A woman thinks Hallmark should be ‘counting their days’ after she noticed a 2024 card was smaller and more expensive than a 2023 card.
Katie Turner posted photos on TikTok of two Hallmark birthday cards her father had purchased, suggesting the card may have been part of shrinkflation — the process of reducing the size of a product while keeping the price the same.
“I don’t know what’s worse: my dad giving my mom the same birthday card two years in a row or Hallmark making the card smaller and raising the price,” Turner captioned the first photo.
The student placed the products side by side and showed that the card cost $6.99 this year, while it will be worth $6.59 in 2023.
The TikTokker’s father then allegedly asked her how he remembered the price of a ticket he bought a year ago.
Katie Turner posted photos on TikTok of two Hallmark birthday cards her father bought, suggesting the card may have been part of the shrinkflation
According to the Greeting Card Association, the greeting card market has changed in recent years, despite the fact that 6.5 billion American consumers buy at least one each year.
Turner did not say where her father bought the birthday cards, but similar products cost between $1.00 and $20.00 on Hallmark’s website.
Global Industry Analysts Inc. last year concluded that the global greeting card market would be worth $15.9 billion in 2022.
However, they also concluded that this amount is expected to drop to around $13.6 billion by 2027.
“The global greeting cards market is significantly impacted by changing consumer values, ideas, shifting demographics and evolving technology,” the company wrote in a press release.
‘The new generation, which is very tech-savvy, prefers e-cards over physical greeting cards. The impact of this on the greeting card industry is clearly noticeable.’
According to the US CBS, online sales of greeting cards are expected to be worth $2.6 billion this year, up from 2023. IBISWorld.
One reason for this increase is the popularity of holidays such as Christmas and Valentine’s Day.
Turner did not disclose where her father purchased the birthday cards, but similar products cost between $1.00 and $20.00 on Hallmark’s website
It appears that shrinkage is less noticeable with cards than with products like Doritos and Tampax tampons.
It was a major reason behind the price increase of Card Factory products in 2022, which continued throughout the year.
While the company hasn’t said much about what it’s been doing with its cards in recent years, several alleged Hallmark employees wrote that shrinkflation was indeed taking place.
“I work at Hallmark and we are in the midst of a shrinking card epidemic right now. They need to stop,” wrote one commenter.
Another TikToker wrote, “I don’t buy cards anymore because for $7.00 to $10.00 I can give them a whole extra gift.”
Others have suggested ideas for what Turner and her family could do instead, such as buying a card from another store or making one themselves.
More than one TikTok user claimed to work at a Hallmark store and wrote that the company was allegedly shrinkflationary
Turner, who read a comment from someone claiming that Trader Joe’s cards cost 99 cents, wrote that she would go buy her cards there.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Hallmark for comment.