Hill's Hallmark Battles E-cards with 'Touch, Feel' Approach

Laurie Safton was her own best salesperson.

The co-owner with Holly Strickler of Hill’s Hallmark card and gift store at 19 S. Prospect, Park Ridge, Safton sat in a cubbyhole at the back of what she jokingly calls a “bowling alley.”

Hill’s is long and narrow, with customers and employees twisting and turning while navigating two stretched-out aisles.

Not a bit of space is wasted. Even the house Christmas tree up near the entrance had gifts for sale hanging from every branch. “Cozy” would be a gentle word to describe the store.

Custom, hands-on, low-tech

Customers normally sit at the desk to write out custom greeting cards, a sideline of Hill’s. Others will squeeze by to get to materials on sale. The displays are low-tech without flash-and-dash, and without anything glowing on a screen. Safton and Strickler are fighting the advance of E-cards and other modern one-dimensional greetings, and are not giving up.

“Technology has changed everything, and you just have to stay ahead of that,” Safton said. “You try to draw people in to see what their offerings are. People still like to touch and feel before they buy. In the world of E-cards, there’s no touching and feeling. 

“You’re taking part of the sentiment out of the greeting. It doesn’t take much thought to do it.

"I always find an E-card cold. It’s fun to watch for a few seconds. Once you watch it for a few seconds, you forget about it.”

Hill’s has fancy cards that will do in three-dimensional form what an E-card does in cyberspace.

Bells and whistles to rival E-cards

“We have physical cards that have bells and whistles and lights and music and sound,” Safton said.  “Some you can record your voice. You can look at that thing all day, you can look at that next week. (Buying an E-card) ‘I don’t know enough about you to go out and shop, think about you and your likes and tastes, what’s important to you. I don’t have time for you. Here’s a gift card, Happy Birthday.’”

Safton claimed some E-cards are counterproductive to the recipient’s emotional well-being due to some inopportune piggybacking.

“Some E-cards have malware and viruses,” she said.  “A lot of people I talk to don’t open them. They’re suspicious of them.”

17-plus employees

Employing 16 part-timers, one full-timer and college kids who help over the holidays, Hill’s does “as much as 40 percent” of its annual business from Thanksgiving to Christmas, said Safton.  But it’s a percentage of a decline in overall card sales as the Internet and postal-rate increases take their toll.

“I’ve seen a decrease in the amount of cards people are sending out,” she said. But they’re also buying more gifts. The store’s Willow Tree collection of figurines are fast sellers.

“The one thing that’s nice about this store is we have a huge variety of gifts,” Safton said. “You can pretty much find something for everybody.”

The Safton-Strickler ownership of Hill’s is the first to have to battle on-line technology. The women have owned the store since 1994. They run the oldest continuous Hallmark outlet in Illinois.

Hill’s began in 1937

“It was established Jan. 1, 1937 in this same location,” Softon said, putting on her historian’s hat. “It was smaller, half this size.  It was Hill’s Books and Music.  Then it was Hill’s Cards and Gifts. Now it’s Hill’s Hallmark.

The owners worked at the O’Hare Westin hotel and decided they needed a change, leading them to purchase Hill’s.

“You’re not doing it for yourself,” Safton said. “We thought if we were going to work this hard, we’ll do it for ourselves. We combined our assets, and that includes our skills. My background was financial.”

Under Safton and Strickler, Hill’s has branched out to crafting customized cards and invitations, including for weddings.  The store sends out the orders to regular vendors, but also does in-house printing. 

“If you want a box of Christmas cards off the rack, I can put your name in it,” Safton said.

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