Post and packaging

joseph9a

I'm considering setting up my own business printing canvases for people. I have seen the going rate it s about £18 per images I've estimated that the ink will cost roughly £1 the canvas paper will be approx £2 per image and the stretcher bars will be £4 so that's £7. That leaves £11 I was just wondering what are the cheapest ways to post something that will be a1 but light. Are there ways you can get a reduction on your postage and if so how? I cannot compete with people offering free postage. For it to be eorth my while starting I was hoping to make £8-10 per canvas so minus 1.8 ebay feed that only leaves like about £2 for p&p can anyone help me? Can u get a business account at the post office.

Thanks

Joe

martindow

You can get account with Royal Mail and discounts but you will need a big volume. From the sound of it you will not have sufficient for this initially at least. A1 (about 60x85cm) means that it would be a large parcel which is going to be very expensive.

You would be better off with a carrier which will be around £7 at time (parcel2go for instance off a service at 5.99 + VAT). As volumes increase you would be able to negotiate lower prices with carriers but you would never get it down to anywhere near £2 unless you can achieve Amazon-type volumes.

Mistral001

I think many sellers on ebay use ebay as a way of advertising their own website. Their items on ebay could be popular items that are searched for a lot on ebay and they sell those at low margins or even at loss hoping that they can promote other items which are more profitable.


So in short the Op might have to sell more than one type of product.

joseph9a

What I might try and do is get a printer and try and sell the canvases in bulk like say in 50's to small businesses say between £12-15 depending on quantity and tell the stores they could sell for £20-£25 that way there would be a £5-£10 profit per piece for the retailer and approximately a £5-8 profit for me. Could be a good way to build relationships aswell. I was thinking of maybe making a catalagoue of images and saying to the retailer if they order 50 and select 10 different images and I could do 5 of each for them. It sounds a good idea to me but there are always people around you who put doubt into your mind such s my mum and dad haha

da_rule

Do you know how hard it is to get into retailers? Also, who is going to pay for delivery to the store, you or them?

Savvy_Sue

da_rule wrote: »

Do you know how hard it is to get into retailers? Also, who is going to pay for delivery to the store, you or them?

I agree, you'll probably have to offer sale or return, you'll have to deliver and pick up, if returns aren't in pristine condition you'll struggle to get rid of them, etc etc etc.

Not to say it can't be done: there are quite a few quirky cooperatives / popups / indie shops round here, for example, where you might be able to sell things, but by no means certain.