I’ve bought a couple of greeting cards in the past few days and have noticed a trend of stamping all the envelopes that come with the cards with “add extra postage” in the upper right corner. Not only should the idea be obvious, and regular letter envelopes (so far as I know) don’t seem to need this directive, isn’t it just tacky to have on an envelope you’re likely to give someone by hand? Why does it seem one can no longer find a card envelope without this disclaimer? Am I the only one?
Are those irregular-sized envelopes? The only time I’ve seen the “add extra postage” in the corner was when I bought square cards or larger-than-usual cards.
One was standard rectangular greeting card size, one was square and about as wide as the rectangular one.
People are stupid. It’s to tell them to ADD EXTRA POSTAGE. I’m not sure exactly why you’d find it tacky. You could always cover it with a sticker or bow if you’re hand delivering it.
Squares do cost more to send.
I worked at a museum shop that sold square christmas cards.
They did not inform people that they cost extra to send.
We had to deal with a lot of angry customers and it was not fun.
I think card companies do it to cover themselves.
And its much easier to have ALL envelopes stamped rather than a select few.
In case it’s not clear, they do mean extra postage. IIRC, square cards cost an additional 12¢ on top of the regular postage. The reason for this I heard is that because they’re not rectangular, they’re tougher to sort (do they have automated sorting machines?) and need to be handled by hand more during the delivery process. You’re paying more for that additional labor. I don’t know if that’s true, though.
As for a solution, all I can think of is to not buy nonstandard-sized greeting cards. Standard-sized greeting card envelopes don’t have an ‘add extra postage’ box. Or at least they shouldn’t, as they don’t require extra postage. Like I said, I’ve only seen the box on nonstandard-sized envelopes.
I suppose if you really want unmarked envelopes for your greeting cards, you could go to a stationery shop and buy plain envelopes. Two problems with this: you’d have to send a lot of cards to justify the cost, and not every card you send will fit in those envelopes. I guess it’s a matter of how important unmarked envelopes are to you.
Is it tacky to have the postage box on the envelope? No, because I think people are just as (if not more) likely to send a greeting card by mail rather than hand-delivering it. And for those people, the reminder that extra postage is required is probably a necessary and valuable one.
I sent some small, square Xmas greeting cards last year. Their envelopes were not marked, & they were returned for xtra postage. I guess if the stamped envelope bugged me, I’d put a seal or sticker over the print part.
Square cards cost more to send? I would have thought that an urban legend if the USPS didn’t seem to back that up. I certainly didn’t think that’s what the little box meant, even if it did have the word ‘extra’. Not sure that makes me stupid, but consider me a little more educated about postage rates. Learn something new every day.
You’re right, that was rude of me. It does seem weird that the small square ones cost more to mail if you’d hadn’t heard that before. I was referring to those jumbo size cards that have 20 layers of vellum, pop-ups and die cuts. They probably weigh close to a pound but I’m sure it doesn’t occur to some people that it might cost more to mail them.
The label has probably been added to the envelopes because some liability attorney at “Joe’s Greeting Cards, Inc.” decided that the company could get sued if little Johnnie’s precious birthday card didn’t get to him with Grandma’s $25.00 check because of insufficient postage.
Don’t laugh - wanna bet that this is the REAL, ACTUAL reason??
There is even one line of cards that offers you two options…a matching, square envelope that requires extra postage, or a standard postage envelope that doesn’t match (with cute designs,) but is glued so the square card fits snugly.