Starting a Home Greeting Card Business
Greeting cards are a big business, and selling greeting cards can be lucrative even for creative-minded individuals who start their greeting card business at home. According to the Greeting Card Association, annual greeting card sales average $7.4 billion in the United States, making a home greeting card business not only a viable option but also a potentially lucrative option. Starting a home greeting card business isn't as difficult as you might imagine, as long as you have the drive, creativity and the proper equipment.
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Instructions
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Evaluate your skills to determine if you'll need to hire outside help. To produce greeting cards that customers will want to purchase, you will need to have the ability to write, design and print the cards.
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Determine how you're going to reach your prospective customers. While you may have your sights set on opening your own greeting card store some day, you'll find the easiest way to start selling your greeting cards is to create a professional website.
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Design a website that will serve as your online storefront. In addition to featuring photos of some of your available greeting cards, be sure that you include a form or an easy way for customers to purchase cards.
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Offer your first-time customers a free card to show them the quality of your product and to entice them to purchase from you. Because people are used to physically touching and seeing the greeting cards they purchase, they'll likely be more open to trying your product if they can see one first.
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Allow your customers the option to personalize their greeting cards. By offering personalized greeting cards, you're also carving a niche for yourself in the market.
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Advertise your greeting card business both online and offline. You can advertise your greeting cards with pay-per-click advertising on the Internet, ads in your local newspaper and by issuing a press release to offline and online media outlets.
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Promptly fulfill orders you receive from customers. If you provide your customers with high-quality customer service in addition to a superior, original product, you'll have satisfied customers who will likely purchase from you again and recommend your business to others.
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Tips & Warnings
If you don't have all of the skills you need to design your greeting cards, you can team with freelancers to help you. For example, if you can write but don't have the design skills, either engage the services of a freelance designer or find a designer with whom you'd like to partner in your business.
