Intrigued to see that CeWe has ambitions for the online greetings card business with its new Card Town offering.

Given Moonpig's envy-inducing growth and profit performance it's little wonder that so many others are keen to gain a piece of the personalised greetings card pie. Such is the success of Moonpig, I've even seen one company offering an online poster service that uses the tongue-in-cheek strapline 'bigger than Moonpig'.

It's easier said than done, though. Remember Whamoosh.com? Two years ago the company had ambitions to rival Moonpig and aimed to hit ?20m sales in four years, with plans to differentiate its offering through Face-it! facial recognition technology. I tried the Face-it! thing at the time and was unimpressed. Go to the Whamoosh site today and you'll find what is effectively a 'ghost' website with the message "Welcome to the demonstration site of Face-it! No orders made through this site will be honored".

Establishing a new consumer-facing brand requires lots of leg work and deep pockets if you're starting from scratch. Other players, such as Marks & Spencer, already had a huge online shop window for their personalised card offering. Whereas card retailers such as Clinton Cards have the high street presence but not necessarily the online recognition or traffic.

And unsurprisingly, Moonpig's new owners Photobox aren't standing still in the face of fresh waves of competition, and have plans to leverage the wider group offering through Moonpig's substantial customer base. In the past month I've received offers for 35% off photo calenders ("we've teamed up with Photobox") and yesterday a promo email came through for a new Moonpig offering of canvas and acrylic wall art.

CeWe is part of a large European player in the photo gifts business, but up until now it's been working as a behind-the-scenes partner for established names such as Jessops and Argos. Turning the planning stage of Card Town into a successful online metropolis will be quite a feat.