Locally owned and operated greeting card design company, Card Isle, announced in February that it had forged a new partnership with OPIE, a drive-thru grocery store start-up locally based in Mount Pleasant, SC. OPIE will allow customers to customize their cards from Card Isle’s website and pick them up at their stores. 

 

     “We offer a whole bunch of digital designs that can be personalized however the customer wants and those cards are printed on-demand, on location,” said Card Isle co-founder David Henry. 

 

     Card Isle was founded in 2013 by three Virginia Tech engineering graduates with the concept of setting up printing kiosks. This grew with partnerships, such as Eats Natural Foods and Gates Flowers and Gifts, which allow customers to design and pick up their card orders. However, the company slowly phased out the kiosks and into digital design and provided primary service to florists and gift shops. Presently, Card Isle offers their services to roughly 400 floral retailers and gift shops across the U.S. 

 

     “We live in an era where it’s easy to communicate and becomes kind of cheap,” said Adam Donato CEO of Card Isle. “We wanted to make it easy for someone to have that genuine connection.”

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     OPIE, founded in October 2021, is one of the first of its kind and the first drive-thru grocer to partner with Card Isle. This e-commerce-oriented store operates from a digital app that allows customers to place orders and easily pick them up on site. As Donato explained to Grocery Drive, the company has a similar design to Kroger and Whole Foods’ pick-up service and Albertson’s unattended pickup lockers. 

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     "We often need a greeting card in a rush, on the way to a birthday or running behind to a party,” said OPIE’s co-founder Tyler Sones. 

 

     With online retail on the rise, start-ups like OPIE will bolster the economy of the locations it may spread. This new business deal is a step toward Card Isle’s further development as a digital enterprise and how the move to e-commerce and online sales benefits small businesses.