The greeting card business has undergone drastic changes with the explosion of birthday ecards. Millions of these cards are sent through emails every month. Perhaps the one main factor in the explosion of this business is the ease with which you can send and receive a birthday greeting. You don’t have to limit yourself to simply sending an ordinary email message to say “Happy Birthday”. You can choose animated graphics, music and sound to accompany your birthday greeting and personalize both the card and the message to match the recipient.



There are numerous online sites offering a staggering range of birthday ecards and even Valentines ecards (http://www.care2.com/send/catvalentine1.html) to choose from. The only requirements are that you have an Internet connection and an email address and that the person to whom you wish to send the birthday greeting has an email address.

Once you find the provider and the ecard you want, the provider will take charge of sending the card for you. Once the recipient receives the email containing the card, there is a link for that person to use to open the card. The provider will also include a link to the site so that person can get started sending ecards to friends and family for birthdays and other occasions.

You don’t have to worry that your birthday ecard will arrive after the date has passed. The ecards are delivered instantly and there are some sites on which you can select the delivery date, which means you can search for the perfect card in advance and make sure it will be delivered on the date of the birthday.

Most of the free sites for these cards only allow you to add a personalized message on top of the page containing the graphics or within the graphics themselves. If you want the recipient to hear a personalized message being read, it is very likely you will have to pay for using this type of service. However, the cost is minimal compared to the convenience of not having to shop for a card and send it by regular mail.

Birthday ecards (http://www.care2.com/send/birthday_cards.html) are available in foreign languages as well. If you have a friend living in another country where the official language is not English, or if the person’s native language is not English, you will really make this person’s day by sending a birthday card in his/her mother tongue.

You can also choose birthday ecards that have a special significance related to a country of origin, such as one that contains the symbols of that country. This shows the recipient that even though you are sending the card through email you did take the time to search for the perfect birthday card.

Choose character traits that match the personality of the recipient of the birthday ecard you want to send. These cards often do not have a personalized message, but the graphics of the character displayed on the ecard says more than you could ever express in words.

You don`t have to pop out to buy a card on your lunch break or make sure you get to the post office in time for it to arrive on the day of the birthday. You can search at any time of the day or night from your own computer and find exactly what you want when you use birthday ecards. The disadvantage is that the recipient will not be able to save the ecard to his/her computer to show your thoughtfulness to others.