Article
Customized greeting cards personally crafted by kiosks
Sending a birthday or Christmas card can be a daunting task. You go through each card that has an interesting illustration only to open it up and find the actual "greeting" rather cheesy or inappropriate. Card Isle is attempting to fix this issue with a self-service kiosk that lets users create customized greeting card.
July 14, 2015 by Bradley Cooper — Editor, ATM Marketplace & Food Truck Operator
Sending a birthday or Christmas card can be a daunting task. You go through each card that has an interesting illustration only to open it up and find the actual "greeting" rather cheesy or inappropriate. One simple way to address this problem is to enable customization. Customization is a trend that is taking every market by storm, including the retail and restaurant market. According to a recent panel at ICX2015, 75 percent of all orders at Taco Bell are customized. Card Isle is attempting to address this customization need with a self-service kiosk.
Card Isle provides customizable greeting cards, where users can choose or create their own text. They can also choose from a variety of artwork, including some from local artists. Card Isle began as the class project of three engineering students at Virginia Tech, according to co-founder and CMO Stephen Sabo.
"We built an early prototype in summer 2013 and stuck it in a grocery store," Sabo said. Since then, Card Isle has deployed kiosks in 10 locations in total, and plans to deploy 50 to 60 additional kiosks in the future. The company plans to deploy the kiosks at several types of locations, including airports, hotels and retailers.
Sabo said that Card Isle's goal is to address the retail problems of selling greeting cards. For example, greeting cards are difficult to keep well stocked, particularly during peak seasons. "It's usually unorganized during holiday season, and you are usually running out of popular cards," Sabo said. Another problem is simply saving customers' time and removing frustration. Customers might spend a long time looking for a card and ultimately walk away disappointed due to lackluster card images or text.
"We decouple the prose on the inside and the picture," Sabo said. "Being a digital printing platform, we can individualize the content." In addition, users can take a selfie using the kiosk and add it to a greeting card.
Sabo said the company is also working on developing an online ordering option that would allow users to make their cards and pick them up from a kiosk.
The average price for cards is $2.95. The kiosks are made from wood and currently only accept debit and credit cards as payment. Watch the video below to see the kiosk in action.
Card Isle Greeting Card Kiosks from Card Isle on Vimeo.
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