Greetings Cards Printer

putting-out-fires

New Member
Hi all

I need to get some greetings card designs printed. The size of the cards is to be A5 when folded. I have ten designs in total but am looking for low numbers of each - 10 to 15 max off each design. Does anyone know of a good, reasonably priced printer that can print these numbers?

P.S. Really sorry if this question is in the wrong place, wasn't quite sure where to put it.

Thank you!
 
Hi Greg, you are probably right, I've had a looked around the web and found that most places state minimum order quantities larger then what I need. I'm not really spoilt for choice locally but will have a look around, thanks for your reply.
 
I wanted to do a small print run of about 50 last year and I came across similar blocks. Current printing services don't seem to be set up for people who want to start selling a small amount of cards, working their way up. It's simply order enormous quantities (that you're never likely to sell) before you get anywhere near a decent cost per card.

What you're basically looking for is a person/organisation/company that has a colour printer capable of printing on at the very least 180gsm card stock. Anything less will simply be too thin to be considered a card, and 180 is probably a stretch.

I would be surprised if one of your local print shops didn't offer some form of service which doesn't cost the earth. You could always go to a library or other place which allows the use of printers, if for some odd reason the print shop didn't do what you needed, and find out if their printers are good enough. There aren't too many other options to be honest, unless someone knows of a new online printing company that focuses on freelancers or small print runs for people that don't sell through Hallmark etc
 
Yeah I remember looking at moo for cards. Not a bad service but the price per card is more than twice that of other places for print runs of around 300 and upwards. It's a little frustrating that there isn't a middle ground, just consumer and bulk orders. I don't think they even come with envelopes? I sent them an email to find out... (Update: Yes, they do come with envelopes)

You can buy cards for 50p these days, there isn't much of a profit margin with those printing costs, especially if they don't come with envelopes.... It's alright if you just want to give them to people though.
 
Mental isn't it, Sainsburys are doing 25p cards now. Got one for my God Daughter the other day, folded nicely, glue on the envelope worked OK too!

I'd definitely search for a local small format digital printer, but be more confident in your artwork and get more produced per artwork. You'll find for the price of getting someone to run 10 cards out they will run 50off for a similar price. You can understand it if you think they've got to upload your artwork set it to print, load the stock, score/fold and trim it out. You should be looking to use nearer 250-300gsm for a quality result.
 
Talk about having a market monopoly... 25p that is actually impossible to compete with. I reckon there's a real niche opportunity there for someone... The cards at stores are never particularly great. I've tried doing it on my own before though, that included making the envelopes by hand, printing and scoring the cards as well as attaching paper inserts. They were pretty awesome but it all had to be done by hand and was very time consuming... Okay, I'll stop banging on about it, It's just annoying :p
 
Hi, wanted to say thanks for all the advice, sorry for the delay I wandered away from the forum for a few days. I have been looking around and there is a local printer who I think can help, just waiting for confrimation of prices. Not done greetings cards before and am doing them now just because I came up with a small design range that I really like. Probably not going to be big money makers but thought I would give it a go.

Thanks again for the replies.
 
Glad to hear you found someone who could do the smaller quantity. Hope the cards come out great. I had a look around for envelope ideas for you because I remembered seeing this article on someone who made them out of old magazines: www.ohsoprettythediaries.com/2012/08/the-diy-magazine-envelopes.html. This could be transferable to any design really but it would really make your cards look unique if you had some handmade envelopes with it. Hope that helps :)
 
thanks solopress, great article will give this a try. I was guilty of not thinking about the envelopes too much, was going to go for plain white but this idea could really add something a bit different to the finished product. very useful. :)
 
When I was making mine last year, with my fancy shmancy hand made envelopes, I saw this amazing video tutorial to make your envelopes look simply... amazing. Envelope porn, if you will. It's basically a custom closing mechanism for the envelope, it looks awesome but probably only useful if you don't intend on posting them through the mail.

Oh and forgot to mention, those moo cards do come with envelopes.

Check it out:

 
I liked the idea of making envelopes so much I have actually made some from the pages of a couple of old picture books I had no other use for (I now have the envelopes before I have the cards so hope the cards turn out ok, will find out when I pick them up on Friday). The envelopes came out really well, thanks for the idea as they are much better than the plain white envelopes I would have used. :)
 
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