Ethnic selections season greeting cards

Discount Store News, April 1, 1996 by Laura Liebeck

Nationwide DSN Report - The micromarketing craze enveloping the discount store industry has touched nearly every department in the store - including greeting cards.

While retailers are still far from offering full multilingual/multiethnic card selections in everyday cards, ethnic neighborhoods are increasingly being served with product that appeals to a growing customer base.

There is no question in our minds that over time the demographics of our customers are changing and that we'll have to become more focused," said Dave Covitz, vp, gmm, hard lines at Ames. "Our experience [so far] in terms of sell-through is very good. It [ethnic greeting cards] satisfies our customers, needs and builds a customer loyalty, and it makes us a little more unique compared to the competition."

In the discount store industry, ethnic greeting cards are largely viewed as programs that serve African-American, Spanish-speaking and Jewish customers. While cards serving Asian consumers are in short supply, they are cropping up in a few stores across the nation. And although there is no wide-scale program serving the various ethnic groups within this broad category, greeting card companies are beginning to look at how they can serve this large and ethnically diverse group. Hallmark/Ambassador will probably begin testing a program later this year that addresses some of these consumers. American Greetings already offers cards celebrating the Chinese new year. Ethnically rich communities usually have selections of cards that meet the needs of such European groups as Polish, German and Italian consumers.

The existence of any ethnic program and the percentage of space dedicated to those programs are largely determined by extensive demographic profiles undertaken by the greeting card companies. However, it is then up to the retailers to determine how much space within their card programs to dedicate to ethnic lines. That is done on a store-by-store basis as part of their micromarketing programs. Determining exactly how much product to put on the shelf can sometimes amount to a guessing game. In the case of Spanish-speaking customers, for example, fully assimilated and English-speaking customers often do not purchase cards written in Spanish at all, even though they may be loyal card purchasers and dedicated store shoppers. The greeting card companies have found that most Spanish language cards are purchased by people who send them to primarily Spanish-speaking relatives in the United States or in their home country. For non-spanish speaking purchasers, American Greetings, La Flor cards feature the sentiment in English on the back of each card.

Shopper loyalty is an important function in ethnic card programs. For example, ethnic consumers purchase fewer greeting cards than do non-minority shoppers, noted Jose Martinez, product manager for ethnic lines at American Greetings. But lower greeting card sales doesn't have anything to do with purchases of gift wrap, party supplies or other ethnic merchandise - like hair care, cosmetics, food, apparel or music - which are equally as important to these customers.

"The most important thing about ethnic marketing is that everyone in an ethnic group buys both ethnic and non-ethnic cards. You cannot look only at the sale of ethnic programs. You need to know the customer. If a retailer makes a statement, that statement says something to the consumer and then you get customer loyalty," Martinez said.

Sandy Colby, senior vice president, general merchandise manager for Bradlees, agrees. "It is extremely important to serve the customer, whatever the racial makeup of that customer. A card purchase is not necessarily planned. We want them [shoppers] to pick up their card and whatever else they came into the store to buy."

As a result, both retailers and greeting card companies are working on cross-merchandising opportunities across various ethnic lines to build and ensure customer loyalty storewide.

For example, last year Kmart offered a $1 off coupon on any ethnic hair care product with the purchase of two Mahogany greeting cards for African-Americans by Hallmark/Ambassador. The last two holiday seasons, Ames held cross-merchandising promotions that enabled shoppers to win ethnic dolls by Imani and ethnic cosmetics, Covitz said. Even a fashion show was part of the latest program.

Sangamon, a greeting card manufacturer, has created special outpost displays for use during major selling seasons to position the ethnic cards near products of interest to Spanish-speaking or African-American consumers, said Tom Tisdale, executive vp. In addition, Sangamon created a rolling fixture that can move throughout the store and holds cards and gift bags.

The biggest foray into cross-merchandising is the branding program now underway at Hallmark/Ambassador. Its 9-year-old Mahogany program is now branching out beyond the greeting card market and into other culturally compatible items. According to Mark Evans, marketing manager, and Valencia Scott, marketing strategist, Mahogany is being positioned as a stand-alone brand. The line of 900 greeting cards is a launching point. Outside sales personnel are already employed to expand distribution channels.