Price-saving packaging: Where to buy your supplies

Packaging items for sale and shipping can be intimidating. It can be a challenge, and it's easy for the prices to get out of hand. But don't worry. It doesn't need to be that way.

Something important to remember is that when you have something shipped, you don't pay for the cost of postage alone. There's a reason most places title the shipping cost shipping and handling. Whenever something is packaged and mailed, the cost of shipping is postage, and the cost of handling is the cost of packing materials plus the cost of time to package and prepare something for mailing. The latter two are something generally not offered for free, and if done right, the cost of packaging will be so minuscule that no one will bat an eye.

As an example, when I sell a pair of earrings, I charge $2.50 for shipping and handling. Postage alone on most packages comes out to $1.92 if I can ship from home, higher if it must go through the physical post office. A few cents cover the Etsy and Paypal fees charged on processing the cost of shipping, and the rest covers the expense of packaging.

Now, when I say packaging, I don't just mean the bubble mailer the stuff is shipped in. It also includes gift boxes, packing peanuts, bubble wrap, tissue paper, gift bags, or anything else that might be necessary for making a nice presentation. When you think about it, 50 cents to cover fancy packaging that leaves a lasting image of quality is pretty good. But when gift boxes at the store can cost upwards of a dollar each, how can you offer nice presentation without cutting into your bottom line?

Here's a few suggestions.

Tissue paper
Ideal for wrapping objects, keeping bundles of things together, and serving as a lightweight padding or filler. It comes in a lot of colors, too, which means you can coordinate it with a theme in your shop or other packaging.
Where to buy: PaperMart has some of the best prices I've found.
If you're in a hurry: Emergencies happen. If you need paper in a hurry, try a dollar store. Dollar Tree sells 50 sheets of white tissue paper for a dollar, making them a great last-minute resource.

Gift boxes
Though they come in a lot of shapes and sizes, my favorite is the pillow-style gift box. They're flat for storage, but fold up stiff enough to withstand mailing. Regardless of whether you want this kind or the traditional square boxes, though, the best supplier I've found is the same.
Where to buy: eBay. Stock changes all the time, so I won't provide listings, but eBay has the best gift box prices I've found, often available with free shipping.
If you're in a hurry: Make your own! A template like this one makes it easy to turn any piece of stiff paper or cardstock into a gift box at the last minute. If you're feeling ambitious, you can even use blank card stock and design a custom box to print for every item.

Ribbon, lace and twine
When you think of packaging, you might not immediately think of these things, but they make an excellent accent for trimming and finishing your product packaging. I tie all my gift boxes with a piece of satin ribbon in either my shop's colors, or colors coordinating with the item inside the package.
Where to buy: HomeSew has excellent prices on bulk trims.
If you're in a hurry: Of all places, Walmart actually has quality ribbons and trims at decent retail prices, if you're lucky enough to live near one with a fabric/sewing department.

Organza bags
Very popular for packaging small items without adding a lot of bulk or expense, though if you ship in bubble mailers, you'll need to add packing peanuts to the package to keep an item in an organza bag from being crushed.
Where to buy: While they do have a minimum order requirement of $25, it's definitely worth it to get these from 8seasons. Most come in packs of 100, for under $4 per pack. Just order a few hundred at a time and it works out great!
If you're in a hurry: Check the dollar bins at craft stores like Michaels or Hobby Lobby. They often have 4-packs of organza bags.

Bubble mailers
A staple for any small crafting business, you'll want to get these in bulk, as well. Most items fit into a #0, which is the right size for a DVD case to slide inside perfectly. A size #00 is a little more than half the size, but can be better for very small items.
Where to buy: eBay. Again, no links for this one because of changing stock, but you can usually find lots that work out to under 15 cents per mailer.
If you're in a hurry: Dollar stores are a good bet for last-minute bubble mailers, because while most stores sell them in bundles of 5 or more for at least 5 dollars, dollar stores tend to sell packs of two mailers for a dollar.

Cardboard shipping boxes
You may not realize it, but cardboard is actually pretty expensive. Boxes take unusual specialized machinery to make, glue and fold. I've actually gotten to see one of these machines in person before, and it's pretty impressive, and pretty expensive, too.
Where to buy: ULINE boxes in bulk work out to be the most cost effective. They sell a lot of other packing materials, too, so if you order them all at once, you can save on shipping.
If you're in a hurry: Make your own. Unwanted cardboard can be found at any major retail outlet. Ask for a few pieces and then get creative with a knife or scissors. I've often cut down pieces of cardboard to make boxes for shipping, and while it's time consuming, it's much better than paying several dollars a box anywhere you can pick them up in person.

There are other types of packaging I haven't covered, but since this post is already rather long, I'll leave it with the basics covered here and come back for more detailed information in another, later post.
Until next time!

Preparing your listings: Photographing products for Etsy

While I spoke a bit about photos when I wrote about listing things on Etsy in my other blog, I never really went into detail like I'm going to now. There's a million and one places you can find information about photographing things for your Etsy shops, but instead of just telling what to do, today, we're going to talk a little bit about why you should photograph things a certain way, and ways you can accomplish it without cutting into your bottom line.

Quality photographs are one of the biggest selling points for your products, but if you're not an art student like me, you may not have an idea how to make your product photos pop. Don't worry, it's not as hard as you think! There's really only 3 things to worry about:

• Your photos need to be clear
• Your photos need to be bright
• Your photos need to be nicely staged

But as to what each of those things means, that's something we'll explore in a moment. First, I want to make something clear, because it's a concern I hear a lot.

You don't need to have a nice camera or expensive software to have nice product photos.
Seriously, it's more important to know what you're doing than to have a camera that costs $900. Of course, a fancy DSLR might help, but only if you know how to use it. One of my friends takes all her product photos with the camera on her iPhone, and her photos look great! As long as you have access to a camera and a few free tools, your results can be great.

Still my preferred camera for family outings

While I'm blessed to now have a Canon T3i for my photos and a copy of Photoshop my sister purchased, I had photos that were just as nice when I used the shabby little broken Pentax camera we mysteriously found in the bottom of a box after moving. Before I had access to the software I use now, I relied heavily on FotoFuze for cropping items out of photos and putting them on a white background. It's free and easy to use, and faster than cutting things out by using computer software and a mouse.

Aside from any camera and maybe access to FotoFuze, one other thing you'll need is a program that will allow you to adjust the brightness and contrast of your photos, crop and resize them before you take them into FotoFuze. Photoshop is the best tool there is for this, but if you didn't grow up with a graphic designer for an older brother and then luck out with a super-generous sister like I did, you can do just as well with GIMP. It's another excellent free resource, and getting better all the time.

Now that you've got a camera and editing software, let's move on to the next step, shall we?

Your photos need to be clear.
It might seem like a "duh" statement, but you'd be amazed at how many blurry photographs I see on Etsy. Never be that person. Retake a photo as many times as necessary to get a clear image. If you have shaky hands and don't have access to a tripod, try bracing your camera against a box or stack of books to keep the tremble at bay while photographing items. This will let you angle the camera and adjust as needed to get a good shot, but will drastically reduce the chance of ending up with a blurry photo.

If your photos always turn out blurry, keep in mind that it may be your setup causing things to go wrong. Setting up in the wrong lighting can cause a camera's sensors to go wonky, meaning most point-and-shoot basic cameras will automatically adjust exposure time and give you a blurry or grainy photo as a result. Natural daylight is always best for photos, but if you just can't work out a photo shoot by an open window, setting up right underneath a good lamp will do the trick, too. Using flash photography usually helps eliminate blur, but use flash only as a last resort, because it can cause ugly glare and cause colors to look all wrong.

Your photos need to be bright.
Proper lighting goes a long way to making a photo look good. Without any post-processing, which usually includes adjustment of the brightness, contrast and color saturation, a lot of photos tend to have an ashy gray cast to them. Upping the contrast and brightness in your editing software makes this a quick fix, but be mindful that it doesn't distort the color of the photo as well!
Colors should be clear, clean and crisp, and the background for most photos should be white, but we'll come back to that in the next section.

A product photo taken in an indoors light tent

Indirect daylight is always the best light source for photos. Indoor lighting gives things a yellow cast, and direct sunlight risks overexposure in your photos. It can take a few tries to get the lighting just right, so don't get frustrated if your photos aren't amazing on the first try. Even with several years of experience photographing my items, I still take between ten and twenty photos of each item and am lucky if I get five that are usable! Also remember that every photo will require editing, so what you see on the camera won't be the end result. Most white backgrounds in photos will look dingy yellow or gray until you correct the colors with a little quick editing.

A great solution for indoor photography is to build a light tent. While it sounds fancy and complicated, you can get similar results just by draping a white sheet where you can shine a lamp in through either side. If you're working with small items, you can find a great tutorial on building a cheap light box for product photography over here.

Your photos need to be nicely staged.
Sometimes, when you're staging your photos, you might not even realize you're doing it. For me, staging can mean something as simple as arranging a necklace chain into a swirl instead of letting it lay however it falls. Anything you can do to make your photos more visually pleasing is considered staging.

Every photo needs to be staged a little, even if most of your photography is happening on a white background. There's two reasons it should be happening on white, by the way. For one, you want most of your photos to be very clean and clear with minimal distraction. For another, having products on a white background will make it infinitely easier to crop them out for placement onto something else, like a collage, banner, or advertisement.

A little staging goes a long way when working against a white background. A great benefit to staging for photos against white is that you can include something to spice up a visually boring product. Items like soaps and candles usually aren't very exciting to look at, but you have the option of including something to represent the ingredients used or the fragrances offered. A candle can be staged with a flower or handful of berries beside it. A soap can be staged with an attractive (but not too fancy) soap dish or wash cloth.

A simple backdrop box

Advertisement is why a small number of your photos should still happen against a backdrop, possibly with more staging. One great way to make a backdrop is to use patterned scrapbooking paper, which can be purchased on sale for a few cents per sheet.

I created a simple backdrop stage for my products, using similarly-colored pieces of scrapbooking paper and the corner of a box. It cost less than sixty cents to put together, but the end result is great photos for advertising that take next to no effort!

Advertising photos can be used in a number of ways. These are the photos that make something look more tangible, the kind you might find in a catalog or brochure. These photos are more visually interesting because part of the idea is to create an attractive overall image that fits with a larger design scheme, as opposed to drawing attention specifically to a single item being portrayed. Generally speaking, though, your white-background photos should compose at least 75% of your product photography.

With those things in mind, now is a great time to start taking pictures of your products and getting your shop's lineup ready to go. That's what I'll be working on, this week!

A good example of simple product staging.