Shoppers looking for the perfect greeting card with no luck can design their own now that Kodak has partnered with California-based Greeting Card Universe. Consumers can create custom cards online and then print them from Kodak photo kiosks in most Target stores throughout the nation.
To create the cards, customers visit greetingcarduniverse.com, search for the occasion, choose from more than 500,000 card designs, customize with their personal message and/or photo, place their order and pick it up at their local Target store in as little as an hour, according to a company press release.
There are card options in a variety of categories such as birthday, wedding, anniversary, holiday, thank you, and adoption, and include messages not found anywhere else, like "Congratulations on Your New Eyeglasses."
"Partnering with Kodak provides Greeting Card Universe the ability to offer consumers instant gratification through Kodak's in-store printing solutions rather than just the mail-to-home or mail-direct-to-recipient options," said Mindy Rosso, vice president of marketing and community manager of GreetingCardUniverse.com. "We understand the need for customized content as well as quick, automated fulfillment processes on orders when convenient same day pickup is required."
The net-to-retail order fulfillment path for photo merchandise is growing steadily in the U.S., according to InfoTrends, which reported that more than 21 percent of printed photo merchandise products, such as photo books, greeting cards, calendars and specialty prints, ordered online in 2011 were fulfilled in a retail store. That percentage is expected to approach 28 percent by 2015.
"Our partnership with Greeting Card Universe allows retailers to add value to their existing fleet of Kodak Picture Kiosks and Kodak Adaptive Picture Exchange systems, and enhance their offerings to consumers," said Kodak's Larry Trevarthen, vice president of worldwide marketing, retail systems solutions.
Read more about photo kiosks.
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