Electronic Messaging and the Decline in Greeting Card Business

By

Obododimma Oha

Greeting, a phatic communion in which the main goal is to service and maintain relationship, could be turned to a commodity. Indeed, celebrations or communal feasts do commodify it often. That also means more money, more gain, for dealers of such. In fact, some clever fellows may discover the prospect of making gain through it and so go temporarily into it. Lovers of homemade or customised cards could also amplify the boom. But with the growth in electronic messaging, each holder of an android phone and who is willing to learn navigational skills, changes the game in the card business, causing a decline and exit of some ad hoc soldiers of fortune.

The soldiers of fortune and seasonal dealers on these cards need to be pitied. They have been pushed out of business. But every business person should be ready to move on, or know where and how to move on. The ups and down will surely come. One has to have the heart and be ready to take risks. Let us say the commodification of "Hello" is a risk in the hands of technology. So, one in that business has to tighten the belt. We know that some in that business but constrained by technology have still found ways of tempting people to buy online cards. The mere fact that one can see one's name on the card is just one of such temptations. And falling to the tempting appears enjoyable!

Happy Christmas and happy Sallah and happy New Year, even if these are not "happy" at all and my android phone does not respect copyright. It is a matter of copying and pasting, with little or no editing. One with an android phone is nowhere and everywhere, with everyone and with no one. So, yours is mine and ours belongs to no one. Happy New Year, even if there nothing "new" in the year in spite of deafening fireworks in conversation and cannons that prevent one from worrying about Boko Haram invasion. Happy New Year to electronic card that has thrown someone out of business.

But, of course, electronic culture and technology have also served many well on seasons and card giving. It is not just that many in distant places can be conveniently greeted, some greetings can be personalised and customized to  suit persons and their statuses. So, one is compelled to greet information tech too. You "do well" for people like me who do not have to spend money buying many cards for many people!

This year, let us visit homemade cards to read their faces. We may find something there! I don't like how this decline has affected them, chasing them into uncomfortable silence. Why are not talking? One used to pay extra to have them, hoping that receivers would be full of appreciation and display the cards visibly in the sitting room. Is the define affecting them, too?

But is greeting declining, too? Do we have to carry sacks and rake together the greetings, if we can no longer open our mouths and share pleasantries and service relationship?

But will information tech go free after causing problems for greeting card business? No at all! In the first place, one has got several greetings in a short while and one's memory space is in trouble! Also, one has to keep deleting messages!

A greeting clashes with an important message; they could embrace and quarrel the next minute on that phone, annoying or confusing the user!  In that respect, you also have seasons of electronic greeting trouble, and greetings could stand on or block the ways of holidaying citizens, the same way that great traffic of people during these festivals make the use of the road a miserable thing!

Sorry, greeting card business. Technology has touched you and you have changed, not for the best. You are neither here nor there!