After a year of discussions and a pilot program in 15 stores, JCPenney and Hallmark are pleased to announced that they might be moving in together. Well, sort of. Hallmark mini-stores may join Sephora and Disney mini-stores inside hundreds of JCPenney locations across the country.

If you’ve seen the existing Sephora stores in JCPenney locations, you know how this would work: mini-stores have their own staff and are stocked with a smaller selection of the same merchandise as a full-size store. At the same time, they use the same payment system as the rest of the store, so you don’t need to buy your corduroys and your cards at separate registers.

“Hallmark was so perfect for the Penney customer. Hallmark has a great legacy, similar to J.C. Penney,” JCPenney’s senior vice president for the home section told the Dallas Morning News. We’re not sure whether that’s meant as an optimistic statement about the chains’ futures together, or a passive-aggressive burn calling the customers of both chains old. If we had to guess, it’s probably the former.

A Hallmark executive pointed out that greeting cards in department stores are nothing new: Hallmark once sold large amounts of cards at JCPenney, and now has large shelves inside other retailers in addition to its own card and gift stores. The greeting card business really only has one competitor: not sending a card at all.

J.C. Penney to move ahead with Hallmark shops [Dallas Morning News]

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