photo by: Associated Press

Visitors walk past an entrance to Hallmark Cards headquarters in Kansas City, Mo., Tuesday, April 14, 2009. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)

KANSAS CITY, MO. — Hallmark Cards Inc. will cut about 400 jobs worldwide, including 325 at its headquarters of Kansas City, Mo., the company said Monday.

Hallmark will offer buyouts before turning to layoffs. The company said affected workers will receive severance pay and assistance as they seek new jobs.

CEO Mike Perry said the “rapidly evolving retail and consumer environments” require the company to transform the way it does business.

“The way people shop and the competitive dynamics in the marketplace are changing at a pace and at a degree that is having a significant impact on our businesses,” Perry said in a statement.

Hallmark employs about 3,400 people in Kansas City and 30,000 people worldwide. In addition to greeting cards, it owns the Hallmark Channel on cable TV, Hallmark Gold Crown stores, the Crayola brand of art supplies, and a real estate development company that oversees Kansas City’s Crown Center complex, where the headquarters is located.

The company is a major employer in Lawrence. Hallmark employs about 800 people at a large production facility near the Kansas Turnpike in northern Lawrence. Information from the company didn’t disclose whether any of the buyouts and staff reductions would impact the Lawrence location.

The company said in a news release that it “saw positive performance across the enterprise in 2019.” As a privately owned company, it is not required to release specific financial data about it operations. In the release, though, the company said its greeting card division — which includes the Lawrence plant — increased its distribution through a “combination of expanding business with existing retail partners and working with new retailers.” It also said its company-owned Hallmark Gold Crown stores experienced positive comparable stores growth.

The company’s Crown Media division, which includes its TV operations, posted revenue growth through both its traditional cable offerings and its streaming service. Its Crayola division also saw “solid revenue gains,” according to the company’s press release.

Hallmark did not provide any information about how much of a profit or loss the company posted overall for the year.