How to start a sticker business | EVERYTHING you need + step-by-step process

hello I'm zakira I am an artist and I have been running my small handmade sticker and art print business for almost three years and in those three years I learned a lot and improved my process a lot and I also made a lot of mistakes and wasted a lot of my time and money on things that were not useful but hopefully you do not have to make those same mistakes by the end of this video you will know everything you need to know to start a sticker business including the different options you have and the pros and cons of each by the way most of what I talk about in this video also applies if you want to sell other art merchandise such as art prints shirts and pins and keychains and whatever else your artsy mind can come up with I will be focusing mainly on stickers because that is my specialty but this video is going to be packed with information that applies to anyone who wants to start an art business so let's get into it the first thing you need before you can make products is the artwork and I'm guessing most of you watching this video are artists or at least people interested in design but in order to turn your artwork into physical products you need a couple of things mainly you need a art design software if you are a digital artist you are already familiar with this you're kind of ahead of everyone else but for those who are traditional artists you make physical art on paper or canvas you need to get yourself a design software and learn how to use it on a basic level this is so you can edit and format your artwork to prepare it for manufacturing in particular learn how to work with layers just understand what does that term even mean and how to use them and second how to do color adjustments everything else you can learn in the software is a bonus but those two things you really have to know the software that I use is clip Studio paint ex which is a paid software there are many options when it comes to paid software such as Photoshop illustrator procreate just to name a few but these days there are also many free Art and Design softwares a couple examples are krita and they may not be as comprehensive or intuitive as some of the paid softwares but they will get the job done so just take your pick and start watching those tutorials the second thing you will need is a scanner again this is really only important for traditional artists because you need a way to transfer your physical artwork into a digital format if you're a digital artist technically you don't really need this many printers have a built-in scanner but they are also sold separately if your printer doesn't have a scanner or if you just don't have a printer at all alternatively at most local print shops will have scanners that you can use but my tip is if you want to be a professional artist having your own scanner is probably one of the most worthwhile Investments I can recommend once you've learned how to work with your designs and mess around with them digitally the next step is manufacturing and there are two ways to go about this you can make the stickers yourself which is what I do or you can Outsource which I have also done before and still do for certain products that I sell on my shop each method has their pros and cons so first let's talk about making the stickers yourself I have a dedicated step-by-step tutorial on how to DIY stickers so if you're brand new to the process definitely go give that video a watch I'll have it linked in the description but for this video let's talk about diying stickers from a business perspective if you're going to make them yourself it means you're going to need to invest in certain equipment tools and materials the essential tools and materials you need are a printer very important and paper if you want to make stickers you will need sticker paper I've been asked multiple times what sticker paper actually is so for those who don't know it is basically a big blank sticker in the shape of a piece of paper it has the peelable back that reveals the sticky part and it can be put into any regular at-home printer and printed on just like normal so you literally just print your designs on the sticker paper cut them out and you're good to go another investment you might want to consider is a desktop cutting machine which will cut out your stickers for you but personally I have yet to make this investment I cut all of my stickers out by hand with a pair of Scissors because I like the pain and if you're just starting out and you don't have a large budget I absolutely recommend just using a pair of scissors another optional item that I recommend is adhesive lamination or clear vinyl this is a sort of clear sticker paper that you attach on top of your stickers after printing it helps make your stickers more durable and waterproof in the description box I will link my printer my sticker paper and my adhesive lamination that I use currently and now that you know what kind of investment you will need to make let's talk about the pros and cons of making stickers yourself probably the biggest Pro is that you can make things in small batches which is awesome when you're just starting out because you do not have any data yet on your customer base it does not matter how many followers you have or how many comments you get from people saying wow your art is totally awesome I would totally buy this but would you though do you really do you really want to buy for me do you want to give me your Monies you're right I totally don't until you start making sales you really do not know your customer base or what they want from you you don't know which stickers are going to sell or how many you're going to sell so being able to print stuff out as you need them really helps to cut down on wasted inventory and finally making stickers yourself in general is cheaper per piece than getting it outsourced because when you Outsource the cost of Labor is also included in the price you pay whereas when you make it yourself you're technically only paying for the material costs but that leads me into the first con of diying stickers the labor you will be spending your time and your energy making every single sticker yourself and that is on top of all the other work you will already be doing to run your business including the designing the selling the packing the shipping the managing the website and so on ultimately time is the most valuable thing we have in life and in business so it's very important to value your time and make sure you are putting it in the most worthwhile places for your specific situation the next con is you have to go through quite a bit of research and trial and error to figure out the best method for you to make your stickers this means finding the right printer that fits your budget then finding the right paper adjusting your print settings so it's just right and so on but hopefully the material list I Linked In the description will help give you a head start and the final con is The Upfront cost and maintenance if you already happen to own a printer that works for your sticker business that's great but if not that is a couple hundred dollar upfront investment and let's not forget that deliciously overpriced ink that your printer relies on and with owning any Machinery there is always going to be maintenance your printer will inevitably Jam get clogged not print correctly and it will be up to you to figure out how to keep it working yet another piece of Time and Labor so to sum up DIY stickers is great for people who have the ability and don't mind putting their time and labor into manufacturing their own stickers is great for testing the waters with small quantities you have the most control over the process and final result but there is a higher upfront and maintenance cost now let's talk Outsourcing this is where you create your sticker design and then you send it to a manufacturer and they handle the manufacturing I did this for a couple of my earliest sticker designs in order to be able to start selling immediately before I worked out how exactly to DIY all my own stuff so let's talk about the pros of Outsourcing biggest Pro it's easier once you have your sticker design you just need to send it to the manufacturer and a couple of weeks later the stickers arrive at your door and because you're working with hopefully Pros who know what they're doing you can be pretty confident that you will be receiving consistently high quality Goods in fact usually higher quality Goods than what you can make at home because professional manufacturers usually have access to equipment and materials that you just can't get at home I will link below which manufacturer I used for my first two sticker designs if you are interested the second Pro of Outsourcing is that it cuts down significantly on your time and labor you're not going to be messing with printers or scissors so you'll have more time to spend making art and running the other aspects of your business the third Pro is that it has a much smaller upfront cost because you don't need to invest in a printer or any other special equipment you only pay for the stickers themselves which leads me to the first con the price per piece is usually much higher when you Outsource versus when you make them yourself because as mentioned before when you Outsource you're not just paying for the material costs but also the time and the labor of the lovely workers who helped make them for you and if you're selling stickers at a competitive price range which is usually just a few dollars that higher manufacturing cost is cutting right into your margins the second con is minimum order quantities most manufacturers have a minimum order quantity requirement meaning you have to purchase a certain amount of stickers in one go of the same design and usually the cost per sticker goes down as the quantity goes up so after doing a bit of calculation you may find that it's really only worth the cost if you are purchasing in large quantities of at least like 50 or 100 pieces and if you're brand new that is a very large number and you always run the risk of something not selling or potentially taking years and years to sell off so to sum up the pros and cons of Outsourcing is it is easier takes less of your time has a smaller upfront cost generally has a higher quality than what you can make yourself but all of that comes with a larger per piece cost and you run the risk of being stuck with a ton of inventory that you struggle to sell off okay so now you may be wondering how much inventory should you invest in how many stickers should you make or buy for your very first launch now this depends greatly on so many factors but there is a great starting point formula which is specifically tailored for artists who are already sharing their art on social media which I'm guessing a lot of you fall into this category and the formula is to assume that one percent of your overall following will want to buy something from you and then only around five to ten percent of those people will be interested in any one particular product you offer and that is your starting point formula for how much inventory to invest in you might want to write that down this is a great starting point number for those who are just starting out and you don't have any of your own data to draw off of yet but do know that from my experience I find that this formula is not always totally accurate because for one product interest varies greatly on just whether or not people like the product and two every everyone's audience is very very different some people can easily have much more than one percent of Their audience interested in buying stuff from them meaning they don't need a very large audience in order to make a good amount of sales on the flip side there are some people who have much less than one percent of Their audience interested in being a customer meaning they can have a pretty large audience and still struggle to make sales follower counts are not the tell-all number do not think you need a giant audience in order to start a business that is probably one of the biggest misconceptions spread all over the internet and it must be squashed it's not about how large your audience is it's about who that audience is and who that audience is is all dependent on how you Market yourself and in fact the sooner you start selling your work the sooner you start that business you've always been wanting to start the sooner you will be able to start connecting with the Right audience and build that customer base that is enthusiastic for the things that you want to be selling and you won't be stuck in a situation where you have a giant audience full of people who are not interested in your merchandise now if you do the calculations using this formula you may come up with some pretty depressing numbers okay Zacky so you're telling me I should be investing in one sticker and yeah that is what I'm saying well maybe like the bare minimum could be something like four it is better to sell out of a couple of stickers than it is to invest in a hundred and not be able to sell a single one every person I know myself included has made the mistake of over investing in their first batch of inventory I still have stickers from my very first batch and it's been three years maybe the formula came up with less than one sticker for you to stock if that's the case that doesn't mean you shouldn't start your business it just means to keep in mind that it is going to take some work for you to make your very first sale this formula is meant to help you make a reasonable estimate for how much inventory to invest in so that you don't waste money but it is by no means an estimate for how many sales you will make in the future that is all dependent on how dedicated and persistent you are with building your business and listening to your audience and not getting discouraged about selling one or two items because let me tell you if you are able to do that you're already ahead of the vast majority of the people out here who never even stopped start their business there is no shame in selling two products you should be freaking proud of yourself if you can do that because that is your first solid proof that there are people who value your stuff enough to pay for it people can flaunt their follower numbers all day long it don't matter can you make sales yes or no prove it once you prove it then worry about increasing that number and before we move on to how to sell your stickers I just wanted to kindly remind you to please hit that Thumbs Up And subscribe if you've gotten anything helpful from this video so far it really helped me out okay so now you got your stock you've got your goods now you need a way to sell them stop bringing in that though there are many different Avenues when it comes to selling both in person and online but regardless of your approach you will need some way to accept online payments credit and debit because people don't really carry cash anymore I personally use PayPal at the moment it's a popular option for both Sellers and customers and I like like that I can also use it to send custom invoices to clients when I do commission work but there are plenty of other options as well and usually whatever website or application you use to set up your shop will give you a list of recommended payment processors that integrate with them and for my research they all seem to have a very similar setup process and very similar fees once you have a way to accept payments you need to choose your selling Avenue AKA where you're going to be setting up shop and who are you going to be selling to so let's break down a few popular options first is online direct to Consumer otherwise known as e-commerce this is probably the most common method for artists in this day and age and it is the method that I personally use with this method you have an online store that people can go to purchase your products and then when you make a sale you pack and ship it off yourself there are many options when it comes to storefronts you can have your own dedicated website like I do secure.com you can open a shop on the third party host site like Etsy or you can even forego the storefront altogether and just sell directly to people through social media like Instagram or Facebook if you'd like me to make a separate video specifically talking about these various storefront options and breaking them down do let me know in the comments but in general terms let's talk about the pros and cons of this e-commerce approach as a whole starting with the pros first it's one of the most accessible options for artists these days there are storefront options in practically every budget ranging from very expensive of two free and no matter what storefront type you choose there are plenty of resources to learn everything you need to know about setting it up and selling second selling things online means that you're not restricted to a location you can sell to anyone anywhere in your country or the world and you can do it from the comfort of your home and finally there's no gatekeeper I suppose finances are always a gatekeeper but other than that there's no breaking into the industry of e-commerce if you will there's no one that needs to give you the okay when and how you decide to set up your shop is pretty much up to you the only people you have to convince in order to be in business are your customers which leads me to the first con of e-commerce you have to do everything yourself and anything you don't do yourself you have to pay someone else to do so ultimately everything relies on your energy and your budget second it takes a lot of time and a lot of work to build up your customer base you have to expect to essentially be working for free for quite some time as you slowly build up your monthly sales and finally the internet is saturated with stores it's very competitive you're competing with literally thousands of other cute sticker businesses so when it comes to e-commerce every single customer is hard to earn as mentioned e-commerce is the only method I personally have experience with so far but I figured I should mention a couple of other ways of selling and cover some of the pros and cons of them but just know that the methods I'm about to talk about come only from my research not personal experience so another method of selling is through in-person events this is where you set up a booth at fairs and conventions and other pop-up markets often artists who sell this way also have some kind of e-commerce website but some don't I've seen artists who make a living solely selling at in-person events the pros of this method is that you are meeting face to face with potential customers in general face-to-face contact is one of the quickest ways to build trust people are much more comfortable giving their money to someone who's right in front of them and being able to walk away with a product right there second the people who visit fairs usually are already in the mood to be potentially buying stuff you're not trying to sell to some random person on the internet or even on the street they voluntarily came to that event they are interested in seeing your stuff raising your chances of making sales quite significantly and finally there's no shipping to worry about oh I can personally say as an e-commerce business shipping is probably the biggest source of my anxiety because as a small business it can be very expensive and I have no control over it once it leaves my studio but when you sell in person you know for sure your customers are receiving the stuff that they bought and they'll be happy with it the cons of this method are that it can be expensive to table at events most events have a booth feet you also have to invest in your own booth setup equipment such as a folding table a tent all of your little shelves to display your items a banner so on second con is the travel the artist I mentioned who managed to make a living off of in-person events generally have to go to many events every year all around their country that can mean a lot of driving and for a lot of people this type of lifestyle is just not possible third if a pandemic decides to strike the world one day you're out of business this obviously happened very recently and a lot of artists were suddenly really struggling because all of the in-person events were canceled and they depended on them and the final con is the gatekeeping it can be pretty difficult to get into certain events a lot of them don't even advertise online how to apply who to contact when you should be applying and the events that do advertise loudly online often have have so many applicants that they have to get very choosy with who they accept so you're kind of competing with a lot of other people to get in so it can be a bit difficult to break in to the convention circuit if you will a lot of patients a lot of legwork and a lot of persistence but the biggest tip I heard is to just start local small neighborhood events are your best bet and then move on from there another method of selling your products is through wholesale with this method instead of selling your products directly to customers you sell your products in bulk to retail stores who then sell your products to customers when you sell wholesale to a retail store you offer them a discounted price otherwise known as the wholesale price which is generally half of the retail price so if you would normally sell a sticker to a customer for three dollars you would wholesale that same sticker to retail store for a dollar fifty the retail store will then sell that sticker off to a customer for three dollars this way in the best case scenario where all your products sell out both you and the retail store end up getting half the revenue now let's look at the pros and cons of wholesale starting with the pros the biggest Pro is that you get to sell large amounts of your products all at once you don't have to worry about chasing down each individual customer instead you get to focus on manufacturing a nice bulk amount of product and shipping it all off to just one destination and once it's there your job is done you also eliminate the risk of wasted inventory because whether or not customers end up liking your products and wanting to to buy them you've already sold them to the retail store the cons of wholesale are that you are only making half the revenue from your products which means if you hope to make any kind of profit you have to make sure your manufacturing costs are very very low if it costs you two dollars to manufacture one sticker and you're wholesaling them for a dollar fifty then you're literally losing money secondly if you're manufacturing the products yourself you have to be prepared for a very heavy workload coming your way all at once in order to manufacture everything and ship it off to your retail partner in a timely manner for individual artists who print or cut every single sticker themselves that might be very very difficult to keep up with the last con is that it can be a little bit difficult to find retailers who want to buy your product it's true you may not have to spend your time packing orders every week or chasing down individual customers but you'll probably be spending that same amount of time finding retailers researching them emailing them talking with them working out deals that's a lot of desk work and communication work that not everyone enjoys doing there are other methods of selling but these three options are some of the most common and straightforward and there's lots of resources available to learn about each one now many artists like to utilize a combination of these three Avenues of selling have a shop and also do in-person events and also do some wholesaling which I think is a great idea to not put all your eggs in one basket and expand your business and be able to just reach a lot more customers but my tip is when you're just starting out do not spread yourself too thin start with just one Avenue of selling and really try to dedicate yourself to it for a good amount of time same goes for how many social media platforms you use to promote yourself just choose one or two and again dedicate yourself to it and also with how many different types of products you make don't immediately jump in being like I'm gonna make stickers and prints and keychains and now pin and magnets and apparel oh what about a tote bag try just making a couple of items but making them well there's already so much to do and learn when you start a business and you don't want to overwhelm yourself further by taking on too much at once and I'm really speaking from the heart here I'm a very enthusiastic person and I want to you know do all the things and try all the things and make all the things and I have totally been there many times where I just bit off way more than I could chew and all it does is actually just slow your growth because you are one human being and you cannot do all of the things at the same time if you do you're just going to be doing them all very very inefficiently and very very slowly so just trust that there is enough time you will have enough time to try all the things you don't have to try them all at once or at the very first opportunity that presents itself and the last thing I want to talk about in this video is fulfillment once you got your sales you now have to deliver your products to your customers and how you package your goods will depend greatly on which Avenue of selling you go with but to give you a starting point I figured I'd show you how I package my sticker orders for e-commerce sales I package my stickers and my art prints in a clear sleeve then I wrap it up in some decorative tissue I add some fun extras I like a coupon a little pack of extra stickers a handwritten note my business cards so on just to kind of give that above and beyond experience and then I mail them off in these simple brown paper envelopes I'll link the ones I use in the description box stickers and small art prints can be sent as male rather than as a package so I actually send most of my orders off using everyday postage stamps for that I have a inexpensive kitchen scale that I use to weigh each male piece so I know how much postage to put on it the USPS has a page on their website with all of the current postage prices so I refer to that when I'm using stamps I'll link to it in the description box for all of my fellow us peoples but just know that they do update that page like twice a year so you have to stay on top of it and make sure that you're up to date on the prices there are shipping apps that you can use such as shipstation shippo stamps.com to name a few that integrate with the USPS and other shipping Partners to help you calculate real-time shipping prices so you know you've got it right I do use these types of apps when I ship out packages because it's a little more complicated and you can buy discounted labels directly through these type of shipping apps but for sticker and small print orders I generally just do it manually with stamps referring to that PDF document and it has been very reliable so far so thumbs up to the USPS and I also just love how pretty the stamps are and once everything's wrapped up I can just drop the order off at a mailbox and that is it you now know how to make your stickers sell your stickers and ship your stickers the only thing left to do is for you to take that first step and start that business you've been wanting to start and if you've gotten anything helpful from this video please do drop a comment below so I know and share this video with your fellow art friends looking to start their own business my goal with this video was essentially to create a free condensed how to start your own business course as I know not everyone has access to paid resources or training but if I was able to help you out today please consider showing your support with a super thanks by hitting that little heart icon under this video or by grabbing some cool merch from my shop at sakura.com so that I can keep on sharing resources and knowledge for free on places like YouTube I don't have any sponsors at the moment so all of my support comes directly from you guys my supporters and my customers you're the reason that I'm able to do what I do and I could not be more grateful for the support and if you want to keep on watching I will have a couple of videos on screen that relate to the topic of this video so you can go check those out and until next time best of luck with your business and stay awesome stay inspired always see ya

Channel: Zaccura

Views: 325,376

Keywords: zaccura, artist, art business, biz, how to start a sticker business, sell your art, art merchandise, small business, small biz tips, step by step, diy stickers, how to make stickers, how to sell stickers, sticker tutorial, zacurra, how to make stickers to sell, sticker business, How to start an art business

Id: UtXJQjscMY8

Length: 28min 35sec (1715 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 09 2023