Category: photoproducts

If I supply Postcards and photo-magnets to local gift shops, should I provide display racks? This has been a question for several years, but the cost of new display racks compared to the tiny profit from such sales made such purchases ill advised. Would enough extra sales result from better displays to pay for the racks in a year or two?

Since the postcards cost about $0.15 to buy from VistaPrint and wholesale for $0.25 or $0.30, if a new display rack cost $15 (a simple 7-card wall rack) I would need to sell 100-150 cards to break even and table-top rotating units cost at least $30 (200-300 cards needed to be sold). Short of building something of my own, it looked hopeless.

I was recently made aware of a program sponsored by the Eastern PEI Chamber of Commerce and Southern Kings Arts Council called “Artisans on Main Street.” It is renting the vacant storefronts along the main street in Montague and promoting ‘the arts’ in most any form. One of their 3 stores is to carry consignment, which might include my postcards. But the fascinating thing is that one of the ladies there indicated that she had seen used display racks at Habitat for Humanity. I guess businesses that fold sometimes give their equipment to charities. A visit revealed two LARGE racks–4-sided, chest height, free standing–for $20 each. One was quite unsuitable but the other could suffice for postcards and books. With a little innovation its 4 pieces could be adapted for multiple uses. Even better, one of the people there said they had gotten more suitable ones in before and expected to get more in soon. So I have re-entered the display hardware market!

On the photo-business side of Wood Islands Prints I have for several years gone to selling postcards to the local gift shops. The market in SE PEI is not very crowded with local image products. The challenge is to find an affordable route for very small runs (100, say) so there can be a limited stock of each picture but have a wide selection. I started with home ink-jet printing but the costs of ink and card stock was high and the result was not very water resistant. Then I found Vista Print. They have printing operations in the US and in Canada, so the duty/agent fee is not an issue. Their focus is on marketing products for small businesses, but they are quite willing to print photo products as well as reminders to “Come in for your automotive service.” If you follow the special sales notifications by email, you can get sometimes get 100 cards for the cost of shipping, and sometimes even save the upload fee as well. Even at worst case I can produce cards for less than $0.25US. I then go around letting customers pick a mix of whaterver cards I have in stock.

The production challenge is to obtain images with just the right resolution and pixel count. This is quite easy in Photoshop and probably in most image-editing software. I have developed a system to make up postcards with colored borders and captions…it is easiest if one develops blank templates that are just the right proportions for the image and for the overall card. My own cards all have blue backgrounds and gold-colored captions on the front as well as B&W description on the back to make it a ‘real’ postcard.

The process is ‘better felt than telt’ and I am going through the steps in a class I’m teaching this coming Saturday (May 19, 2012) for the Photography club that meets at the Montague (PEI, Canada) library at 1PM. If any of you reading this are close you’re welcome to come…there is no charge. Contact me at (902) 962-3335 for information.