Printing and selling postcars - What would you do?

I'm seriously thinking about trying to print out a few of my pictures as postcards and try to sell them to different shops around the country (its a small country). Tourism is just now starting to increase and so I think its a great time to try and get in the market here. I've looked around everywhere they might have postcards, and there are not many places that sell them, and when they do, they are TERRIBLE quality, super pixelated and embarrassing on so many levels. So my competition is not really anything to worry about, and I've talked to several owners of small shops and they all said they would buy some from me if I bring them and they are decent quality.

Being a poor country, the cards will retail for probably $1usd, meaning I can sell to the shops for 50 cents for each card to the shops.

I think I got figured out which photos to print out, but I'm not totally sure on where to print them out. I have family in the states, so my thought was to send it to a printing company there and have them do it and then eventually they send it me.

I got a quote for 1000 cards that are good quality for 40 bucks with shipping. That's only for ONE picture though. Its only like 5 or 10 dollars cheaper to print 500 cards, and its the same price for shipping, so it wouldn't make sense to make less than 1000. But that's saying that if I want to have a 5 picture variety, I will order 5000 postcards! But even if I don't sell them all (which I don't expect to) It wouldn't be hard to start making a profit on them.

So that's as far as I got. Is there more I need to consider? Other than taxes and duties and all that, I got that figured out also. So are there other options out there that I don't know about? Anyone else ever try something similar?


* oops, I'm not sure what postcars are, the title should say postcards..not sure how to edit the title..sorry

So, you'd be making roughly $0.40 per postcard sold? You'd have to sell 125 to make $50? seems like a hard way to make money.

Look at Moo.com for postcards options. They can print many different designs/images in the same order.

Tony_Stark wrote in post #15046420
Look at Moo.com for postcards options. They can print many different designs/images in the same order.

Moo is good, but not economical. I ordered some from them to check quality, and it was great but at $1.00 each cost, including shipping, I'd have to sell them at $2.00 each, making $1.00 per card sold. If I sell through a store, they would mark up to say $2.50. Other postcards in the sore sell for 69 cents. Mine would be better, but I doubt I'd sell many. And like someone mentioned above, one would have to sell a LOT to make any money. I gave it up as a bad idea.

The question is, how long will it take for 5000 people to see you post cards?

How many tourists visit your country every week and many of those visit he stores you will be selling them in?
Also how many tourists buy postcards?
Everyone I know who travels now sends emails and Facebook updates.

Agreed, Post cards are not a huge seller anymore with cellphones, MMS messaging and social media.

Moppie wrote in post #15046568
The question is, how long will it take for 5000 people to see you post cards?

How many tourists visit your country every week and many of those visit he stores you will be selling them in?
Also how many tourists buy postcards?
Everyone I know who travels now sends emails and Facebook updates.

S.Johnsen wrote in post #15045908
So that's as far as I got. Is there more I need to consider?

Most shops require that you provide a stand for the cards. I don't know if it is different where you live but in the UK and in Hong Kong the stand belongs to the card supplier and they won't allow the shop to put other people's cards in.

Moppie wrote in post #15046568
Also how many tourists buy postcards?
Everyone I know who travels now sends emails and Facebook updates.

We sent several postcards during our recent trip to Namibia - but that was mainly because internet access is sporadic at best. We were in the capital, Windhoek, on a Sunday and couldn't find an internet cafe that was open. One shop that had an internet cafe the guy said "we don't open the internet on Sunday".

S.Johnsen wrote in post #15045908
So that's as far as I got. Is there more I need to consider? Other than taxes and duties and all that, I got that figured out also. So are there other options out there that I don't know about? Anyone else ever try something similar?

You didn't say anything about racks, which can be harder to source than the product.

How many locations to place your product are there? Are there more than 100 in a reasonable radius from your home? That would only be 10 cards per store.

Where I live, all that is needed for this to work (besides good photography) is an attractive display that is full, with good selection. A rule in retail is "full racks sell". So they must be maintained-dusted off and replentished regularly. It is normally the person who supplies the product returns to do this chore. But that is where I live.

With an attractive enough display and good looking porduct, no shopkeeper would say no to taking on a consignment. Selling it outright would require a little more skill.

Sure everyone has a camera on their phone. Postcards popularity might not be what it once was. But if you are talking tourists, postcards are still a staple. Not to get rich but to enjoy a labor of love or maybe a profitable side line.

enjoy the photography part....but i think the last postcard i sent via mail was over a decade ago. i think selling matted prints has more legs.

I thought about the fact that post cards are not nearly as popular now as before..but there is the advantage here that internet is not very good, so most tourists wouldn't have easy access to internet, at least not fast internet making it easy to send pictures from here. But it is still a serious concern of mine..and also there are not a whole lot of nice souvenirs to get here anyway, so post cards maybe could be used as that, instead of sending them, they might just bring them back home and give them to friends.

I'm not sure there would be 100 stores I could sell them at. But I think there might be quite a few so I wouldn't have to try to sell 50 at each store right away. But maybe something I should research to see really how many places can I try to sell these??

The card holders is an issue. I checked online and there's quite a few places that sell them, but they are like 30 bucks for the cheapest racks. But they have little plastic tray ones that should work, they are like 2 dollars..so that might be an option...but then that's more investment, on little profit.

I thought about moo.com also, but then I quickly realized it would be basically impossible for me to make money, but when printing 1000 at a time, I think I can lower the price, without sacrificing quality.

Good points though guys. Please keep them coming!!!

But wait, matted prints? What's that? What would they be used for?