Handmade Greetings Cards

[cre8tivesolutions]

Hiya

my girlfriend is starting a new venture - selling handmade greetings cards

im wondering how many of you would give a handmade card instead of a mass made one, and how much you would pay for it

i know it depends on the quality so lets say the cards are of equal quality to that in the shops.

PS: this is for research only, not a sales pitch

thanks

 

[PC]

Not too sure about greeting cards put my ex-wife and I very happily paid out for handmade wedding invitations and were very pleased with them.

Would your g/f be doing that too?

 

[cre8tivesolutions]

hiya

thanks for the post, yeah shes looking at doing invitations as well, i think.

shes busy at work so i said i would do some digging for her.

would you mind if i sent you some samples on her behalf to see how they compare?

thanks

 

[PC]

Hi Jamie,

We could kill two birds with one stone and get the website stuff of the ground too?

 

[Scottish Business Owner]

Hi Jamie,

This market is very popular. You only have to see how much time most of the mainstream shopping channels give to crafting etc. In terms of what I would pay I would say around £3-£4 per card including postage. I think the difficulty with this type of business is how you differentiate yourself. There are loads of websites out there that already do this.

The other area I see an issue is with the time it takes to do each card. The economies come when you can make say 20 of the same card at once. If it takes 15 to 20 minutes to make each individual card then I cant see much profit. Richard's idea is a good one as invitations etc can all be the same and seem to make much more sense. Thats not to say you couldn't get a balance

 

[anned]

I have a greeing card business (not handmade -I'm not artistic enough) and I come across lots of handmade cards in my travels -most fairs will have a least 2 people with them and there are numerous websites.

Handmade cards are fantastic for a special occasion and I do buy them. The only problem from your point of view is that I am absolutely positive there is no way the maker can be making a profit. The main reason for this is that so many people do it as a hobby and decide to sell their excess stock to buy more materials -so they tend to set the retail price. But they don't take account of their time, travel or even half their direct expenses.So you can often buy a handmade card for less than £2 that would have cost more than that to make(if a lot of embellishments are included).THis is a real shame, especially as Clintons etc. now sell what they call handfinished cards as well -but they charge £3-£4 for them.

There are a couple of ways you can make money at this -one, as mentioned already is the wedding/announcements/special stationery area -where prices remain very high. The other, I've seen a couple of people doing is to sell some of the equipment and material alongside your cards -that way you will recoup some money from the hobby brigade.

Is your girlfriend an artist. The company I work with are always looking for new artists for their cards -and if your designs are chosen, that can be very lucrative.

If she would like to chat some more about the card market in general, please feel free to contact me

Anne

 

[Idea15]

I actually would not mind paying about £4 for a handmade card because the ones you get in stores are just as expensive. I forgot it was Father's Day (oops!) and ran into Tesco to get two cards, one to my husband from me and one to him from our wee one - £9.50 for two cards! For that much I could have bought something really special.