BLACKSBURG, Va. -- A company trying to shake up the greeting card business has inked a deal with a handful of regional 7-Eleven convenience stores that the small company’s founders say will considerably expand the scope of people who buy its products, reported The Roanoke Times.
Card Isle, founded by three Virginia Tech engineering students, crafted agreements that allowed it to place greeting card kiosks in five 7-Eleven stores in Blacksburg, Radford and Roanoke, Va.
It now has placed about 20 units.
Card Isle offers a more efficient way of selling the cards. The founders have said the kiosks negate the need for stores to dedicate entire aisles to pre-designed cards.
Not needing an aisle was one of the points that attracted the 7-Eleven stores to the deal, Card Isle co-founder Adam Donato told the newspaper.
Donato said he and the team aimed for convenience when they placed kiosks inside corporate campuses, airports and health facilities. A 7-Eleven store, he said, opens up the product to a wider audience.
Customers walk up to a kiosk, design their cards on the screen, pay the machine and print the card out. The kiosks allow buyers to write their own messages and to choose from several thousand works of art by individual artists.
Card Isle is slated to evolve its service again, said the report, with plans to allow buyers to design and place orders at cardisle.com and then use a code to pick up the cards from the kiosks.
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