LOS ANGELES — The greeting card business may be in need of a get-better-soon card.

In the Internet age, with electronic greetings of all kinds now available, sales of traditional greeting cards have been on a long, gradual decline. In 1995, the national Greeting Card Association boasted that 2.7 billion Christmas holiday cards would be sold that year. This year, that number has dropped to 1.5 billion cards.

Even so, greeting card makers say don’t count them out. The industry estimates overall sales of 7 billion greeting cards this year. New lines of cards and new products are being introduced every year, and the industry’s second-largest card publisher, American Greetings Corp., has turned around sales in the last two quarters after a long decline.

“Even with the boom of social media, the death of the traditional greeting card has been vastly exaggerated,” said Susan January, president of the Greeting Card Association.

Sharing info vs. emotion

Consumers themselves are split. Five years ago, Sharon Matthew stopped sending the 25 cards she sent out every winter and switched to sending Christmas messages by email.

“It’s just better,” said Matthew, 38. “My friends are all over the world. It’s easier to send them this way — you can attach more than one photo, give a little update on what’s going on.”

“It’s more convenient; we’re always on our computer anyway,” Matthew said. “How often do you actually fill out a card, put on a stamp and go to the post office?”

But not everyone feels that way. Elizabeth Escamilla, 45, still sends about 100 cards every Christmas. “It’s that one time of the year to write something personal, extra meaningful.”

“I still like receiving cards, so I like sending them,” said Carrie Rollings, 45, a real estate agent from Santa Monica, Calif. “It’s becoming more unusual, so it’s now more unique. It’s nice to open something in the mail that’s not a bill.”

Experts attribute the card sales decline to increasing competition from ecards and custom card services, as well as more modern, and time-efficient, ways of communication.

“The industry’s been really, really suffering from social media and email and the whole ability of their customers to connect with people they typically connect with by sending greeting cards,” said Kathleen Ripley, industry analyst at IBISWorld Inc.

Retail greeting cards is a $7.5 billion business these days, the Greeting Card Association estimated. There are more than 3,000 greeting card publishers in the U.S., with the two largest companies — Hallmark and American Greetings — holding 82 percent of the market share, according to IBISWorld.

Like other nonessential consumer products, greeting cards felt the effect of the recession, but January of the greeting card association said that the industry is fairly recession-proof.

“Because our products have such a low price threshold,” she said, “we didn’t experience the total sales crash-and-burn other luxury items may have had.”

The U.S. has also seen a decrease in the number of bricks-and-mortar greeting card stores. Citing the shifting real estate market and high overhead costs as challenges, Jacyln Twidwell, spokeswoman for Hallmark, based in Kansas City, Mo., said there were about 3,700 Hallmark Gold Crown card and gift stores five years ago. That number has dropped to 3,000. Greeting card prices range from 49 cents to $10.

“There has not been any shift away from ink-on-paper greeting cards,” Twidwell said, “just an overall broadening of the greeting card portfolio we offer to our customers.”

Twidwell noted that Hallmark’s research found that more than 20 paper cards are still sent for every ecard.

“Our observation is that electronic communication is better for sharing information,” she said, “but greeting cards are better for sharing emotion.”

Staying relevant

Hallmark has expanded its card selection and features, adding niche cards in categories that include godchildren, school bus drivers and hairdressers. It’s all about staying relevant, Twidwell said. The company also has new 3-D cards, more cards with sound and even holiday cards with lights that pulse to the beat of the music.

American Greetings is taking on similar challenges in an ever-changing marketplace. The Cleveland company last quarter reported profit, including a one-time gain, of $14.5 million, or 35 cents a share, up 71 percent from a year earlier. Sales rose 7 percent to $369 million.

“While there are more communications options today than ever before,” said Christy Kaprosy, vice president of marketing at American Greetings, “we have found that consumers still deeply value our category because it does the very best job of helping them connect in a way that is creative yet still authentic and meaningful.”

The company is reaching out to younger customers. (The median age of American Greetings consumers is 46, according to IBISWorld.) It said it is keeping up with multimedia features, updating its holiday digital slide show cards — paper cards holding LCD screens that display personal photos uploaded by the sender. And it launched its justWink line in June. These cards come with codes that, scanned by a smartphone, lead to an online app that enables customers to create virtual greeting cards.

The company expects more card exchanges this season with justWink’s more mature and humorous holiday greetings — “Baked. Stuffed. Blitzed. … How will you be celebrating this year?” one Thanksgiving card said.

Just in time for the holidays and his older sister’s birthday, Paul Dimalanta checked out different cards that played music as he worked his way along the card aisle of the Walgreens in downtown Los Angeles.

“I’m looking at these sound cards because I know her daughter will play with it for hours,” the 28-year-old photographer said. His family doesn’t usually exchange gifts, so Dimalanta said he always sends a card. “When I receive a card, it means more,” he said. “It’s more tactile, a nice personal gesture that’s still valuable.”

Ken Cook, 63, of Glendora, Calif., agreed. Browsing the aisles of Carol’s Hallmark Shop at Macy’s Plaza in downtown Los Angeles, he was searching for a Thanksgiving card for his niece.

“For her, I do all the holidays,” he said. “I haven’t really gotten into email cards. I still like always writing something in the card.”

Popular holidays

Estimated number of cards sent in 2011:

• Christmas: 1.5 billion (including boxed and individual cards)

• Valentine’s Day: 144 million (not including classroom valentines)

• Mother’s Day: 133 million

• Father’s Day: 94 million

• Easter: 57 million

• Halloween: 20 million

• Thanksgiving: 10 million

• St. Patrick’s Day: 8 million

Source: Hallmark Cards Inc.