LDE Inc., the Spokane-based company that operates the Fifty Percent Off Card Shop retail chain, plans to close permanently its two remaining stores this month. 

Its sister company and product supplier, Moland Greeting Card Co., also will cease operations, says Linda Powell, co-owner of the two companies.  

Ellsworth Moland began Moland Greeting Card Co. in 1950 and LDE Inc. in 1991. After he died in 2010, his daughters, Powell and Debra Molony, became co-owners of the companies, which employ 32 people between them. The company’s warehouse and headquarters is located at 2733 E. Providence, in East Spokane.

“My father started it way back in 1950, and it was a good business for a long time,” says Powell. 

She says it took her five years to decide to close the company, a decision she says was based on a steady decrease in sales and customers’ changing needs. 

“There are several reasons we’re closing, but mostly, it’s that costs have risen so high,” Powell says. “People just aren’t buying what they used to. At the same time, they also don’t want to pay more for anything.”

She says competition from other area stores also put strain on the struggling companies.  

“Financially, we just couldn’t do it anymore,” she says. 

In May 2009, the Journal reported the closure of the company’s Pines Road store in Spokane Valley, due to low sales volume and its location too close to another of its shops. Similarly in 2014, another of the stores locations, this one on the South Hill, also closed due to declining sales. 

Of the three locations that remained, LDE shuttered one of them—at 7305 N. Division—on Dec.18. The company’s Coeur d’Alene outlet, at 101 E. Best, is set to close Jan. 16, and the other remaining shop, at 212 N. Sullivan Road in Spokane Valley, will close Jan. 31. 

Powell says the company’s remaining inventory will be donated throughout the Spokane and Coeur d’Alene areas, the majority going to schools, churches, and community organizations, such as Habitat for Humanity. 

She says the companies’ workers have known the closure was coming and likely made plans for other employment. She says she’s not yet sure what she will do next. 

“I don’t see myself retiring,” Powell says. “I enjoy being out and about, interacting with people, so perhaps I’ll volunteer or find another job.”

In the last few months, she says the stores have had many upset customers, distraught over the company’s closing. 

“I know we did have some happy customers who would have liked to see us stay open. Unfortunately it just wasn’t enough,” she says.