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In this podcast episode we talk about 3 options for making your stickers.
Create your design and use a drop shipping company
Design your stickers & use a third party company to print and cut your stickers
Design, print, & cut your stickers at home, where you own 100% of the process
Each of these ways has its pros and cons, which we discuss on our podcast.
Option #1 Create your design and use a print-on-demand/drop shipping company
There are companies that will manage all the parts of online selling for you like Red Bubble or Society 6. Basically, you create your art files and upload them and that’s it. That’s all you have to do. However, the artist margin, or commission percentage that you get from selling through print-on-demand tends to be very low. For example:
You set a 20% markup for large framed art prints. 20% of the $125 base prices means you get an artist margin of $25.00. Someone buys a beautiful, amazing piece of art from you, printed on a gorgeous, large canvas, and your share of the sale was…
$25
Just Twenty. Five. Freaking. Dollars.
Now, these companies aren’t trying to scam you as an artist or maker, but because they’re the ones producing the actual product, you have a super low, somewhat disappointing profit margin. On the other hand, you can sell your art without having the production time, having to ship them, or even store your inventory. But is it worth it? We’re not convinced.
Option #2: Use a third party company to print and cut your stickers
You can use a company like Stickermule or StickerApp to upload your artwork and order your stickers at a price similar to wholesale. Stickermule has free US shipping, but you can expect to pay with some companies. Once you order your stickers, you have to wait for them to ship, and then photograph them, list them on your own site, and manage your own online shop and orders.
Some of the pros of this method are:
You don’t have to buy supplies, such as a printer, ink, and a die cut machine.
You don’t have to cut them yourself and deal with occasional tech issues.
You ship the stickers out to customers yourself and this could be good or bad, as you have to deal with shipping, but you do get to add your own touches to the packaging, unlike a print-on-demand.
However, because of the price point, you can still expect to have a pretty high production expense and only a 40-50% profit margin. Still, you can get high quality stickers with very little work this way.
Option #3 Design, print, & cut your stickers at home
This third option involves a lot more steps, but, as we discuss in the podcast, there are a LOT of benefits.
Here’s what you need: What do you need: cutting machine like cricut or silhouette, a high quality inlet printer ideal for printing photos, shipping/packaging materials
There is a larger investment to start doing stickers this way. You can expect to spend around $600 on a die cut machine and a printer, if you don’t already have these two pieces of equipment. Also, you’ll need to learn how to use them and you may occasionally have to troubleshoot your machines.
In this method, you’ll have to manage your shop, inventory, and online presence, and make your own product. Why do we love this idea so much?
You can test new products and have more variety without placing a bunch of orders.
You don't have to wait for your own stickers to ship to you.
And...
You own 100% of your process and your business!
By owning our own equipment and producing our stickers ourselves, our profit margin is 90%.
Yes, 90%!
So, if you’re thinking about the long term success of your handmade business or you want to sell your art successfully, we recommend you use Option #2 or #3, depending on your needs.
Making your own stickers is a great way to sell your art in a product form that is affordable and appealing to your customer and you have several different options for producing your own stickers.
If you’d like to learn more about cutting and making your own stickers, we actually have a free mini course online that is 100% FREE for you!
In this course, we’ll walk you through:
-how to convert your artwork from medium to digital file
-how to photograph your stickers with your iphone
-how to create stickers in Silhouette Studio stickers
-how to use the print-to-cut feature
-how to create waterproof stickers
-our recommendations for sticker paper
-2 Bonus Modules: how to create offsets on your stickers, how to fix common errors when making stickers
Visit our website, shopstudiosisters.com, and get access to our free mini course, How to Print & Cut Your Own Stickers.
Talk soon friends!
xx Taylor & Katie xx
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