Greetings cards

[CCains]

Hi, I wondered if anyone could recommend an app to print square greetings cards on demand? I can find lots doing portrait or landscape but many of my designs work best on a square format. Ideally I’d like a company that is climate conscious please 🙂

[Julie]

Hey, @CCains!

Julie here from Shopify Support.

I love that you're looking into sourcing eco-friendly products; it's great to see climate conscious merchants! While we have quite a few print-on-demand apps in the Shopify App Store, I did manage to find a few that offer square greeting cards, with a couple of them specializing in sustainability. Here's a few options I suggest looking into: 

• Gooten - Taking a look at their product catalog, it looks like they offer greeting cards in multiple sizes, including 5x5. You can find their greeting card product here. While they carry a few different types of paper stock, their product details do not have any information on whether their cards are climate conscious. 
  
  
• Gelato - This is a relatively new app with some great reviews. They carry a number of different types of greeting cards and on their website, they explicitly state that all of their cards are made on sustainability sourced and FSC certified paper. In fact, sustainability seems to be a huge focus for them and you can learn more about sustainability at Gelato here. 
  
  
• Prodigi - This app also offers greeting cards in a few different sizes, including 5.5x5.5. Like Gelato, they also use FSC certified paper and they print using water-based inks, which is generally a more eco-friendly printing method. You can check out their cards here.

I hope this gives you a few solid options worth considering. As you continue working on building your business, I recommend checking out our case study on greetabl, a greeting card company with a unique twist. I think you'll find it quite inspiring. 

What kind of greeting cards are you selling? Will you be creating the designs yourself? I'd love to hear more about your business plans. 

[CCains]

Hi Julie,

Thanks for getting back to me.
I’ve already added Prodigi for lots of products and I did also check out
Gelato but neither do the square format that I’m after. I’ll take a look at
the other one but I did do quite a lot of searching and eventually I think
I have decided to stay with Printed.com and manage the sales of cards
myself instead of doing print on demand. The quality is great, I can have
my logo on the back and their compostable bags are a big pull for me.
I’m an artist and illustrator so yes all of my designs are my own. I did
previously have an Etsy shop but never really developed it and it didn’t
work very well for me so I am hoping that Shopify will be a better move
going forward.
I’ve actually just signed up for a plan and have published the website this
evening so please do go and have a look, ccainsillustration.com. I’ll be
adding more designs at a later date but I’m very happy with how it looks
after two weeks of hard work 🙂
I’ll look at the other things you mentioned as well, thanks for the leads.
Thanks again for your help.

Kind regards,
Catherine.

[Julie]

Thanks for following up, Catherine. 

I'm glad to hear that you've explored these options and that Printed.com seems to work well for you. The compostable bags are a huge bonus!

On the plus side, not using a print-on-demand business model means you can hold your own inventory, giving you the option to sell products in-person. If this is something that interests you, I recommend exploring our card readers. This will allow you to us the Shopify POS app on your mobile device, create orders, and accept credit card payments in-person (if you are using Shopify Payments).

Thanks for sharing the link to your store, by the way. You've done a great job with your theme and your artwork is really good! It looks like you're ready to launch your store, so I suggest checking out our Essential Store Launch Checklist just to ensure you've completed all the steps necessary prior to launching. Another great resource is our Marketing Checklist, which is specifically designed to help you land your first sale in 30 days. There are a ton of great marketing tips in there to help you get started. 

Do you have any marketing ideas in mind?