Why Stores Like to Work With Greeting Card Reps

This is an excerpt from Get Your Greeting Cards Into Stores: How to Find and Work With Sales Reps (Updated 2017 paperback) If you like to make greeting cards, this book explains how to get your cards into stores and sell them nationwide.  Learn about changing trends in the indie card market and niche opportunities available for artists. Book includes detailed guidelines on pricing cards for a profit, getting professional feedback on your designs, finding sales representatives, pitching your card line to them, approaching stores, and the industry standards you should follow. Information is also applicable to gift items, such as magnets, journals and calendars.  

There are several reasons why stores also like to work with reps:

Reps Offer Unique Products
Reps are often good at finding specialty items, which gives smaller stores an edge over chain stores.

Reps Save Time
Stores also save time by viewing many card lines in one appointment. This is more efficient than requesting catalogs from individual artists and manufacturers.

Reps Bring Samples
Another advantage is the store can hold items in their hands and evaluate their quality.

Reps Prescreen Items
Lastly, stores trust reps to prescreen quality card lines, which reduces financial risk. If a card line does not sell very well, a rep will be hesitant to carry it, and protect the store from a loss.

In order to find and work with reps, you want to get professional feedback on your designs, set appropriate prices and follow industry standards. We will discuss this in the next several chapters.