According to An e-card for Valentine’s Day? Honestly, you shouldn’t have, ecards and paper cards are not the same.

Cedric Chin-Yick won’t soon forget the year he sent his wife an e-card for her
birthday. She made her disapproval quite clear.

“She prefers the hard copy. It’s substantial. It’s a material thing,” Mr. Chin-Yick, 44, said Tuesday as he fought the crowds shopping for Valentine’s Day at a Carlton Cards store in downtown Toronto. But he noted that he’ll back up the paper card with an electronic one.

Despite dire predictions a decade ago that e-cards would lead to the demise of the traditional card business, the two have found a happy co-existence. While Valentine’s Day is the busiest day of the year for electronic cards, many shoppers wouldn’t think of sending their sweetheart an online greeting.

“It certainly has not ended the card business,” said Sally Babcock, general manager of americangreetings.com, whose parent company also operates Carlton Cards stores. “What we see is that people send e-cards to different people than they’re sending paper cards to. They also supplement their card-sending with an e-card.”

However, there are many reasons to use ecards.

Artistic, animated ecards can express your sentiments that may be difficult to do through words only. Sometimes a picture, a video or an animation is worth more than a thousand words.

“Of the many, many ways to express loving feelings, the Japanese red crowned cranes’ dance and the graceful movements of trumpeter swans are among the most beautiful.” – About.com”

Ecards are environment friendly.

For the friends, coworkers, and business contacts that you don’t generally send paper cards, you can send ecards to keep in touch.

In the countries where the post mail is not reliable, the ecards get there on time.

You can save time and money on the paper cards and postage. No more trips to the store to pick out cards and waiting in line at the post office.