If you're looking to start making instrumental greeting cards watch this video first,
we're going to talk about
whether there's still potential in selling
them or if it's not worth your time because maybe no one sends greeting cards anymore.
We'll cover this as well as how to start your own handmade greeting card business in this video.
Hi, my name is Mei and I hope makers artists
and designers make a consistent living from selling their handmade products online.
Now, you might think that with email text messaging
and social media that no one sends greeting cards anymore.
But fortunately for you, the greeting card Market
is as strong as ever and is even expect it to grow for at least the next five years 6.5 billion.
Greeting cards are sold each year in the USA.
Germany sells 600 million cards a year.
You're in the UK Green Card industry is worth over 1.6 billion pound sterling alone,
which is almost two billion US Dollars. Keep in mind that a lot of those sales
are taken up by Major Brands like Hallmark Walmart
and Target,
but it shows that there is still a demand
for physical greeting cards and there are opportunities to collaborate with major retailers.
If you're unable to find a gap in your Market on your own,
we'll talk a bit more about that later to give you more of an idea about who buys greeting cards you
should First know that Approximately 80% of greeting cards are purchased by women greeting cards
are considered an impulse purchase product with an immediate somewhat urgent need people are
grabbing a card on the way to visit a relative
or while they're shopping for a gift.
This does not necessarily translate well into online sales,
but there are still plenty of people who plan
for birthdays and holidays in advance and like to customize cards to give to friends and family.
On that note. They are a very occasional item.
This means that people need a reason such as a holiday or an event to buy a greeting card.
Therefore. You will probably see a spike in sales at certain
times of the year Christmas being the major one,
but you're still likely to achieve sales throughout the year if you make cards
for birthdays and other celebrations,
there are two main categories of greeting cards every
day and seasonal the best-selling everyday cards are birthday card.
Followed by wedding anniversary get
well and sympathy than friendship
and encouragement cards for seasonal cards Christmas themes are the best
sellers Follow by Valentine's Day Mother's Day Father's Day
and graduation cards when it comes to making greeting cards.
There are several ways that you can go about it first.
You can create the card by hand using all sorts of material hopes
and decorations such as cardboard paper glitter and you know,
the usual arts and crafts tools
and supplies if you're Good at drawing you can draw your own
designs on them many people also like to emboss
or engrave their cards for a more professional look,
but you may have to invest in special equipment in order to achieve those effects speaking of
which you can totally also make really cool designs with a Cricut Machine creating greeting
cards completely by hand can be time-consuming.
But some people appreciate a handcrafted card done well
and are willing to pay a little extra for it provided you are in a very clear.
And specific Niche Reddit is a great place for sharing tips and design ideas,
especially on the Etsy and card-making subreddits the spruce craftsy.com,
which I've mentioned in my other videos is also a great place to learn card making skills
for free alternatively.
You could choose to print greeting cards.
This is where you make the initial design using a computer
or an iPad and you can keep reprinting many copies of the same card design.
While these may not sell for as much individually than a made completely from scratch card,
you will be able to make far more in a shorter period of time.
It makes more financial sense in the long
run as you earn more by selling in higher quantities that said
it's harder to stand out from the crowd this
way and it could arguably be less fun for you to create keep in mind.
You also need to be very careful that you do not infringe on any copyright laws with any of the
images that you use in your Our designs card-making supplies are also relatively cheap to
Source in order to maximize your profit margins.
You'll want to buy in bulk at wholesale costs.
You can find them through sites like Amazon and Etsy,
but you may want to shop around
and on more dedicated wholesale sites like eight seasons.com or factory direct craftsy.com.
It can be tempting to go on a shopping spree and buy lots of cute additions for your cards.
But remember that this should be reflected.
And in the selling cost of your finished product
and if it climbs to high then very few people are going to want to buy it.
So there is a balance there selling cards online can be tough
since lots of people buy them on impulse in physical stores
and they're not willing to wait a couple of days to receive a card in the mail.
However, there are still plenty of ways to earn a living from card making online.
You can try selling on the usual sites like Etsy Amazon
and Shopify most sites will take a cut of your earnings
though and Fifteen to twenty percent
and you may have to fight for your buyers attention because there's a lot of competition out there.
So your designs will need to stand out in order to grab attention
and make sales of course easier said than
done but you really want to invest the time
and research and developing a niche for your green card business.
Don't just make what everyone else is making you'll pick a group of
people from within the niche of greeting card buyers
and make designs specifically
for them get specific find a focus and you'll be Be much more successful.
That way if you have the resources for it,
then you can launch your own website and advertise your products online.
You want to learn about search engine optimization,
which is how people will find you on Google are Etsy
or Amazon search and also look into how to pitch your card designs to the media.
This is a fantastic and free way to get your products in front of a large audience.
And in my opinion, it's much more effective than doing social media some card companies pay you
for submissions if you approach them.
Directly with your designs before submitting your idea to assign analyze the style of cards.
They sell first so you can be sure your style matches theirs.
If they like your ideas, you can earn anywhere between 25 to $300
for one design to get you started on some of these companies that are known to
accept designs are oatmeal cards Blue Mountain cards
and Warner press so to team up with them you first need to sign a
statement to confirm that your idea is original
and often that you won't use it anywhere else.
So they will want some exclusivity with your work.
This might seem like a lot for you to give up your intellectual property.
Right but consider that those companies do all the work in printing marketing
and selling the cards and you don't have to worry about any of that.
How many cards do you have to sell on your own to make $300 from One Design?
Probably quite a few and over a long period of time unless you're really established.
This could be a good route if you're just starting out.
Selling wholesale is also a very big opportunity
for you a majority of physical brick
and mortar stores carry greeting
cards as we talked about before greeting cards get bought in person a lot.
Right? So if you can picture designs to physical stores sell your work
wholesale to them keep a great positive relationship.
So they keep reordering from you that could be your entire bread
and butter and you wouldn't have to worry about selling directly to customers online.
The beauty about wholesale is even though you're getting paid less.
Item, you're getting paid more overall because you're dealing in larger bulk quantities.
You'll be making orders in the hundreds. If not thousands of
dollars per order from just one store alone.
So definitely keep that in mind. You might also want to look up
art licensing where you're renting your art
to a buyer like a greeting card company to use your art on a product.
You can do this yourself or work with an agent to do this
for you and you get paid royalties or a commission every few months.
It's this is a huge industry and it's a whole other video for another day.
If you've bought a greeting card lately, you'll know that
there is a wide range to choose from right they
can generally cost anywhere from fifty cents to ten to twelve dollars.
They usually vary in size quality
and detail the average price of a greeting card is around four to five dollars the greeting card
Association also reports that cards featuring special techniques intricate designs
and new technologies.
At the top of the price scale the trick to pricing your product is to leave
yourself with enough profit to invest back into the business
and help it grow and a salary is always nice to have to write a formula.
I like to use to price handmade products is the cost of your supplies
plus labor costs plus any overheads take all of
that and multiply it by 2 to work out the wholesale price
and then times that by 2 again to give you a final retail price.
So it's a Effectively twice
what it cost you to make when selling wholesale
and four times the production cost when selling retail.
So if a card costs you on average a dollar to make including labor,
you should look to sell it
for around $2 at wholesale pricing and four dollars direct to customers with retail pricing.
It's worth your time to do some window shopping of your own to
see how much similar cards are selling
for and then price your own accordingly.
That's kind of the art part of pricing.
It was greeting cards. There's just not a whole lot of wiggle room
to price any more than like 10 to 12 dollars
because this is what people are willing to pay
and honestly the perceived value of a greeting card just isn't that high think about it right
when you get a greeting card you maybe put it on your coffee table
or you put it on your fridge for a few weeks,
maybe a few months Max then it just kind of ends up in the trash after that.
Remember that you must also factor in the cost of delivering your greeting cards to
the customer check out off-kilter crafter Ian on YouTube.
He gives some really good advice about sending handmade cards on his channel.
If you're in the u.s. You'll probably want to use USPS for shipping your greeting cards.
It's pretty cost effective to ship greeting cards
because it's light and weight
and it doesn't take up much space
and cards are usually really flat right and that gives you special cheaper pricing.
USPS selling handmade cards can be a profitable business,
especially if you're able to be recognized by a major card company
or sell in physical stores where you're selling in high
numbers greeting cards are still going strong
as an industry,
but to benefit from it. Your designs will need to be different and still worth the price.
How often do you buy greeting cards? And what is the most you would expect to pay for one?
Let me know in the comments.