How to Sell Handmade Cards- You've got an order!

Selling handmade cards - You've got an order & Buying times

Once you have your order it's all straight forward isn't it? Well there are some considerations you should be aware of.

Agree with your customer an acceptable time for delivery, we work on two to three weeks.

Agree with your customer an acceptable agreement as regard to paying for your products.

Confirm that this is a purchase agreement and have the customer sign your order form.

Next you have to complete your order and raise a relevant invoice.

The date on the invoice is the date that most retailers work 30 days from.

I.e. if the date of the invoice is the 12^th Feb. 2008, you should expect payment on or around the 12^th march 2008.

Packaging your work.

Be very careful when packaging your goods, if you have breakable items you would be advised to either deliver the goods yourself or take out an insurance from the post office covering your goods for breakage. No retailer is going to accept broken goods and will certainly not expect to pay for them.

Buying Times

Remember that retailers work with the seasons.

Christmas is the biggest event of their year and you really should be looking to take orders for Christmas in July, August and September.

October /November are still times when customers will be ordering for Christmas but remember that they will want their deliveries urgently.

November and December retailers will be looking to buy Valentine products.

January and February they will be looking for Mothers Day and Easter products.

At Christmas time retailers are incredibly busy and will not want to see anyone in the last two weeks of December.

However the moment January hits, retailers will all be back to work and raring to buy new stock, again they will be busy with January sales but will hopefully have bulging bank accounts from Christmas sales.

Try to see as many potential customers as possible in the January as this is probably the only time of year that a retailer can afford to take a chance on new or different products, I'll explain why:

The retailers stock is low, in fact all retailers stock is low across the country.

Why? because wholesalers, distributors and manufacturers stocks are low, (A) because of the Christmas shut down and (B) because of the buying in before Christmas, you would not believe how difficult it is to keep a constant supply of some products.

Now you are aware of this situation, make sure you emphasize how quickly the retailer will take delivery of your products, of course you will have to live up to any promises that you make, so just make sure you don't push your luck too far!

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