How to Sell Your Cards

I often get asked about selling cards, so I thought I’d do a post about it! I made these cards a while ago, so they use retired product, but the principles are still the same. Whether you have a permanent retail space or you sell at seasonal craft fairs, hopefully you’ll find something useful here to help you have a successful and profitable time selling your handmade cards!

First off, here’s a look at the cards I made. I’d had a request for grandparent cards, so I used the retired In Colors Pretty Peacock, Terracotta Tile, and Rococo Rose to make some!

While you’re making your card, you’ll want to take a look at the Stampin’ Up! Angel Policy. Every company that makes stamps or other products will have a similar policy, so you’ll want to look at the policies for any other company who’s products you’re using as well, as they vary in what you are and aren’t allowed to do for profit. For Stampin’ Up! they allow you to make cards or other products for sale, but you must stamp © Stampin’ Up! onto the project. While the stamp you use doesn’t have to be current, it does have to be a Stampin’ Up! stamp, and it’s not good enough to have a custom stamp made with the text or to print the text onto a label or similar.

Once your card is made, you’ll want to package it to protect it from dirty fingers and keep everything together. I always put a coordinating envelope and a piece of copy paper printed with my information into a clear envelope to package my cards. You’ll want to include your contact information somewhere in case someone wants to buy more cards, take a class, or buy products!

Displays are important too! Depending on where you’re selling cards, there’s a lot of different options out there. This is the set up I use for both craft fairs and The Nutcracker Market where I sell my cards all year round. I have a tall display spinner where I keep some cards, a flat display my dad made for me, and then the rest in boxes organized by theme. Your display may vary by the space you have and whether it needs to be portable or not. However you display your cards, you’ll want to be able to rotate them to show off different cards, as well as have the pricing be clear and simple for people to understand.

Talking about pricing… I can’t give you a simple answer for that either. What you charge depends on what your goals are, how much time and material you invest in your cards, and what your local market will tolerate. I sell my cards for fairly cheap because I actually make them for blog posts, social media, or other reasons, then sell them just to save space in my craft room. If you’re a demonstrator, you can use the cost calculator on the demo website to calculate your cost on cards depending on the supplies you use. From there a common fomula for pricing hand made goods is:

Cost x 2 = Wholesale Price x 2 = Retail Price

This formula doesn’t take into account your time, so make sure you’re either happy not getting reimbursed for your time, or that you add something for it. If you’re selling your cards for $5 a piece and it takes you an hour to make one, you won’t even be making minimum wage!

Let me know if you have any questions about selling your cards!