i'm gonna be sharing my personal
experience of how i made 500 in my first
month of selling greeting cards and
basically how you can do it too so first
you have to decide if you want to sell
printed or handmade cards obviously
these ones are printed so i printed them
in bulk but you can also
sell handmade cards so you can just make
it handmade and if you're not sure how
you can digitize your art then you can
actually just youtube it i didn't know
how to do this so i just did this on
adobe illustrator i just searched how to
digitize my art after you figure out how
to digitize your art or if you are going
to do a handmade card decide on the size
because when you go look for envelopes
you want to make sure your card is like
the right size like it's like a standard
size that will fit into envelopes so for
me i'm in canada so what i did was i and
like before i sold cars i had no idea
what
sizes like were popular
so i actually just searched like
what are the most popular greetings card
sizes in canada and i found out it's a
5x7 card or a
4.25 times 5.5 card which is this is the
like the smaller card size so after i
designed it in adobe illustrator i then
searched for print shops in my area i
used google maps and then took a look at
their website a lot of print shops do a
lot of different things so it's really
hard to get a quote on their website so
i actually called up a couple of them i
asked about their paper
what it would cost like give me an
estimate and it's actually even better
if you can go in person because then you
can like feel the paper and like the
thickness you can look at whether you
want like a glossy finish or like a
matte finish so once you find a print
shop that you like it's cheaper if you
print a lot of cards so for me
i was selling these around christmas
time and
uh yeah i
guess that i would sell
a bunch so i think the first time i
printed
maybe like
30 or 40 of each one of these designs um
and i would say it was about one dollar
per card that was like the cost of
printing so then after you've printed
your cards you want to take some nice
photos so what you can do is you can
actually buy like a
one dollar
poster uh from the dollar store you can
put it down on your floor and you can
lay out your cards and take some
pictures in like from different angles
you can take if you have like a set of
cards like me then you can take a
picture with all four cards but you can
also take them individually to take a
bunch and some nice props you can use
are just like dried flowers or leaves or
ribbon and if you're making handmade
cards you don't have to make like 50
cards at once i would actually just make
a couple samples like maybe i would make
three designs and just like one or two
of each and then you can like take
pictures of them if they're handmade now
after you have beautiful pictures of
your cards you then want to think about
more of the business stuff like how are
you going to price your cards now
pricing cards it will depend on where
your location is and the design of the
card like the paper
the size of the card but generally what
you can do is i would search online for
similar cards especially if they're from
like small businesses so don't look at
like hallmark or like those or walmart
cards look for small businesses who sell
something similar to you and then see
what they price the cards at so for me
the first time i priced the cards i
think it was about it was either four or
five dollars per card and then i also
sold it in a set of four cards and i
made it a little bit cheaper with the
set if you're selling handmade cards it
should be
a lot more expensive than printed cards
because you're going to like you
actually have to take time to manually
create the cards themselves so when you
do your research search for handmade
cards and look for some something
similar to yours and you can price it
around that by the way i do have a
business plan template that you can
download for free and this will really
help you to get started with thinking
about how to run your business do some
market research find your competitors
and kind of like figure out your pricing
so if you want to download that it's in
the link in the description now if
you're just starting out with selling
cards i have three suggestions of where
you can sell the cards the easiest way
is definitely just selling it to your
friends and posting it on your own
social media this is actually what i did
when i first started out i would
literally just post it on instagram and
ask my friends to order and then i could
like meet up with them in person they
would give me cash or i would collect
payment with a credit card and if you
haven't collected payment before you can
use platforms like paypal stripe or wave
these are all free platforms that you
can use to collect credit card payments
but there is a small 2.9
fee which is like a very very standard
fee if you collect credit card you're
gonna have to pay that so other than the
payment collection platform for your for
credit cards you might need something
else just to collect the order so let's
say you have some cards like mine and
you have like a couple of designs and
maybe you have like two envelope colors
the easiest way is actually to just
create a google form and then you can
get your friends to order there then you
can invoice them using paypal stripe or
wave or you can collect cash and then
you can go from there
now if you want to make it a little more
i guess professional
um which you don't have to when you
start out i think using the google forms
and just selling to your friends on
social media is like such a genius way
because i think a lot of the times we'll
underestimate how much our friends can
support us and they actually really do
like if i have a friend who has a hair
salon who just started a hair salon and
let's say even if she charges more i
would go to her i would want to support
my friend rather than going to just some
random like hair salon so if you want to
explore some other platforms definitely
try out etsy it's very easy to set up
very easy to use it's very
straightforward and then another way you
can do it is to set up e-commerce on
your own website
this does require a bit more effort but
in the long term it's like it's good to
just have a website if you're having if
you're starting an art business so some
websites you can start off with
researching are squarespace they have a
really easy e-commerce platform or you
can use shopify and then there's also a
lot other ones like wix wordpress but
you can research those if you're
enjoying this video so far make sure you
give it a thumbs up and take a
screenshot of this video post it to your
instagram and tag me at dina calligraphy
i love it when i can connect with my
fellow subscribers and my followers and
i would love to shout you out back if
you gain a couple more followers my next
tip for you for getting sales when you
start your greeting card business is
actually to start it around the holiday
time definitely the holiday
is like the easiest time to sell
greeting cards because everyone buys
greeting cards during that time and
that's
when i started my greeting card business
it's easy to just launch people will buy
christmas cards anyways so it's just
easy to start around that time now if
you're watching this video and it's like
february or march and that's like not
near the holiday time you can definitely
still start but focus more on like happy
birthday cards anniversary cards you can
get started on those and then when
christmas rolls around definitely come
out with a couple of like holiday
designs i know that starting a business
can seem very very daunting and scary
but i want you to remember you don't
have to wait until your cards are
perfect or your photos are perfect or
your website is perfect or instagram is
perfect just start doing it and i would
say if you can do things to about 80
percent good then you're okay so don't
let perfectionism stop you and good luck
with your greeting cards if you're
interested in more videos about how to
start a business or a side business with
your art or calligraphy then make sure
you check out these videos right here
and i'll see you in the next video bye
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you