I am thinking most of the ‘shoppers’ would have been making their selections FROM the “bags at the door” and avoiding the register.

There is always a charity card shop in Ballarat each year, and once discovered, always patronised.
Firstly, they actually have cards with Nativity scenes,
secondly, one may choose the card of a charity befitting the recipient -
“ooh isn’t brownie lovely, she cares about homeless autistic whales too!”
(no offence meant to any homeless whales reading this);
and the cracker reason? – good quality cards for only 50c each fer chrissakes.

on the other hand, there is a real crisis in the newsagent retail sector despite them only selling those cards which are $4.95 each, since Post Offices and supermarkets now sell these (at the same huge price).

Also, when they renovated* they gave me a cast iron claw foot bath for nothing provided I took it away. We wrangled it out the back door and 500 metres down the alley and through the garage into the courtyard. Happy memories!

* and the architects’ plan in the window had delightful little cats all through the newly envisaged premises.

Second hand cards? How would that work? You just cross out the salutation to “To Minnie, Merv and young Craig, hope the lumbago is better, cheers Muriel”…? and write your own stuff next to it?