How To Save Money As A Vinyl Decal Seller
I have been running a vinyl decal business for about 4 years. It’s running pretty smoothly now and I manage to make a good profit from it, but when I started out I made a lot of mistakes and wasted a lot of time and money. So in this post, I wanted to share a few of the things I’ve learned along the way that have helped me save and make money as a decal seller.
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1. Offer less colours
If you offer 50 different vinyl colours, that means you have to pre-buy 50 different sheets or rolls of vinyl, when really, most customers would be happy choosing from a smaller list. Even if you don’t buy them upfront and only place an order once your customer has ordered, you then have to waste time on your supplier’s website, waiting for them to arrive and potentially paying delivery fees every time. Then you will also no doubt end up with ends of rolls and a tonne of vinyl that doesn’t get used.
Just start with a few colours and if people are constantly requesting another specific one then order that in too, and build your list up from there, rather than offering everything at once.
When I first started I had a note on my shop that said I could supply any colour if requested – barely anyone requested anything different to the colours I already had listed, and when they did I would buy a roll and they would be the only person that would ever want that colour so I ended up with so much waste. I took that notice down and now if I don’t have the colour then that’s it, I don’t have it.
2. Bulk buy
On that note, once you know which colours your customers are most likely to want, it is so much cheaper to find a supplier that you can bulk buy from. My supplier gives discounts on the more rolls I buy, and then when I order over a certain amount the delivery is free too. This also cuts down on the amount of time I spend on my supplier’s website as I only have to put in an order every few months.
I’ve got a list of really great suppliers for the UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand & Germany/Switzerland here if you want to check that out…
3. Learn how to say no
I think one of the most difficult things I’ve had to learn as a self-professed people pleaser, is how to say no. And I didn’t really figure out how important it was until I had already burned myself out. I worked late too many times because something ‘had’ to be sent out the next morning, I took on small complicated designs that took forever to make but didn’t charge enough for them, and I spent far too much time working on amendments for fussy customers who had only purchased one low price design. I still get the odd order where I wish I hadn’t said yes, but I’m a lot better now at refusing anything that I know won’t be worth my time.
Photo by Anete Lusina from Pexels
4. Come up with systems
The quicker you can make your decals, the more profit you will get from them… as they say, time is money! However, you definitely don’t want to rush them and make mistakes, so the best way to save time is to implement systems or a particular way of doing things that means you can turn around orders quickly. It might just be waiting to do all of the weeding at once, or packaging orders all at once, or figuring out a way to make your design process quicker. Whatever it is, keep improving on it and cut out anything that is wasting your time.
For some more tips on how to figure out where you’re spending your time, and how to be more efficient, check out my course…
5. Upsell
Although this seems as if it falls under making money, rather than saving money, it saves you time having to do as much marketing or looking for new customers!
If you’ve ever worked in any kind of retail environment you’re probably more than aware of this one, but it also applies to decals too. If you have a really popular design, think about what other designs you could create that would work well alongside it. For example, my ‘Welcome to our Wedding’ decal is my most popular seller, so I have a number of matching decals like ‘Cards and Gifts’, ‘Order of the Day’ etc that my customers can also buy. I link to those in the description of the original ‘Welcome’ decal, and make sure they’re grouped together in the same category on my Etsy shop and website. And this should work with all different types of niches too, just think about what else your target customer may need! This is especially great if you can try and think of larger designs that will compliment your smaller ones, as then you can charge a bit more for those too.
Photo by Cup of Couple from Pexels
If there are any other things you can think of that may be useful please leave those in the comments.
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