Greeting cards and wrapping paper bought mainly by women

If we were to draw a pen portrait of an average greeting cards buyer, she would be older, relatively traditional woman from the Midwest or South who is more likely to be retired or perform home duties. Although many who buy greeting cards also buy wrapping paper, the typical gift wrapping paper buyer would be middle aged and slightly more affluent. Both greeting card and wrapper paper buyers have a tendency to love bargains and shopping, agreeing with statements such as “I go out of my way in search of a bargain” (76% of wrapping paper buyers and 73% of greeting card buyers) and “I enjoy grocery shopping” (68% of wrapping paper buyers and 64% of greeting card buyers).

Wrapping paper and greeting card buyers feel financially stable and are more optimistic about the US economy than other Americans – they are more likely to believe “The American economy appears to be improving” and “I feel financially stable at the moment”.


Chart 1: Incidence of greeting card and wrapping paper buyers


Source: Roy Morgan profile survey April 2011 n= 2,181.


Greeting card and wrapping paper buyers are particularly focused on their homes rather than their careers. Amongst greeting card buyers, 62% “love to cook”, 42% “can’t relax until I know the house is clean and tidy” and only 16% are “more interested in my job than my house”. With wrapping paper buyers, 67% “love to cook”, 53% “keep up-to-date with new ideas to improve my home”, 52% “can’t relax until I know the house is clean and tidy” and only 15% say that they are “more interested in my job than my house”.

As greeting card and wrapping paper buyers are interested in their homes and homemaking activities, it is not surprising that they are above average readers of such magazine genres as TV magazines, House & Garden, General Interest, Newspaper Supplements, Women’s Lifestyles, Health and Family, Travel and Food and Entertainment. For TV, their preference runs to TV home shows, soaps and news shows – in fact, they are above average for most TV shows except business, sci-fi, lifestyle and sport shows for the greeting card buyer and business, quiz or game shows and talk shows for the gift wrapping buyer.

Special analysis of the Roy Morgan household panel shows that Hallmark and American Greeting cards are the most purchased brand of greeting cards. In the 2010 Christmas holiday season, 36% of all households that purchased greeting cards bought Hallmark cards and 21% bought American Greeting cards. Over 50% of households (54%) bought store branded wrapping paper, followed by Hallmark (18%) and American Greeting (11%).


Chart 2: Most popular brands of greetings cards and gift wrapping paper


Source: Roy Morgan consumer panel survey, November/December 2010, n = 455 (greeting cards), n = 196 (gift wrapping paper).


Around Christmas, price is a key factor in deciding which wrapping paper to buy with 36% citing it as the main reason they bought that brand of wrapping paper and another 9% saying that value for money was the main reason. Most wrapping paper is bought at a discount store – 28% of households purchased their wrapping paper at a dollar/variety store, 21% from Wal-Mart and 14% from another type of discount store, such as Kmart or Target.

This is in contrast to greeting cards where price is not a major consideration, with only 10% of households’ main reason for buying the card because of its price. The major reasons for buying cards is it is needed for the occasion (49%), the card’s message or words (25%) and the style design of the card (11%). 32% of all greeting cards are bought for another family member, while 17% are bought for friends.


Portia Morgan, VP Business Development, at Roy Morgan Research, says:

“At Christmas time, the market for greeting cards and wrapping paper are different. Households shopping for greeting cards are focused on the brand and quality of the card’s content, while households buying wrapping paper are price sensitive and happy to settle for the store brand from discount stores.”

These findings are just the latest in a series of special consumer profiles from Roy Morgan Research. This survey was conducted with 2,181 Americans in April 2011. The household purchasing data is sourced from the Roy Morgan consumer panel of 2,124 Americans households in November - December 2010. The Roy Morgan American consumer panel has tracked the same household's purchases since 2005.

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