Cell phones, texting spell demise of card store
A la Card closing after 28 years at Monmouth Mall
BY GLORIA STRAVELLI
Staff Writer

Dalton Alexander (rear), Madeleine Alexander (l-r), Mirella Ovanesian and Shant Alexander represent three generations involved in running A la Card fro the past 28 years. Prior to closing at the end of the month, the inventory is selling at discounts up to 50 percent.

If there were a card that summed up the plight of the shrinking greeting card market, it might read something like:

Cards are passé,

Text messages, cool

For keeping in touch,

Blackberries rule

Dalton Alexander, who is presiding over the final days of a family-run greeting card store, agrees.

“Anyone in their 20s is talking on a cell phone or computer. Communication is so accessible and instant,” said Alexander, proprietor of the A la Card store at the Monmouth Mall, where sales of cards are down by 50 percent. “It’s a challenge.”

According to Alexander, the card store, which opened in 1978, is one of the longest-running independently owned tenants at the mall on Route 35 in Eatontown, but the business is no longer viable.

CHRISKELLY staff

It will close at the end of the month, done in by technology, competition from big box stores and, Alexander said, a basic change in consumer buying patterns.

His opinion is backed up by marketing studies of the greeting card industry that cite the pervasiveness of new communication technologies like instant messaging.

According to research by Unity Marketing reported in the online ASD/AMD Market Watch E-newsletter, sales of greeting cards continue to decline because greeting cards are no longer relevant to many consumers.

Quoted on the Web site, Unity Marketing’s president said, “About half of the greeting card market today is turned off to the traditional idea of greeting cards. These consumers are ready, eager and willing to accept a new alternative.”

Until A la Card closes later this month, prices on its entire inventory are reduced by 25 percent, and Christmas ornaments and Halloween decorations are discounted at 50 percent. In addition to a selection of some 5,000 greeting cards, Alexander said A la Card also carries collectibles including Precious Moments, Cat’s Meow Village, Charming Tails, Just the Right Shoe and East Coast lighthouse replicas.

Alexander’s father-in-law, Victor Ovanesian, took over operation of what was then Pickwick Village on the upper level of Monmouth Mall in 1978. Alexander started dating Ovanesian’s daughter Madeleine when he went to work at the store in 1980.

Alexander was a freelancer working in the film production industry when his father-in-law died unexpectedly in 1984, and he and his wife returned to the business to help his mother-in-law to keep the card store going.

“We were in business,” he said of the abrupt change of circumstance. “We had virtually no training. We all knew how to do some things, but he was doing all the buying, bookkeeping. It was quite literally going through papers and sorting through things.”

According to Alexander, the card store’s heyday was during the 1980s.

“Business was very good then. At that point, the mall was the big player in Monmouth County,” he said. “There was no Grove [on Route 35 in Shrewsbury], no Freehold [Raceway] Mall, not a strip center every half-mile along Route 35. It was just the predominant game in town.

“Since then, the retail market has been overbuilt and diluted.”

One of three card stores in the mall, A la Card had carved out its own niche, Alexander said.

“Our supplier of cards was Carlton, and we had a lot of alternative cards,” he said. “Also, given the fact that we’re an individual store, we buy what we think is going to sell. It was more individual, more tuned to the local market.

“We’ve been hearing a lot from our customers that they always could find something here.

“The business thrived for a lot of years,” he said. “It was profitable, we made a living. The other thing that’s been a big plus is that, being a family business, we’ve spent more time here and our kids have worked here. So, we have had three generations working at the business.

“Customers tell us they regret we’re closing,” he said. “It’s a family business, so for 20 years they’ve seen the same people. We feel the same way, and there are not many family businesses coming down the line.

“But the last four years, the card industry … fewer cards were sold, and the audience buying cards is an older one.

“Another thing that shifted drastically was that we used to sell an amazing amount of Christmas wrap. But prices kept going up and we started featuring gift bags. People find them more convenient than fiddling with scissors and tape. People who did want to wrap might not want to pay $8 a roll for paper. We’re fighting prices for wrap sold at dollar stores and wholesale clubs, so we’re losing out on price.

“Another thing that we don’t sell nearly as much of is boxed Christmas cards, for similar reasons. That’s even reflected in the fact that the wholesale companies don’t publish as many designs as they once did.”

As for collectibles, Alexander said many customers have reached the saturation point.

“Customers were saying, ‘Where will I put another?’ ” he said. “About five, six years ago the entire collectible market really shrank. Last year, on the level above us, Weston’s closed; they were much more into collectibles. We shifted more toward gifts.”

Despite the fact that customers on average were spending more per transaction, Alexander said that over the past four to five years, foot traffic at the mall has decreased and business began to fall off.

“Every year, there’s been a decline in sales and traffic, not a decline in spending. The individual transactions have remained steadily on the increase, just fewer and fewer bodies in the mall in general,” said Dalton, as he sat on a bench within view of the Sam Goody’s music store that is also closing.

From a perspective of 28 years, Alexander spoke of tangible and intangible changes that contributed to the demise of the long-running card store.

“Lots of things are changing,” he said. “Fifteen or 20 years ago, two days before Christmas the escalators were wall to wall. For the bulk of the time, the mall had the traffic. Now we’re seeing fewer people.

“Also, I think in general, at least in New Jersey, the economy is not nearly as rosy as they claim it to be,” he said. “And I think since 2001 there are just too many big anxiety-causing issues.

“You go back 20 years, in the 1980s, looking back now they were good times. Retail was recreational; everybody was out shopping. Now, nobody knows what’s happening six months from now, and that puts a damper on things.

“We don’t feel like we’ve failed,” he said. “A lot has happened all around us. People still need [picture] frames, but they are shopping more at Target and Wal-Mart. A lot of small businesses are being affected.

“We’re feeling the backlash from relentless pressure on price. It’s instilled in consumers’ heads, but price isn’t everything,” Dalton said.