i’m looking into making and selling my own charms, do you have any advice?
yea sure! idk if i’ll be the MOST helpful with this, or even if this is the advice you were looking for, but these are just things that i messed up/didnt realize while making charms, and also some expectations stuff, in NO ORDER: (THIS GOT WAY LONGER THAN I THOUGHT)
1) You might make them at a loss of money. usually people make charms to make a profit, but I have basically never made money on any of mine! I made the early ones JUST for me and my itabag, and even when i held pre-orders it was at a loss, since production is expensive
2) if you are making them for other people to buy and want them to look real nice, i know it hurts the bank, but buy the test run size (one charm, or whatever) cause MAN, that froppy bottle charm i made? the test run came back and its like “OH SHIT! I NEVER MERGED THE LAYERS” and so the charms came out with silly holes all in them lol, didn’t make that mistake in the final print
3) depending on where you get them printed the colors WILL print out differently. for my charms, the file for printing is a little over saturated than what i would post online, and with a light pink filter, cause the printing always dulls the colors just a LITTLE bit, but i notice...
4) if your charm is going to be made tiny tiny, like 2″ or less, idk what your art style looks like but thick line art will make the charm design more obvious when printed tiny. it couldnt just be your art shrunk, its gotta look right from a distance, and some tiny details just wont show on a small sized charm (but if shes a big one then do whatever!)
5) i have only ever sold on etsy, and just like, from direct messages. etsy is pretty easy to use, but there is a small fee for having a listing up, but on the other hand you can get labels printed from etsy for a 1$ off normal USPS prices, and its more organized than just keeping a list of who wanted what
6) if you only sell 1-3 charms and you are confident with your colors/file, you can just order “1 charm” from the printer. the place i print them always sends me 3-4 charms even if i only order one, but that might be because i only ever make small charms, might not be the same for larger charm designs
7) I dont do this enough but advertise! i feel bad for spamming my followers, but tbh most people wont see ever self promotion you run, like tumblr is a little dead and i STILL dont see every post my friend makes and gotta go back to their blog ever once in a while to see what else they posted. SO ADVERTISE!
8) idk if people talk numbers much but i think its good to know: ”1 charm” order is ~16$, 50 rings are ~4$, 100 cellphone straps ~8$, 30 extra dangly things (little stars i put on my bottle charms) ~9$, 8 padded shippers ~4$, 1 shipping label inside the USA ~3$.
If you can sell a LOT of charms, you can actually make a profit, cause the chrams themselves get cheaper the more you buy, but if you only sell a few well.. it’ll be a loss, cause almost no one wants to buy a 40$ charm. That isnt to say dont do it, i sell more of the charms I make each time i make new ones, and rings and stuff can be saved for later projects, but just to know there is some upfront costs.
I dont mean for all this to be negative, I dont actually regret making any of my charms, cause tbh at the end of the day I really made them for myself to have, and put on the itabag! Any extras i sell is just bonus!
amandla
turnnoffyourmind
titsay
pixelskylines
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dailybridgerton