Creating Postcards

I've been thinking of turning some of my better photos into

postcards. What advice can the community out there give me on what I

can expect to sell these items for as I have no IDEA? Lets assume the

pictures are good.

Thanks to you all

Steve

Unless you also plan to buy postcard racks, and plan to service those racks, I'd forget it. There are already millions of postcards out there and profits are minimal. Usually larger companies do the postcard route because the costs for just one stand alone can be significant. You'd also better be ready to pay out for higher volume amounts of postcards, if you hope to get a price that can compete with these other millions.

My suggestion instead: Make smaller prints of your better images (4x6 up to 11x14), put them into mats, with a back, then a clear bag and sell as fine-art for much more money. You can also add some bio info and sign them for even more personalization. Just be sure the mat sizes are easily placed into a "standard" frame.

Steve-- Here is a posting and response from another thread in this forum that covered the same question. It would have come up if you had done a forum search, but for the sake of anyone else out there who may be contemplating the same action, I'll post it again. This question seems to come up every four months or so.

Christopher Appoldt , mar 18, 2004; 04:36 p.m.

OK, so - let's say while visiting a particular landmark, you shot what you think are some great photos. Then let's say you dug in to Photoshop and laid them out in such a way that they might produce a great poster or postcard . . .

. . .so what do you do next? Contact the proprietors of the landmark, and ask if they're into buying some? If so, then what? To a reputable printer? Any names jump to mind for small intitial runs?

Thanks,

Chris

The following keywords and/or sponsored links have been extracted automatically from the posts in this thread: printer, monitors, Photography, camera, photography

Answers

Bill Cornett , mar 22, 2004; 10:24 p.m.

Chris-- First, you check out a major post card printer like Dynacolor Graphics. Then you spend several thousand $ (or maybe tens of thousands of $) printing up the first run of several types of cards (like 20) that are specific to where you want to sell, because nobody's going to look at a tyro with one or two postcards to sell. Then you buy sales racks and kick back enough change to the store owner to get him to allow your rack in his store and not your competitor's. Then you or someone you hire monitors the stores to keep the racks filled and make sure that your competitors don't load their postcards into the racks you bought and bribed the store owner to put on the counter. Then you do this for one or two dozen locations because you aren't going to make any money selling postcards out of one or two racks, good buddy. To make a decent living you are going to need two or three hundred racks. Get ready to hire people to help you out, because if you are too busy checking your racks you won't be able to go shoot beautiful pictures. Those employees cut into your bottom line, but you make up for it by adding on more racks.

It isn't cost-effective for any store owner to have to deal with a supplier that only carries one or two products. The time spent in billing and bookkeeping eats up any profit, especially with penny-ante articles like postcards. You need to make the process slick, easy, and cost effective. Think of it this way-- the average spinning postcard rack takes up about 100 square inches of counter space. The store owner is wondering what he can to to maximize his income from those 100 square inches. And lemme tell you, if you don't keep the racks filled less cards will be sold because people will have less to choose from, and if that happens you will find your rack in the dumpster behind the store and somebody else's rack on the counter.

Oh, and did I mention that the store owner DOES NOT purchase the cards from you? You put them in the rack, and he pays you after he sells them. Basically, you count up how many cards are in the rack, and whatever's gone since the last time you filled the rack he pays you for. Get ready for some serious arguing and haggling. Hope you speak Chinese and several Indian dialects. Vietnamese and Spanish would be a big help, too.

The big boys have this down to a science, and store space is very limited, but who knows, you might find a better way and make a ton of money. Best of luck. -Bill C.

heh... that was good reading Bill. And Stephen, I never read his reply before now.

How's this for an answer to that question: We've had several retailers actually ASK us to do postcards. And I still won't...

And, the big companies that do own the big stands will offer a photographer mere peanuts for the rights to use as a postcard. I know of more than a few that were paid a (one-time) fee $50 to use their image as a postcard. Some of those cards are still in the racks almost 20 years later. Pretty good deal, eh??

Stephen, Vincent and Bill have offered the reality of what is found in this rack-et. I sell some of my prints as note cards using stock from Photographers Edge. I offer them at one of my local Book Stores. Generally speaking I did it because the store has a lot of foot traffic and I felt it would be a good way to get some additional exposure. The money I get from this is minimal and required an initial investment of several hundred dollars for the rack, card stock and pictures. After 1 year I still haven?t recouped my investment although I?m slowly getting close.

You have to spend time cataloging your images, monitoring the rack, inventorying the rack, and then billing the store. The store gets a significant chunk and then you get your share. I was, more my wife, was able to negotiate a pretty good deal in that the store only takes part of the profit. So I was able to secure the cost of each card and then split the profits, which isn?t typically I would imagine.

What do you do with images that don?t sell that well? Remove them from the rack and switch them out with stuff that has been selling? Requiring more money to buy additional stock and images. It?s a rabbit hole.

My friend sells a ton of these cards in a little gift shop that is frequented by tourist. He also sells them to business friends that use them for holiday greetings each year. It takes him and his wife hours to put them together, sign, and stuff into clear envelopes. This part isn?t fun either. Again, the only reason I did this was to gain exposure, but it is nice to get positive feedback and make a sale. Good luck - Sean