The greetings people send in 2026 carry habits from 2020 and 2021. Card shops shut in March 2020. Buyers moved online. Video calls replaced some visits. Mailed cards covered the rest. Six years later, those channels still run side by side.
What changed in 2020 and 2021
Zoom reported 10 million daily meeting participants in December 2019. By April 2020 the count passed 300 million. Group calls became the default for birthdays. Hosts sent links in place of printed invitations.
Card demand split two ways. Buyers ordered online while stores were closed. They also mailed more paper, because a screen felt thin for a death, a birth, or a hospital stay.
The Greeting Card Association puts US card sales at about 6.5 billion units a year. The category held near that level through the pandemic years.
Formats that carried over
- Recordable cards with a speaker and a 10 to 30 second message.
- Cards with a QR code that opens a video or a photo set.
- Print-on-demand singles, ordered one at a time.
- Digital cards sent by email, often paired with a mailed copy.
Mailing costs
A First-Class stamp cost 55 cents in 2020. The rate hit 78 cents in July 2025. USPS mail volume fell from 142.6 billion pieces in fiscal 2019 to 129.2 billion in fiscal 2020, then kept sliding. Buyers now weigh postage against a digital send.
What sellers see in 2026
Store traffic came back. Small shops report walk-in sales for birthdays and weddings. Bulk orders for sympathy and thank-you notes stay online. Gift bundles pair a card with a candle, seeds, or a mug.
Design follows the same split. Photo cards, plain type, and recycled stock sell in both channels.
Open questions
No public data set separates pandemic-era habits from later shifts. Unit sales for 2025 and 2026 are not published yet. Treat any single figure as an estimate.