had been brought up in the shadow of the internet and hence would have no interest in giving someone a piece of board with a picture and a handwritten message inside. But like so many other predictions that were made about this generation, this has thankfully for us, proved very wrong.
It was first the Baby Boomers and then Generation X that really powered the rise and rise of greeting card sending in the 1980s, 1990s and then the 2000s. Millennials, it was thought, would only be interested in all things digital and that’s what it looked like post the financial crash of 2009. That subsequent period saw the rise of Uber, Facebook, Twitter, crypto currency, Deliveroo, WeWork and Airbnb, as well as Moonpig and Funky Pigeon in our sector, all embraced initially with relish by the majority of Millennials. But just look at what has happened post-Covid. Uber is no cheaper than your average minicab now the investment cash has run out, (that’s even if you can get one these days). WeWork and Airbnb have become just modern-day letting agencies.
No Millennials will go near Facebook now and it is populated primarily by the over fifties. Twitter is in financial meltdown, haemorrhaging both advertisers and users. The charges for Deliveroo are apparently nearly as expensive as the takeaways they deliver, and even then, they still can’t turn over a profit. Crypto has shown to be nothing more than an elaborate Ponzi scheme. How those millennial dreams have disappointed.
Top: The Who brought out My Generation in 1965…things have moved on since then. Above: Deliveroo and Uber have not continued to grow as predicted. Left: A stereotypical scene of a group of Millennials, logged on to technology.
28 PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
Even in culture, Millennials have not really made much of a mark. Boomers had hippies and glam rock. Gen X had punk and new romantics and then at the end grunge. Cardsharp supposes you could say the cliched style that typifies Millennials would be the Hipster, but this was hardly a national movement, spreading sporadically from its heartland in the Borough of Hackney in London. And like the other supposedly iconic new millennial developments that were going to disrupt an industry completely, online greeting card sales have failed to dominate the greeting card market as was predicted when sales were growing like topsy during Covid. Estimates vary but Cardsharp reckons the percentage of online sales in the market by value is still under 20% and much less in volume. Of course, there was a huge sales spike in lockdown when the high street was closed, but since then things seem to have reverted to more or less to the old pattern. Certainly, reflects Cardsharp, the prediction that online print on demand sales would increase exponentially year on year