OK, you’ve decided that one way to sell your artwork is on greeting cards. You’ve found some places to sell them – craft fairs, farmer’s markets, local merchants. However, displaying them in booths or on the countertop is different than displaying larger artwork. The most common ways to display cards are in spinner racks, on slat walls, on acrylic shelves, and in free-standing displays. Any display that shows the full faces of cards is ideal. Beyond that, greeting cards aren’t exactly a three-dimensional product, sometimes making them difficult to display creatively.
Here are some easy tips on how to display your cards for sale.
1. No room for a table top display at your farmer’s market booth? Show them off on string or colorful ribbon strung between the posts of your booth or hanging vertically. You can even find mini-clothespins at a craft store to attach them. Keep cards for purchase stored in a box under the table.
2. Make shoe boxes (perhaps wrapped in wrapping paper) with dividers for clients to sort through. Just Something I Made is a wonderful blog on how to build a tiered box system for displaying your cards.
3. Sell sets in clear boxes. Prepare a sheet for the bottom of the box that shows all the card designs included in the box, as shown below:
4. Buy acrylic cardholders for counter-top display. These can be very inexpensive, and are perfect for displaying just one or two card styles on a countertop. Oak Creek Printworks carries small and large stands.
5. Use office divider racks to display your cards. Some office supply stores have what they call “junior” racks, which are smaller than the 8.5 x 11 file size racks (too big for greeting cards).
6. Laminate your cards together on a large sheet of paper. If the cards are blank inside you can just show the fronts. If there are verses inside you will want to show both the front of the card and the inside. These laminated “posters” can be displayed on a table or by hanging on a wall. Depending on the size, they can also be displayed in an album or flip chart. The art always stays clean, and you can even use dry-erase markers to write on the poster, and wipe it off later. Perfect for listing prices or emphasizing sale items. The actual cards for purchase can be stored in a box or file under the table.
7. Display your art online using a website or a blog, such as Facebook or WordPress.
Facebook – Display your designs and cards on your own facebook page. Link to your blog on WordPress. Join groups of artists who will link to your page and blog, like the Graphic Artists page.
WordPress provides public domain blogging software, which means it is FREE! It is easy to set up an account. Here are some examples of sites that are selling cards with WordPress sites:
Rikki O’Neil and Friendship cards
8. Use a scrapbook or portfolio book to display the cards on a counter top, and store actual cards for purchase in a box or file underneath the counter. The scrapbook can be purchased or even homemade.
9. Arrange a 3-D display on heavy posterboard using the adhesive 3-D dots that scrapbookers use for their album pages. The downside to this method is that if the display board or cards get dirty or dogeared they can be hard to clean.
10. Acrylic Spinners – a perfect countertop or floor display.
Don’t forget, when displaying your cards, the best way to protect the artwork as potential customers handle them is to use some type of protective sleeve. Check out our card jackets, no-flap bags, and protective closure bags.
We hope that this information has helped you, and would love to hear how you display your products. Leave a comment, or send us an email at info@oakcreekprintworks.com. Include a photo and we will try to post it here on the blog.
Commercial greeting card publishers have forever pushed the envelope when it comes to greeting card presentation techniques, relying heavily on high end print and print finishing processes. While holographic and lenticular printing are too pricey for the average working artist and crafter, other finishes like die cutting, embossing and engraving are now within reach of those willing to invest in new desktop equipment and take the time to learn how to use it.
