How many "sets" of printed business cards are sold each year in the USA?

0) I am referring to printed business cards from a professional
printer or service bureau, not business cards printed by individuals
on a home printer or products that allow an individual to print
business cards themselves.

1) i.e. How many orders were there for the year 2004-2005 in the USA
for a typical "set" of 50-500 business cards?

2) If the number of sets of business card orders is not available I am
open to data for the total number of individual business cards sold
last year, Calendar 2004, in the USA, but this infomation is not
preferred due to the challenge of trying to estimate.

3) I am also open to yearly sales data based on data from calendar
years from 2000 forward, if information for the year 2004-2005 is not
available.

4) Like to find a source link or document for this information to
reference in a business presentation.

Thanks,

Northway

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Clarification of Question by northway-ga on 08 Nov 2005 14:49 PST

Note:

Clarification to item two as follows:

2) If the number of sets of business card orders is not available I am
open to data for the total number of individual business cards sold
last year, Calendar 2004, in the USA, (revised) but this information
is not preffered due to the challenge of trying to estimate the number
of "sets" of cards sold from the tolal number of cards printed. (end
revision)

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 20 Nov 2005 08:51 PST

northway-ga,

I've found several mentions of the number of business cards printed
each year in the US ranging anywhere from 4.5 billion to 45 billion
cards (quite a range!), with somewhere around 10 billion appearing to
be the most often cited number.

However, I did not see a single mention that actually cited a source for the data!

And there does not appear to be any estimates at all for the number of
sets of cards that are printed each year.

It's possible to come up with some proxy numbers, along the lines of:

(I'm making these numbers up)
--there are 36.7 million managers/supervisors in the US, and 100% of
these are likely to have business cards...10% of whom order new cards
in a year, so that there are 3.67 million sets of cards printed

--ditto with lawyers, doctors, etc

--there are 52.1 million office workers, 50%^ of whome are likely to
have business cards...


and so on.


Obviously, this would take a fair amount of guess work.  I can get
hard data for the numbers of workers, but would have to guess at what
percent have cards, or get them replaced each year.


That's the only way I can think of approaching this question.   Let me
know your thoughts on this.


pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by northway-ga on 20 Nov 2005 15:40 PST

Clarification:

RE:Business Cards "sets" sold per year int he U.S

- Clarification for pafalafa-ga
- Basically, our company, a start up is trying to find how many "sets"
of business cards are sold in the US each year for a business
presentation we are preparing for a product we have developed that
augments business card use.

- As pafalafa-ga noted, while we have been able to find many quotable
references as to the number of business card sets sold each year,
finding the source for this data beyond a quote from a reporter does
not inspire confidence when making the case for our product in a
business presentation to others.

- As pafalafa-ga outlines to date we have looked at U.S. Census data
to come up with a placeholder estimate
  based on:
     - ~300M people in the US
     - ~120M "professional" workers
     - ~100M "professional" workers that need/use business cards (our estimate)
     - ~10% of this 100M get "new" or replacement/updated business cards each   
        year for ~10M "sets" of business cards sold each year in the U.S

In summary what we are looking for is a better source for numbers on
the sets of business cards sold in the US each year, beyond hearsay,
or estimates based on backing out Census data figures if possible,...

- Appreciate this is a tough one to track down the source for the data,...

- Suggest that if a specific source is not available, then a robust
summary of estimates based on a known good source of data that can be
referred to in a business presentation could be acceptable, (i.e.
based on U.S. Census data), that starts with the good numbers for the
number of professionals in the U.S. in major fields, (Biz, Med, Law,
Eng, Service, Education).

- The goal is to create a summary slide in a buisness presentation
that presents  a resonable and logical breakdown of the market numbers
of people buying "sets" of business cards in the U.S. each year as a
means to communicate the potential market size to investors in our
company.

- Educated estimates could be part of the answer, but need to be noted
as such in the summary answer, and the goal is to minimize these
estimates as possible, and make sure that the numbers that the
estimates are based on are based on a reasonable data source and not
hearsay/guessing,..

Hope this clarifies the question enough to allow folks to reach an
answer, thanks for your time with this unusual question,...