Home ›› 08 Dec 2021 ›› Front
The popularity of traditional calendar, invitation card and notebook has grown again as people seek ways to connect with their loved ones and socialise with others for different purposes including business.
Despite the wave of digital invites, the traditional form of greeting and gifting someone with paper items has surged though stunted for sometime by the pandemic.
The businesses are back, thanks to the slowdown of the raging pathogen that took a dip of all types of commerce including the one that solely hinges on merriments and entertainments, and that entails a formal way to greeting someone through sending cards and presents.
With in-person interactions increased and stores selling the items open, individuals seeking to bond with close relatives, friends and co-workers are going after all these formalities during weeding ceremony, birthday celebration and other corporate and official affairs.
The industry insiders claimed that currently this sector sees nearly 15 per cent annual growth.
Talking to The Business Post, Debashish Sarkar, manager of Azad Products said: “People mainly use paper invitation as it demonstrates a traditional way of approach and a more formal kind of invitation than the e-invitation which is also in vogue.”
“We are now passing a hectic time for producing different sizes of calendars including desk calendar ahead of the new year of 2022.”
There are more than 30 shops in the capital’s Purana Paltan area. Due to the high demand of such stationery items, the sector witnesses a growing amount of investment. More than 10 lakh people are directly and indirectly involved in this sector all over the country.
Md Humayun Kabir, accounts officer of Ideal Products, pointed out that during the shutdown their sales nosedived but currently they are doing well as the pandemic is dying down.
“We have a great reputation about wedding cards having various designs which boost our sales, and we are receiving huge orders as winter is approaching,” he said.
Currently, the market is saturated with a bevy of wedding cards that include maroon wedding card, window laser-cutting wedding card, gold-black wedding card, gold-blue wedding card, gold-reddish wedding card, creamy wedding reception card, goldish ribbon card, olives wedding card, paste ribbon card, royal blue wedding card, white-ribbon card, frame laser wedding card and such others.
Sharing his view with this correspondent, Fahsin Ananda, director of Ananda Products said: “Our business is back. Currently, calendar and diary have huge demand compared with other items. We have a huge collection of wedding cards as well. We import notebooks from China, India, Indonesia and Taiwan.”
“Around 70 per cent of wedding card papers is imported from China. Only a few companies supply wedding card papers for local market but that is not sufficient to meet the demand.”
The sector people said the current market size of greeting cards and calendars is more than Tk 1,000 crore in Bangladesh, and they cannot fulfill the craving of the consumers due to lack of modern technology.
Greeting cards including anniversary card, birthday card, and congratulation card have an increasing demand in rural areas.
A customer Abdur Rahim was found to be purchasing a calendar. Quizzed about his intention of buying a calendar, he said: “I am here to buy a wall calendar as its makes my room beautiful apart from watching date and day.”
Another consumer Saleh Adnan opined that this is a Bengali culture and tradition to invite guests at the wedding party through well-designed card.
According to the MarketWatch, a company that provides financial information, business news, analysis, and stock market data, the wall calendar market 2021 will register a 3.4 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in terms of revenue over the next five years and the global market size will reach $213.2 million by 2026. The local market players say it is time to rethink and redouble their efforts to find a niche in the global market for exporting locally made cards and earn forex.
