In-depth industry
knowledge is necessary for anyone who's thinking about making and
selling their own handmade greeting
cards on a wholesale basis. Even someone who's interested in just
selling a small number of cards to friends, family, and colleagues
will benefit from basic knowledge of industry trends. After all, with
the global greeting card business poised to exceed US$30.4 billion by
2015, serious competition awaits would-be greeting card makers.
Every year, about 7
billion greeting cards are purchased, with annual retail sales
estimated at more than $7.5 billion. To break it down even further,
analysts compute an average of about 30 greeting cards purchased
yearly per household. Judging from these figures, the greeting card
market certainly shows no signs of slowing down in the immediate
future—a factor you can definitely take advantage of if you're
really dead-set on starting your own greeting card empire.
If
you truly plan to tap into this business opportunity, then you'll
have to educate yourself first by loading up on all the
necessaryfacts and figures as well as by conducting in-depth research
about your target market. You
might also want to learn about how established greeting card
companies managed to grow and sustain their market share over the
years.
