Unlock the Secrets to Making Money Selling Greeting Cards

Can You Sell Your Handmade Greeting Cards?

If you’re a crafter and love to make your own greeting cards for friends and relatives, the question of turning it into a side business has likely crossed your mind. Questions such as “How can I sell my handmade greeting cards?”, “Are my cards good enough to sell”, “How do I market my handmade greeting cards” and more. Most importantly, you’ve likely asked yourself is if it is even possible to make money selling greeting cards at all. Spolier alert: it absolutely is possible.

Turning a passion such as creating greeting cards into a business can be overwhelming. So, for that very reason, we’ve created this end-to-end, from passion-to-business guide on how to start earning money online and offline from the cards you create.

Note: Handmade and personal products are rising in popularity thanks to sites such as Etsy. By contrast, mass-produced items are falling in popularity, so now is the time to strike selling your crafts.

Will Your Cards Make Money?

Before jumping headfirst into this business venture you need to figure out if your cards will earn you a profit. It’s fairly simple but something that is often overlooked. Figure out your costs vs how much you will earn to determine your profit.

Determine Your Costs

Take into account the cost of materials, any fees on selling platforms such as Etsy, postage and packaging costs, etc. Anything that you will pay out of pocket while creating your cards, selling your cards, or shipping your cards.

Consider bulk buying your card stock and art materials to keep prices low. Hand off the cost of postage and packaging to your customers. You can hand off the costs visibly by charging or take the more, slightly underhanded route of adding it to the cost of the card but having postage/shipping remain free.

How Much Will You Charge For Your Cards?

The big question!

Think about how much you will charge per card. This will differ depending on whether you’re going for bulk-handmade, or bespoke. In this case bespoke would be taking commissions from someone to create something custom in a certain amount of time. You can charge significantly more for bespoke commissions.

Think about selling individual cards vs bulk. Individual cards should be priced more per card, to help persuade people to buy more at once, increasing your sales.

The most important point here is to not undersell yourself. We’ll look at how to determine the quality of your own cards later on. But generally, you need to understand that even if you’re not entirely happy with the design, there is someone out there who will be, so don’t overly worry about it.

The tried and true method is always the best. Look at your competitors on Etsy etc. and simply price your cards in a similar range. Don’t get involved in “price wars” by dropping yours lower than everyone else. A low price will actually convince customers NOT to buy from you.

What Supplies Do You Need to Make & Sell Your Cards?

The supplies you need will depend on how intricate your card designs will be and what your design strengths are. It will also depend on whether you’re going completely old-school handmade or whether you will make them digitally.

At an Absolute Minimum, You Will Need The Following to Make Your Cards

These are the materials you will absolutely need to create your own handmade cards to sell:

Cardstock or other types of paper for the base of the card.
Scissors or a guillotine/paper cutter for cutting the card to size.
Decorations materials, such as ribbons, stickers, glitter, stamps, buttons, beads, sequins, etc. for added texture and depth.
Adhesives, such as double-sided tape, sticky dots, or glue, for attaching the decorations.
Ink or paint for adding color and designs.
Pen or pencil for writing or drawing on the cards. This can be simple or something more intricate such as a fountain pen.
Envelopes for the cards (or paper to make the envelopes.

Additional Supplies for Extra Style

While not necessary, the following will help you to make more money from selling your greeting cards online. They will add that extra wow factor that will draw customers in like crazy.

Embossing powder and heat gun, if you want to create embossed cards.
A Cricut machine if you want to create intricate patterns & shapes to add even more depth.
Novelty hole punches, to create shapes like standard circles, stars, Christmas Trees, etc.
Watercolor paints, if you’re a bit of an aspiring artist!
Markers, if you want to add boldness to your designs.
Washi tape to add patterns or texture to your cards.
Stamps for a quick way to ink details.
Foam tape, to add extra dimension and multi-layer your cards.
Materials with complex patterns to add a luxurious feel.

Creating Digital Custom Greeting Cards

Not everyone is a crafter, but you can still make money with your custom cards by making use of digital tools. You’ll still need the basics but you can use the following to take a lot of the handmade strain out of your hands.

A printer, to print designs and/or text onto the cards.
A camera or smartphone, to take pictures to use as designs on the cards.
Software such as Adobe Illustrator or Canva for creating digital designs.

How Will You Sell Your Greeting Cards?

This is an important one. Really you have 3 options here for how to sell your cards:

As pre-made, listed as individual cards.
As pre-made, listed as bulk (pack of 5, 10, etc.)
As custom commissions, where you create card(s) to order based on what the customer asks for.

You’ll also need to consider the event. For example, Christmas cards will typically work well as bundles/bulk. Birthday cards work well as individuals either pre-created or as commissions. Similar to birthday cards, handmade wedding cards will typically be commissions.

Speaking of weddings, your big bucks will come from wedding thank-you cards. The bride and groom will want to send potentially 100+ thank you cards which means a lot of work for you and a lot of money to be made by making your own greeting cards!

Regardless, you’re going to want to sell your cards in all 3 ways above, depending on the event, what you have available to make up front and what time you have to set aside to make the cards.

Where Will You Sell Your Handmade Greeting Cards?

#1 Facebook Marketplace

While not geared towards handmade selling, Facebook Marketplace is a great zero-cost (no-fee) way to test the waters. You can see, in your local area at least if there is demand for your cards.

Make sure to offer/show the 3 options we mentioned above. Give your costs for individual and bulk, and per 1, 10. 50 etc. for custom-created greeting cards.

Facebook Marketplace is your testing ground and your springboard to start making money from creating handmade greeting cards.

#2 Etsy

Of course, Etsy is the king of the handmade marketplaces. If someone is looking to buy handmade, custom or unique cards, this is where they’ll go.

Here, you will need to consider Etsy fees, but you simply bring that info into your cost vs profit calculations and amend your pricing accordingly.

#3 eBay

Again, while not dedicated to handmade items, you can sell your handmade cards on eBay. Both pre-created cards and made-to-order are possible here. eBay is not entirely geared up for custom orders but it is possible, although a little clunky.

Fees need to be considered as with Etsy.

Despite it not being as good as Etsy for making money from creating handmade cards.

How to Start Marketing Your Handmade Cards

The great thing about marketplaces such as Etsy is that a lot of the marketing is done for you. But there is still a lot you can do to make sure that you make even more money from yoru handmade cards.

Search Engine Optimization for Your Cards

Firstly, make sure you create a search engine-optimized title and description for your cards. This may sound complex but really it is just choosing the right words and phrases that will make your card show up more in search.

Photographing Your Greeting Cards

With SEO nailed down, you need to make sure that your cards grab the eye. When someone is browsing they need to be drawn enough to your card that they click on it. So to make more money from your handmade cards it is vital that you take a good photo of your card(s).

Take the photo in a well-lit room, close up so there is nothing else clogging up the picture. Taking the picture at an angle is an easy way to make it look more professional.

Leverage Social Media

Twitter is great for promoting your business. You can get involved in card-making or craft communities and hashtags. Additionally, you can use hashtags such as #Wedding to promote directly to those people who will be getting married soon. Because remember, weddings are one of the events that are guaranteed to bring in the big bucks.

Be realistic about social media. It’s great to have a presence but don’t throw too much time at it. Spending 2 hours on social media would be better spent making cards. Just drop links to new greeting cards you have on sale, follow some relevant people, and comment on maybe one other post. Keep. it. simple.

Similar Ways to Make Money

Now that you’ve got moving with making money by selling greeting cards, venture out into similar niches. You’ve already got the materials, so scale up and out! Consider the following:

Handmade invitations for weddings, parties, etc.
Custom-designed scrapbook pages and albums.
Place cards for special events.
Handmade journals and notebooks.
Custom-designed gift tags.
Paper flower arrangements.
Handmade bookmarks

And this is just the beginning. Let your imagination go wild and think beyond just making money from handmade greeting cards. Branch out as far as your creativity will let you!

Start Selling Your Handmade Cards Now!

Now that you know what to do, don’t just sit on your hands. Act now. Join Facebook marketplace and Etsy, grab your supplies, and get crafting. The only person that can make this business a reality for yourself is you. Literally nothing is standing in your way to start selling and making money from your handmade greeting cards today.

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Alan Bloom (Earnologist)

The owner and primary content creator for Earnologist. My goal is to show you the best ways to earn online and offline and how to effectively save the money that you do make.

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