Selling Note cards

<p>I am interested in selling blank note cards of my photos to local gifts shops and pet stores. I believe that a good place to print your photo note cards is Vistaprint, but where is a good place for packaging boxes and elastic that goes around. Looking for a nice presentation. Probably would sell 8-10 pictures, maybe less.<br>

Does anyone sell note cards that could give me some advice? Thanks.</p>

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<p>I looked around for getting cards printed a short while ago, but restricted my search to here in the UK.</p>

<p>To get anything like workable prices you had to order in bulk - about 100 of each design was a minimum for vaguely workable prices - better to go towards 1000 where bigger discounts kicked in. I have yet to take this step and have stuck with printing myself and bulk ordering card blanks, envelopes and sleeves.</p>

<p>We sell A6 cards individually (£2.50) or 3 for £6 - select yourself from range at craft fairs - and larger A5 cards at £3.50. We also sell prints, but the cards are useful in that they can normally cover the table fee + costs for each fair.</p>

<p>We have also tried getting cards into the shops - and this is where some problems start. The shops round here in tourist areas are normally looking to at least double the price from wholesale price - this really forces the wholesale price down.</p>

<p>Our minimum A5 card cost is around £1 - that is everything bar labour - I would like to get at least £1 on top of that to make something from it and cover labour and running around. That means I'm looking to sell wholesale at £2, which is unrealistic given that they will want to sell on at £3.50 to £4.00 minimum.</p>

<p>We therefore shopped around for printing - and ended up with pretty similar figures, around £1 per card (that relied on orders of over 100 for each design) - we would need to go to 1000 to drive costs down to £0.50 per card which would at least get more towards realistic margins for myself and the shop (still not ideal though).</p>

<p>1000 cards is a lot, both in investment (around £500 per design), and to sell on. They need to be 'banker' images, ie ones you know will sell wherever.</p>

<p>Where are you based ? that may make a difference to where is the best to get packaging.</p>

<p>Good luck,<br>

Martin</p>

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<p>One other thought.</p>

<p>Selling in packs of 8-10 cards - people usually are looking for added value for quantity, so prices of the cards would be lower and cheaper each than buying individually. By going for luxury packaging, I guess the added value would be the box itself. We have found (when we did do pre-packaged packs) that customers still preferred to buy individually as they could pick 'n mix rather than rely on the pre-packed assortment.</p>

<p>My gut reaction on the box is that it will really depend on the shop / market on whether it is a success. It would need to be a shop where people are prepared to pay that premium for the luxury packaging - they do exists, but my feeling is that it would limit the outlets that you could get these to work in. Also depends on the box.</p>

<p>We have used various boxes for cards - but mainly for jewelery. Prices have typically started at around £0.50 for simple brown eco-recycled boxes (thetinyboxcompany.co.uk) but go up as you go larger, stronger and more fancy.</p>

<p>Martin</p>

<p>I came across a service in the US that provides a reasonable way to sell cards. A photographer sends them the digital files, and they handle the printing and distributing to stores. When cards are sold, they will send the photographer his share. I don't recall what the charges and commissions are. But even if the profit margin is low, it would save the photographer the printing cost, not to mention the effort to find stores and stock the cards.</p>

<p>Thank you. Great useful information.</p>

<p>clearbags dot com sells boxes.<br>

I sell blank cards at art fairs: a set of three sells for $7.00. I stopped using boxes, though, and now use plastic sleeves/envelopes instead, 'cause the boxes were too expensive considering the product price.<br>

I also wanted to sell cards through gift shops. My local shop already had local-interest blank cards, but would take a line of post cards. I shot a few images, but could not get an acceptable home-made print. And the low-volume prints from places like Vistaprint were too pricey: more money for them, almost none for me.</p>