Cardciety, formed as an LLC in February 2022, is a greeting card company based out of Waldorf, Maryland. We have two facets to our business: (1) we design and create premium greeting cards specifically for historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and (2) we offer subscription packages for those consumers that tend to forget or wait until the last minute to purchase greeting cards for their loved ones. We believe these two services differentiates us from the market, which makes us a market changer.
When we design a card, every decision we make is rooted in how it will allow us to distinguish ourselves from other major players in the market while staying true to our brand. HBCUs are unique and our cards should be a reflection of that. The work they do and the spaces they create for students is inspirational, and we want to help continue the legacy of these historic institutions. Currently we are licensed to use the Florida A&M University trademarks and we are working on two additional schools (Hampton University and Morgan State University).
Our subscriptions are for those who tend to forget or wait until the last minute to purchase a card for their loved ones, or those who are really busy and cannot squeeze in a trip to the local store. Our subscription service is simple: the customer tells us the occasion and the intended recipient and Cardciety selects a card and mails it on behalf of the customer. Just like our HBCU card line, we ensure every card we select is of high quality. We buy from other small, independently owned businesses which ensures that our cards are one-of-a-kind and is something that will be cherished for years to come.
As Cardciety currently stands, there are two part-time members: Paralee Massie-Armstrong and Dena Raye Walk. Paralee, our Founder & CEO, has nearly 12 years of pension industry experience in both the private and public sector in both internal and client-facing roles. Dena Raye Walk will serve as a sales manager and marketing lead. She has over 5 years’ experience dealing with the public and consumer goods.
Cardciety has been in operation for close to one year and we realized that we do not know everything. As such, we recognize that we must evolve . Another company with more assets could begin to make cards as well. To stand out, we really need to understand what makes Cardciety different and demonstrate a solution to a problem.
HBCU Cards
For decades, Black consumers have been regularly overlooked by companies that do not seem them as a demographic worth targeting. Despite being 13.4 percent of the US population, they spend more than $1 trillion a year on goods and services. However, it seems that greeting card companies have forgotten about HBCUs; or those that are created for African Americans tend to put everyone in a box. The cards lack ingenuity, creativity; and quite frankly, are basic. Since creating something timeless and unique is extremely important to us, we made sure that our cards have features that people will not only be able to see but feel. Our cards are embossed, have 3-dimensional aspects and feature pop-up attributes inside the card.
What is exciting is that the spotlight is back on HBCUs. With boosts from famous graduates such as Vice President Kamala Harris, an alumna of Howard University, and the height of the Black Lives Matter movement during the pandemic, we have seen an influx of minority students who chose black schools over private/public white institutions (PWI). The market has already been reminded of the importance of HBCUs and how relevant they are to society.
Subscription Service
A survey by SKIM indicated that 78 percent of consumers sign up for subscriptions to make their life easier and 53 percent do so to avoid a trip to the store. With, 83% of shoppers say that convenience is a big priority when considering a subscription, we know our subscription-based service fills these gaps. We know that with all the complexities in life, it is necessary to make things easier and with our service, it is easy for a consumer to get what they want and need without the hassle of going to the store and selecting from thousands of cards. We ensure cards are timely for on-time delivery, so our customers even avoid a trip to the post office. We are striving to make sincerity simple.
Since HBCUs and subscription services aren’t a new concept, our responsibility is to showcase our products and illustrate that what we provide fills a need.
Cardciety is still very new and our goal is to build great relationships with college book stores across the country for our HBCU cards as well as using e-commerce so that we can properly scale our business and getting Cardciety to where we want it to be. We set up our website in December 2022, and thus far, we have had 750+ visitors to our website.
We see Cardciety in five years not just as a physical greeting card company, we see ourselves expanding into virtual cards, graduation announcements and providing gifting services for our subscription services. We want HBCUs and companies to join forces with us not just for the products and services we provide, but for what Cardciety represents – Sincerity as a Service, representation, and, of course, creating outstanding products.
We are looking for a $50,000 investment. We will spend $7,500 on manufacturing: by buying in bulk, we will be able to keep the cost of goods down. We will spend $20,000 on marketing - particularly Google ads, Facebook and Instagram campaigns, and other organic opportunities. $10,000 will go towards generating new retail relationships, $5,000 will be spent on upfront royalty and licensing fees, $2,000 new product and lifetime photography, $2,000 will go towards website improvement, and $3,500 will go towards writing scholarships for our cards.
We want to WIN and we define that as growing this company and into an organization that people would be proud of, excited to be a part of and make a difference. We are ready and willing to get to work with a partner that shares our values, vision, mission and wants to work with hard-working, enthusiastic people that want to add value and make money doing it.