Your Own Greeting Card Print Shop
Happy holidays! You've probably seen the same old greetings cards being sold this time of year. But everyone likes to send unique, personalized and original cards every year. Wouldn't you love to have your own souvenir or greeting card print shop where you can print any design you want? Well, now's your chance with our simple guide on how to build your own custom greeting card printing business from home. It's easier than ever before and it’s a great way for introverts to earn some extra cash for Christmas!
The main goal here is create a new source of income in the form of an online greeting card store that allows individuals who are working from home without investments from companies like Costco Wholesale or Amazon. This is a complete guide that will show you how to build your own greeting card printing business from scratch, so let’s get started.
Step #1: Create a Facebook Page
While you could technically just start a website and start selling greeting cards, the reality is that customers are going to want to follow your page. So, it would probably be more effective to create one on Facebook. This way you can interact with customers who are looking for different kinds of custom greeting cards. You can even use the page to display some of your best works and allow users on Facebook to create their own customized versions of these. This can become a huge hit and it’s something that customers will love.
Step #2: Buy the Product Supplies
One of the things that makes this idea so powerful is that you don’t have to buy many supplies ahead of time. You just need to create a few samples. Some examples include a Christmas card, an invitation, etc. This way you can show people your work, get clients and then buy the products from a wholesaler like Costco or Amazon when you have some actual orders to fulfill.
Step #3: Set Up Your Online Store
Now that you have some product samples, you can easily set up your online store. There are different ways to do this, but the most efficient way is to use a shopping app like Shopify or any other similar service. If you already have a website and wish to use it for this project, then get a basic email address with Yahoo or any other free email provider. You can even create an account with Facebook if you already have an account there. If not, then just create one under your name and make sure that there is no space in the address (i.e., yourname@gmail.com).
Step #4: Create Your Cards
When you have a working online shop, create the greeting cards that you want to sell. You can use an online design tool like Canva or some other design software, but you can also just create these yourself using WordPad or any other basic text editing software. Just make sure that your designs are originals and do not infringe on any copyrights or trademarks. If there are no copyright issues, then it’s okay to include copyrighted images in your designs (i.e., a picture of an elephant of the letter E). However, if you sell greeting cards that contain trademarked phrases, then don't use those images as they may be considered illegal to use in your designs.
Step #5: Create Preview Images
One of the first things that you should do with your template is create some preview images. This will be important for your customers to know what the cards will look like when they’re printed and given as gifts. Therefore, create a few different preview images for each card that you sell so customers know what to expect before they make a purchase.
Step #6: Sell Your Greeting Cards via Social Media and Forums
Now that you have a Facebook page and an online shop, you can start selling cards to people all over the world. You can use the Facebook page to show your cards and the shop to tell people how they can place an order. Once you have some sales, get some feedback from your customers and then start selling additional cards based on customer demand.
Step #7: Run Ads To Get Customers
Once you’ve gotten your first customer, run an ad campaign on Facebook to get more sales. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day are all great times to run ads for any type of seasonal items like customized greeting cards. Since it’s a website with high conversion rates, Facebook will send a lot of interested customers your way that can make purchases right away.
Step #8: Set Up a Wholesale Account
Once you have enough customers and sales, you can start buying greeting cards from wholesalers like Costco or Amazon. These sites have much higher margins, so it will be easier to make a profit on the cards sold there. When you order, let them know that the products are for your online shop so they will send them to you. If you don’t want to wait for them in the mail, then buy them online via eBay or other similar sites and then send them to your store using FedEx or USPS. Since these sites are highly popular and well-established, they will not reject your orders as easily as some other wholesalers might do. Also, place your orders well in advance so you will get them in plenty of time for the holiday season.
Step #9: Improve Product
Once you have a decent amount of sales, then it’s time to improve the quality of your product. You can do this by adding more cards to your shop or by creating additional templates for other occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, etc. Also, look for more ways to improve the design of your templates because some people may be confused about what types of designs are allowed or what types are not allowed on Facebook.
Step #10: Start a Blog
It will help you get more sales if you start a blog. Blogging is the trend of the day and most websites have blogs to increase their search engine rankings and organic traffic, so it’s the best idea to start one for your greeting card store as well. While you may already be getting sales with your Facebook page, having a blog allows you to promote your business on other web pages with much higher traffic, which will help to bring in more visitors and make more sales. Also, write about new products that might be available in the future so people who follow your blog will know when these are available for purchase.
Step #11: Increase Your Ad Views and Clicks
If you want to increase your revenue, then you need to make sure that your AdWords campaign is working as well. If a lot of people are not clicking on the ads that Facebook is showing, then you can try to find out why and fix it. If it’s because they are too expensive or have too many competitors running them, then you may have to lower the price or buy more ad traffic from another company. While these things cost money, they will help you sell more cards.
Conclusion
Running a successful greeting card business from home can be very lucrative because there’s a lot of demand for handmade cards that are sent during the holiday season. Even if you can only create these for Thanksgiving and Christmas, then that should be enough to make a handsome profit by using the ideas given in this article. You can even try creating some other types of cards like funny birthday cards or e-cards that people can send via email to their friends and family. However, you will have to start with greeting cards so you can learn how to run your store before trying something else. Once you have mastered this type of business, then you can start making other types of products as well.