A Site for Emerging Artists
Posts tagged retail products
8 Techniques to Get Your Greeting Card Line into a Store
May 15th
Courtesy Snafu Designs
By Carolyn Edlund
If you’ve got a greeting card line and want more retail stores to carry it, these techniques can help get your foot in the door. Choose carefully what you will offer – it should meet the needs of the buyer, and give them the incentive to try your line. Experienced sales reps and savvy card companies make these irresistible offers and deals from time to time – and so can you!
- Offer a free fixture to display your card line. If the account is close by, deliver the fixture, build and stock it. Or have your sales rep do so for total customer service, and to make sure the display looks terrific.
- No minimum order. Even if you normally require minimums, waive that for new accounts. Let them order whatever they want, just to get in the door. Quite often they choose enough product for a minimum anyway.
- Buy out dead stock. This is a super incentive that works quite well. Every store has really slow sellers hanging around from other card companies whose products they no longer carry. Buy out this stock in exchange for “real estate” (the pockets those dead cards were sitting in). You don’t have to buy for full wholesale – make an offer – half of wholesale or less may get a bite. The total dollar amount of the dead stock you remove from their store becomes a credit towards their new order from you!
- Free shipping. Every buyer is looking for a way to make better margins, and free shipping cuts their costs. It’s a great incentive at a trade show to encourage buying right there and then, or make it a limited-time offer to drive sales.
- No-risk guarantee. Let the buyer know you are so certain of success, that you will take back all remaining stock if your line doesn’t sell after a certain period (six months, for example). At that point, they pay only for what they sold.
- Extended dating. Many card vendors require pre-payment for first time orders, or they give net 30 terms. Extended dating means allowing extra time to pay for their order (60-90 days, typically), which may make the difference in getting that order. Offer this only to prospective accounts you feel sure will pay their bills.
- Take back holiday card leftovers. Got Christmas cards, Valentines or other holiday cards to sell? Most card companies allow returns on unsold seasonal cards, and store buyers expect it. Allow returns of all leftovers in exchange for credit on their next order from you.
- Allow ongoing returns for credit. Some of your card stock will become damaged in the store, or just be slow sellers. Allow a percentage (typically 10%) of stock to come back to you as a credit on the next order. Buyers sometimes ship these back or the rep picks up the return for you (obviously this is more popular). It’s typical for the rep to destroy those returned items, as many times the value of the product doesn’t justify the shipping charge.
Do you know other “tricks of the trade” to get wholesale buyers to try your line? Please comment and share your experiences!
Many thanks to Scott Austin of Snafu Designs for the photo. Visit his site to see the full line and the great offers he has for retailers.
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Greeting Card Entrepreneur Designs Her Own Success
May 2nd
By Carolyn Edlund
Eight years ago, Louisa Huang was working on her PhD in Education Administration when she made the decision to stay at home with her children. At the same time, a friend encouraged her to design a card line based on a charming birthday invitation Louisa had created for her son’s party.
Completely self-taught, Louisa designed about 30 greeting cards, forming her line which is known as Paper Musings. Simple yet elegant, these cards are printed professionally. Louisa and an assistant then hand-apply glitter, rhinestones, quilled paper, felt and other attachments to make each card very special.
Her first step was to pound the pavement near her California home, approaching independent stores with her products. When no buyer was available for an appointment, she left samples. About half of the stores decided to try her line, and her business was born. One buyer passed a sample along to a sales rep they knew who got in touch with Louisa. Eventually she met with the rep group manager and they signed an agreement to take her line into their showroom, and on the road via their reps.
The first suggestion made to her by the reps? Double the size of your line! She diligently kept creating, and now has about 250 different titles. Louisa indicates that birthday, wedding and baby cards are her most popular.
What makes this line successful? Many different factors:
- Sales reps from two rep groups have given her lots of exposure.
- She has a professional website, which presents her work to retailers. (She is not selling retail from the site).
- Louisa has a paper catalog and sends samples along with it to potential accounts.
- She targets more upscale retailers who can handle her retail pricepoint and do well with it.
- Her style is clean, whimsical and charming. People connect instantly with the designs and love the added handmade touch. Her paper is a heavy card stock, with scalloped edges and translucent envelopes.
- A $150 minimum opening order with $50 reorders makes the line easy for wholesale buyers to try with little risk
- Her line is “amusing, surprising and inspiring” with touches such as windows and colored dot brads which provide different and fun formats to the cards.
- Counter cards (individual cards) and boxed sets of Thank You and Notecards are available.
Although Louisa considers herself “fortunate that people discovered me”, she is an excellent example of how we make our own luck. If you are an aspiring greeting card designer, consider how you are going about creating and marketing your line.
Take a critical look – are your designs visually strong, easily recognizable and impactful? What is special about your line – including the paper, envelopes and format? Is your line large enough to provide variety and be taken seriously? (see What you Didn’t Know About Starting a Greeting Card Line and Greeting Card Biz Insider Secrets for more tips).
How are you marketing – trade shows, internet, sales reps, catalogs, or other methods? To drive traffic to your website, are you optimizing incoming links which will provide a pathway to your prospective customers?
Louisa recalls that she “tried everything and made many mistakes along the way”. One of the greatest reasons she has been successful with her line is the sheer persistence she has shown in growing and adapting even in a tough economy. She continues to develop her line, using concepts and embellishments in new and unexpected ways to create “whimsical artistry with clever musing, playful illustration and heartfelt pondering.”
Make a plan and set goals for your business. Be willing to change and take suggestions from mentors and other professionals. Be persistent and work from the heart.
Got a card line you are launching? Please comment and link to your website!
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How to Work with Sales Reps to Grow Your Business
Mar 27th
By Carolyn Edlund
Are you considering using a salesperson to represent your designs and product line to the marketplace? Hiring reps can be a great way to increase sales, as they usually have an established book of business, strong relationships with buyers, and the experience to show your line in the best possible light.
As a small company, you will work with “multi-line” reps, either as independents or working within a rep group. If a rep group accepts your line, you will get representation in a number of sales territories. The group manager will work with you on those parameters. Make sure the reps you want to work with have a group of complimentary product lines which will help them to “cross-sell” your work when they call on retailers.
Courtesy Sandra Davis
A written agreement is very important, and will define the territory, policies involving samples, exclusivity, commissions, returns, and other factors. Providing your reps with samples, sales materials and excellent customer service is essential. Samples are often free to reps, however that will depend on your line. You should reasonably expect to receive samples back from reps if your relationship ends, unless they are lower-end products such as paper and greeting card lines which may get wear and tear or not be worth shipping back.
Reps normally work on “straight commission”, which is often 20% of the wholesale price of the orders. This will vary with the industry you are in, but it is very important that you know what the standard commissions are from your competitors. If you offer lower commissions, you risk getting inferior representation, or none at all.
Commissions can be payable either at the time that the order is shipped to the customer (“pay on ship”), or at the time the invoice is paid by the customer (“pay on pay”), and an agreement as to these terms should be agreed to and in writing at the time of hiring the rep. Commissions normally are paid monthly. A commission statement including customer name, date shipped, amount of invoice (less shipping), and amount due is essential. Good reps keep their own records and know what commissions are due. It’s your job to be accurate and organized as well.
One of the best ways to lose a rep is to be late on paying their commissions. Reps have many out-of-pocket expenses, such as travel and office costs which can add up to be quite expensive. Because they usually make a living strictly on commissions, they will work hard for those companies who are fair and prompt with them. If a company runs late or underpays a rep, they will assuredly see orders drop as the rep has little incentive to show product when the manufacturer doesn’t seem trustworthy.
If you hire a rep to work in a territory, be very clear about any “house” accounts that you may have. For example, if you have a long-standing wholesale relationship with a museum gift shop, you can keep that house account for yourself and the rep should respect that. A list of house accounts should be given up front when the rep is hired. Any account which is opened (or dead account which is reactivated) by a rep should belong to them, and all commissions, whether submitted by the rep or called in by the customer, would be payable to the rep.
Sales reps know their accounts, and have a good feel for which ones should be given terms and which should prepay for orders. You have the right to set your own payment terms, but reps should be consulted for their knowledge about their customer’s behavior.
They can also give you great input about what customers want and what buyers are asking for. You must have new product releases – at least twice a year. Brochures, catalogs and samples are absolutely necessary to get orders on your product line. Some companies have abandoned paper catalogs, but many buyers do not like to use cd catalogs. Color sell sheets are great for introducing a new collection to add to your line.
Keeping clear lines of communication with your sales force is the best way to avoid problems and misunderstandings. There are both very good sales reps out there and very bad ones as well. It can take some time to find the right people to represent your work. Good outside sales representation can take your business to the next level and help expose your products to new markets you would never reach otherwise.
Happy selling!
Greeting Card Biz Insider Secrets – Part 3
Mar 21st
Guest blogger Don Ruge, a greeting card industry pro, completes his series about the business as he writes about licensing your work and other important considerations.
Some artists want to create art, but don’t want to get involved in the manufacturing process. What are some suggestions for them?
Creating art requires one set of skills while supervising the manufacturing process requires quite a different set. How many of us really have the talent or time for both? Besides, designing a successful card line is a lot of work (especially if you’re doing all that research I suggested!), so it makes sense to leave the manufacturing to the experts. This is where licensing comes into the picture.
I should immediately follow up this statement by admitting that I am NOT a licensing expert. I have worked at companies where we have entered into an agreement with an artist to manufacture his/her designs but I was not part of the negotiation process. What I do know is there is not a one-size-fits-all agreement that will make everyone – the artist and the company manufacturing their work – happy. For instance, royalties can look great on paper but if the print runs are low and the distribution is small (meaning not many cards are printed to begin with and even fewer cards ever make it into a store) then it doesn’t matter what percentage of the sales dollars make it back into the artist’s hands. And some artists are so anxious to see their designs manufactured that they will settle for a less-than-fair upfront fee, thinking that they’ll make their money on royalties.
But as I said, I am not an expert. This is where the web really comes in handy because there are a lot of people out there who truly are authorities when it comes to non-manufacturing options. If I had to make one suggestion to an artist who wants to create art but doesn’t want to get involved in the manufacturing process, it would be to join LinkedIn and become a member of as many design- and greeting card-related groups as possible. The wealth of information from people who have experienced the highs and lows of developing their own card lines is truly amazing! For example, a member of the LinkedIn group, “Greeting Card, Stationery & Gift Industry Gurus,” recently started a discussion with the question “Breaking into the greeting card business…which way to go?” and at last count she has received 47 comments to her query. Experienced artists are usually more than happy to share their successes and failures with beginning artists as a way of helping them avoid the same mistakes they made when they first began. And the best part is, you not only learn a lot about the industry but you make some great contacts – and friends – along the way.
What are some Do’s and Don’ts to consider when getting into the greeting card business?
• Do remember it’s a business.
It may involve art, it may involve design, it may involve your heart and soul, but it is still a business, which means there’s always the bottom line to consider. While creativity, both in art and editorial, plays a significant role in the development of the product there are many other elements that must come together to insure success and profitability.
• Don’t take it personally.
Be prepared for criticism. Greeting card art is commercial art, meaning that the end result of your creative endeavor is to sell product and make money. The reality of the business (there’s that “B” word again!) is that your client has his/her own idea of what they need for that particular card design, collection, or product line and 9 times out of 10 some changes–of one degree or another–must be made. And Art Directors appreciate, and continue to work with, artists who willingly make the changes required. Which leads to…
• Don’t refuse to make changes.
By all means express your concerns, engage in a dialogue about why you disagree with the Art Director, make other suggestions, etc. but never say “I won’t do that!” This is especially important if you’re just starting out in greeting cards. If you’re serious about your future you’ll understand that this is only about one design – it has nothing to do with who’s right or who’s wrong – and you’ll remember that you always have the option of turning down future assignments if you feel it’s not worth the effort to work with this, uh,…jerk! Just as Art Directors have a list of artists they won’t work with anymore, so too do artists have a similar list of “never again” Art Directors! Only experience can give you the wisdom to know what jobs are worth the effort so take your time in determining where those lines are drawn (no pun intended).
• Avoid shortcuts (hint: there are no shortcuts!).
Don’t forget that it’s a mighty big world out there and chances are the line into which you’ve poured your blood, sweat, and tears is not as unique and special as you think it is. That’s sounds rather harsh but it’s one more reason why I talk about research. You have to get out there and know your competition. The last thing you want to do is spend months designing a line, only to discover that there are three other lines out there that look exactly the same! That means visiting stores regularly, keeping a reference file of cards you like, checking out your competition’s web site, etc. In short, it means becoming your own greeting card expert.
Greeting Card Biz Insider Secrets – Part 2
Mar 17th
Guest blogger Don Ruge continues his series on the greeting card business. Don has many years of experience in the industry and shares his thoughts on creativity.
I have worked as a Creative Director and Art Director for several greeting card companies. My responsibilities have varied based on the size of the company, but some “basics” remain the same: determine the design direction for each new card (based on sales, line balance, and trend analysis), decide how the design should be executed (i.e., assign art to a freelance or in-house artist, select and purchase stock photography, or reformat existing art), provide lettering direction, approve color separations, and OK final print runs. These responsibilities pertain to individual “counter cards” as well as to cards in a collection or promotion that have to maintain a common design look and/or theme.
I advocate a common sense approach to creativity. One of the wonderful things about creativity is that it is almost infinite in terms of possibilities! But getting a product to market involves a lot of things that are much more “finite” – things like budget restrictions, production schedules, printing and manufacturing guidelines, etc. All of these “real world” things have to be taken into account before your brush even hits the canvas (or your finger clicks the shutter release, or you pick up the mouse – well, you get the idea!). A common sense approach to creativity means you take the time to find out about the things over which you have no control, so all your creative decisions can be informed creative decisions.
For instance, I’ve seen many talented illustrators use colors that the scanner just can’t read. Do you really want that bright red poinsettia to come out brown? Of course not! But even the most up-to-date scanner cannot register every single color the human eye can see. And many paints have a Day-Glo content that the scanner (a finite piece of machinery) can’t interpret. So it’s just common sense to check with the printer (or the company you’re designing for) to find out if they have a list of paints and colors to avoid (many of them do have such a list).
Another example is the importance of allowing for lettering space. On the surface it may seem simple enough but I have known many an artist to design a beautiful piece of art but leave no room for a caption at the top. (Hint: cards with lettering at the top usually sell better because the caption can be seen behind other cards in the rack.) A common sense approach to creativity means you know this isn’t just about the art itself but it’s about the final product, a greeting card, which means it consists of both art AND lettering. If you’re developing your own line of cards then you have the unique advantage of knowing what the editorial is going to be and you can plan your design accordingly.
If you want to be successful as a greeting card artist it’s also important to know as much as you can about the production side of things, and that includes understanding prepress as well (prepress is the process of preparing digital files for printing). Before computers and graphic software, artists had to do most of the work themselves, which meant they were responsible for painting flat backgrounds and precise borders. But if you take the time to do those things today, it can mean even more work for the company who’ll be manufacturing your design. The steadiest hand can’t rival a computer when it comes to flat backgrounds and parallel borders (believe me, I’ve tried!), and there may be parts of your work that not only can be done on the computer but should be done on the computer. So it’s common sense – and a real time saver! – to ask the Art Director what part of your design will be handled digitally. I usually instruct the artist to suggest colors and indicate borders on an overlay and then I let the in-house staff take it from there. With a little communication, it becomes a win-win situation for both the artist and the Art Director.
Featured Artist Julia Hacker
