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Companies prefer snail mail for cards
Agnes Winarti , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Mon, 09/29/2008 10:51 AM | City
Digital greetings may enjoy unrivaled popularity these days, but many companies still prefer to mail their Idul Fitri cards.
Unicef Indonesia, for example, hopes to increase sales of its holiday cards by at least 30 percent this Ramadan. Last year it sold around 93,000 cards during the Muslim holy month, a 20 percent hike from the year before.
"There has been a significant growth in the number of new customers. Besides that, we have loyal buyers and supporters who tend to buy Unicef greeting cards every holiday season," Dike Marta, sales development officer for Unicef Indonesia, told The Jakarta Post.
Around seven out of the organization's 10 buyers are companies.
Randy Salim, public relations officer for the World Bank, said his organization still prefers greeting cards.
"We're going old school with the cards," he said.
"Lebaran is the only time of year the company really relies on the postal service," he added.
It's not just big charitable organizations that are seeing a rise in sales -- small ones, such as Gallery K'Qta, are receiving large card orders as well.
The nonprofit production house that makes recycled paper, cards, boxes and other handicrafts recently received an order for 800 greeting cards from an investment firm.
"One of our workers won the design competition held by the company, so we won the tender. All 15 employees dropped what they were doing to focus on the cards," Krisno said. The organization's employees are former street children.
Not everyone has been so fortunate with their cards.
The Lontar Foundation, a non-profit organization promoting Indonesian literature, told the Post it has not seen any change in sales volume.
It's also an uphill battle for streetside card sellers.
Mimi Mariam, who has been selling cards near the Jakarta Arts Center since 1975, has seen a decline in sales over the past five years. The last two years have been the hardest, she said.
"Five years ago, my husband sold around Rp 8 million worth of Idul Fitri cards during Ramadan. But now two weeks into Ramadan, I've only sold around 300 cards," she said.
She blamed the increasing popularity of text messages for the decline in card sales.
"A customer told me she only bought cards for her elders. For the rest, she just texts," the 56-year-old vendor said.
Many Jakartans increasingly opt for digital greetings.
"SMSing is more practical, period," Nissa Cita, a marketing officer at a human resources company in South Jakarta, told the Post on Sunday.
Nissa, who used to create her own greeting cards back in high school, said she used SMS and multimedia messaging services (MMS) for her closest friends, while e-mailing members of listservs to which she belongs.
Sending Lebaran greetings through SMS or by phone was cheaper, she added.
Legal counselor Monika Suhayati -- better known as Ninuk -- expressed a similar preference for SMS greetings.
"Conventional greeting cards are too much trouble, especially when it comes to finding and mailing them," Ninuk said.
According to cellular operator Telkomsel's corporate communication manager Suryo Hadiyanto, SMS traffic during Lebaran is twice its normal rate of 300 million messages a day.
Telecommunication networks are prepared for the uptick in messaging during the Lebaran holiday, with an average SMS sending time of less than three minutes, said Gatot S. Dewa Broto, public relations officer at the Information and Communications Ministry.
However, there are several potential congestion spots for senders along the telecommunications network, including along the busy roads of Jakarta-Cikampek, Nagrek, Merak and Indramayu, as quoted by the Antara news agency Sunday.
