Sending a Christmas card? There’s still time, but check you’re sending it to the right address.
Thirty percent of households in the UK have received a Christmas card sent to their home’s previous occupants. This means up to eight million Christmas cards could go astray each year.
A misplaced card is a waste of good cheer and good money. From April 2012 the price of a first class stamp rose from 46p to 60p, and second class stamps rose from 36p to 50p, the biggest price-hike in the 172 year history of the Royal Mail.
“Before posting a Christmas Card do a name check against our 27 million edited electoral roll records,” says Dominic Blackburn, Product Director of 192.com. “This will give you the most recent record of where someone lives, and the additional 7 million addresses we’ve added to the site will help provide the contact details for people who’ve moved house last year.”
The Royal Mail is running a Delivery to Neighbours scheme across the country where items bought on the web are left next door rather than returned to the delivery office. 192.com contains the addressees of over 30 million UK residents, also displaying neighbours contact details, thereby enabling the Joneses to track down that missing parcel.
Christmas card hopefuls signed up to 192.com’s See Who’s Looking For You service will also know if they’ve been searched for on 192.com and message the searcher, enabling a Christmas e- greeting.
Christmas is one of the few times in which people hear from old friends and distant family. 91% of a Saga survey stated that Christmas is the only time they communicate with some people on their Christmas card list.
192.com’s study found that
• 1 in 5 want to receive a Christmas card from an ex-lover.
• 71% prefer to receive a Christmas card by mid-December.
• 18% said they will keep an old Christmas card for up to 10 years after receiving it.
We also found that:
• 22 people in the UK are called Mary Christmas.
• There are seven Holly Berry’s in the country, and eight called Carol Singer.
• There are over 200 in the UK with the surname Stocking, nine with the surname Cracker, 44 called Elf, 18 with the surname Turkey, and 44 people called Sprout.
The last recommended postal dates for standard parcels in the UK is December 13, while the final date for second class post is December 18 and for first class, it’s December 20.