Hallmark finds a hit with gift certificate and e-greeting card combination

Hallmark.com is pleased with the results of its efforts to sell gift certificates along with e-greetings cards, John Sullivan, senior vice president of Internet commerce for Hallmark, tells Internet Retailer.

Within 90 days of launch this fall, the combined gift certificate/e-mail greeting cards accounted for 10% of sales at the site. The gift certificates are administered through GiftCertificates.com, which Hallmark bought last year. That site sells gift certificates good at a number of online and offline retailers.

Sullivan says the combination answers a key question that Hallmark had as it saw the growth of the e-greeting cards sites: How does a retailer make money off the traffic to a free service? “This has been very attractive to us,” Sullivan says. “It has given us a way to monetize the e-card traffic.”