How to Start a Greeting Card Business?

1
How to Start a Greeting Card Business?

• People need greeting cards for countless
  occasions birthdays, anniversaries, deaths,
  graduation, valentines, and whatnot. Some people
  do not even give a gift unless there isnt a
  greeting card attached with it. If you have an
  idea for a line of greeting cards and the
  artistic talent to keep it unique, you are
  surely going to earn big.
• So, if you want to start your greeting card
  business, make an announcement already, or just
  simply say thanks. Because weve got you covered.
  We have put together this detailed guide
• that will answer all your questions from How to
  start a Greeting Card Business? to How to
  frame the perfect greeting card business plan?.
• Create a full-proof, well-planned, legally
  compliant, customer friendly greeting card
  business plan.
• Decide your Target Audience
• Deciding the target audience or the target market
  is the essential step zero. You cannot probably
  sell without knowing who youre trying to sell
  to. Decide what audience you want to target.
  Deciding this at an early stage is essential so
  that you can create designs that appeal to those
  audiences. You must go through a series of steps
  to decide your target audience.
• Lets look at it one by one.
• Find your Niche
• You need to think of a strategy that would mark
  your identity and would differentiate you from
  the pool of competitors. Defining a unique niche
  is a part of your larger brand strategy. A lot
  of things will depend on the niche of your
  business, like the name, specialization,
  marketing strategies and so on.
• Once you specialize in a certain type of message,
  you may find it difficult to branch out because
  the name you chose for your business may or may
  not align with your new specialization. So, it
  is better to know it all before you begin.
• Greeting Card Type

2
Choose the material that youre going to offer.
There can be a wide range of materials to choose
from like paper, cardboard, reusable material and
so on.

• Readymade Cards or Personalized Cards

3

• Either offer readymade cards or personalized
  cards, you can also offer both of them. Although
  custom-made cards produce more guaranteed money.
  You may lose some creative control, as you must
  produce what the client wants. Therefore,
  offering both types of cards can be a plus point
  too. You can also showcase your creativity
  through the readymade cards. By offering
  personalization you can let your customers design
  the cards as they want.
• Personalized Cards
• You must be wondering why there is a big
  difference between personalized cards and the
  readymade ones. Well, the answer is simple.
  Customers love things made specially just for
  them. A great way to make customers happier and
  keep them engaged.
• Deloitte found that 1 out of every 5 customers is
  willing to pay 20 more for a personalized or an
  exclusive product that is designed just for them.
  Another study on creating customer loyalty
  through customization states that
• customization increases perceived service
  quality, customer satisfaction, customer trust,
  and ultimately customer loyalty toward a service
  provider.
• You can offer your customers upload photographs,
  write personal messages, add designs of their
  choice and then send it to printing. Customer
  experience finds value through exclusivity in
  the form of customized products. It gives them
  the feeling of something unique and something
  specific that works in just the way they want.
• We can help you enable offering custom greeting
  cards in your store. To know how, get in touch
  with our industry experts.
• What does the Greeting Industry look like in
  2020?
• Keep track of new greeting card business by
  reviewing submission guidelines, requirement
  statistics, by visiting card stores, fairs etc.
  It is a good way to find out what is trending,
  what is not and what sorts of cards are people
  looking for.
• These stats can also play a role in defining your
  niche. You can also get a good idea about what
  the conventional market is, which could help you
  try breaking the conventions to offer something
  unique. Lets have a look at some of the latest
  trends in the industry.

4

• So, youre ready with your step Zero and youve
  thought it all through. You know your niche,
  type of cards, type of products and so on. We
  bring you a 5-step implementation plan, to start
  with the successful execution of your Business
  Idea.
• Step 1 Visibility through Your Website and
  Ecommerce Store
• The first and foremost step in your greeting card
  business plan is to build your online presence
  and improve your visibility. Online presence is
  important especially in the early days of your
  companies. A social media account can greatly
  boost your online presence.
• You will also need an Ecommerce store to sell
  your products and showcase your offerings. You
  can easily build your online presence if you go
  through the following steps.
• Website
• You will need to register a domain name and build
  a website. You can create your own website and
  customize it to mark a benchmark of your brand.
  You can either build an ecommerce website
  directly or can build a separate website and then
  integrate your ecommerce store to it.
• E-commerce Platform
• Selecting the right e-commerce platform is a
  crucial step. Theres a pool of options to choose
  from. Since we are looking for a specific
  use-case that is building it for our greeting
  card print shop or website. You can categorize
  your selection on the basis of licensing, cost of
  development, customization, support services and
  so on.
• Magento, Shopify and WooCommerce are three
  popular ecommerce platforms with active
  communities for developers for support. Magento
  is the popular choice for larger enterprises and
  for someone who needs flexible customization.
  Shopify and WooCommerce on the other hand are
  hassle-free to start with. You can easily
  integrate the store to your website and get up
  and running within days. Each platform has its
  own pros and cons. To know more about these
  platforms, you can visit this detailed guide.
• Business App

5
The more unique your designs the more likely
customers are to click on your website. As we
noticed earlier that product personalization is
trending these days. And let your customers
implement this on their own you will need a
Product Customization tool. A product
personalization tool is a Web-to-Print software
with diverse features to your customers to
create customized designs. All you need to do
after that is print those designs. An Intuitive
W2P product design tool consists of everything
that you would expect from an online product
design tool, from diverse customization features
to print-ready designs. Ideally most tools
provide a huge library of images, texts, clipart
and ready templates. A fully-responsive designer
tool is also perfect to create personalized
designs on every printable material. It can have
element-based pricing, design-based pricing and
so on. Pick a tool that gives you full control
over its offerings and flexibility.
Brush Your Ideas is one such tool. Understanding
your business feasibility, it also provides a
custom UI for you to control where your end-users
can perform customizations. Plus, offers
multiple integrations and can work with multiple
platforms. Step 3 The Printing Phase After
your customers design their products, the next
step would be to print those designs. Planning
the printing phase involves planning everything
from the printing methods, supplies, to the
printing infrastructure. Lets have a detailed
look at all these aspects. Printing
Methods There are multiple types of printing
methods. Choose your printing methods first so
that you can make sure of your supplies and the
infrastructure. It is necessary to select a
printing method that gives a desired result.
Some of the popular ones are engraving,
thermography, foil stamping, embossing, digital
printing, etc.
6
While choosing the printing method, think about
the factors like quality of the output, required
resolution, compatibility of the printing method
with your product design tool and so on. Digital
Printing is one of the most common methods that
uses four colors of ink to create intricate
designs and lettering, applied in small dots.
Plus, digital painting requires an image
resolution of 300dpi. It ensures better image
quality and output. You can opt for a Software
to manage your print workflow. It is better to
have a streamlined process that eases operation
from the beginning itself. Check out Brush Your
Ideas Print Job Manager solution. Manage your
Supplies Note down all the supplies that youll
need and look out for similar suppliers. You will
need necessary supplies like cards, paper, ink
and so on. Find wholesale suppliers through
industry contacts, trade journals, internet and
so on. You can go according to your budget and
choose the one that best suits your budget. But I
would suggest not to go for low quality products
solely because of the budget. It is about
customer satisfaction in the end. To manage these
supplies, you can opt for various Inventory
management software too. Infrastructure Set up
the infrastructure pertaining to the printing
method you choose. Setup a professional
workspace with required instruments. The printing
instruments that you buy will depend on the
printing methods that you choose. You can hire
professionals to help you with everything. You
can sign a third-party contract and give the
printing consignments to well-equipped print
professionals. Step 4 Define Marketing
Strategies Your customer probably wont discover
your charming cards without you marketing them.
Your greeting card business plan needs effective
marketing strategies. The best marketing
technique for new businesses is word-of-mouth. As
you grow you can work out on a more formal
approach to your marketing strategies. Marketing
strategies must include social media marketing,
email marketing. You can also create and launch
ads and have your business review printed in the
local newspapers. Promote yourself through
various retail outlets. Showcase some sample
designs on your ecommerce stores and social
media. Advertising through social media is a
good, cheap way to get early business. Choose
the right kind of content to catch the attention
of your potential customers. Offer samples and
prototypes to customers so that they can see the
card up close before committing to larger
orders. You can also sell these cards directly to
pre-existing popular stores. This can build
brand recognition too. Providing additional
sweeteners, such as free shipping, or discount
can also prove to be helpful. The possibilities
are limitless.
7

• Cost vs. Benefit Maximize the Profit
• As a beginner every business owner is worried
  about the cost vs benefit ratio. But they forget
  to notice that the benefit ratio is not solely
  based on just the market but also their own
  business strategies. Heres a brief on how to
  increase the benefit ratio using smart business
  tactics. Include these points in your greeting
  card business plan and youre good to go.
• Most card shops online as well as offline
  sell specialized envelopes, pens, gifting
  accessories and so on. You can implement this
  too. Provide gifting options at the time of
  checkout. Ask your customers if they want
  envelopes and even suggest some based on the
  type of card theyve chosen. This will bring you
  additional revenue.
• You can sell these cards in bulk at various
  retail centres too. This can help improve your
  brand recognition. Design unique and new ideas to
  get more attention.
• Decide a pricing system of your own. Especially
  for personalized products. You can include
• element-based pricing, size-based pricing,
  color-based pricing and so on. You can charge
  your customers for uploading custom photos too.
  You can charge them for every word they write or
  you can implement sentence-based pricing.
• Plan seasonal offers and provide lucrative
  discounts to your customers. Generally, the
  prices of greeting cards are about 2.50 each.
  However, you can sell a pack of six cards for
  approximately 7.50. This way customers will find
  it cost effective and are more likely to make
  the purchase.
• Small greeting card businesses can make about
  45,000 a year. Larger companies, like Hallmark,
  make as much as 19.7 billion on particular days
  alone like Valentines Day.
• Your designs matter, just make sure the designs
  offerings are of high quality. You can
• collaborate with print-specialists too.
  Print-specialists offer more than simple printing
  services.
• The old saying goes It takes money to make
  money. But nobody said that you have to spend
• all of your own money? Small business funding can
  help you cover the expenses required to get your
  greeting card business plan started. You can use
  these funding to help you with equipment,
  supplies, employees, legal fees etc. There is no
  one-size-fits-all type of business funding. So,
  consider your options mindfully.
• Step 5 Delivery and Logistics Management
• Last but not the least is logistics management.
  You will need an effective logistics
  infrastructure, to manage your supply chain as
  smoothly as possible. Again, you can do this on
  your own, by creating logistics workflows or you
  can outsource it to a third-party company.
  Decide on a commission to pay them either monthly
  or based on orders.

8
WooCommerce, Shopify, Prestashop, OpenCart, PHP
and so on. We also provide multiple custom
integrations like Print Inventory Management
solution and Print Job Manager. Our product
comes with the top functionalities that you need
to acquire, engage, and serve your potential
end-customers in the best way possible. We
guarantee that our team of expert developers
will guide you every step and be by your side to
embark on this journey ahead. If you do seek any
customizations for your greeting card business
idea we would not be surprised.
E-mail Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn
Instagram