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Weddings are extravagant and the things that make them so are decorations. A lot of print products make a wedding like banners, backdrops, posters, albums, signages, etc., and today, we are going to see how you can maximize your print sales during the wedding season by selling two main print products – Wedding Invitations and Custom Place Cards with the help of a web-to-print editor.
The Booming Wedding Business & The Role of Print in it
We have come a long way from traditional printing and today everything is digital, so you might be thinking: is print still relevant?
Well, a big yes! It is due to digitalization only, print has evolved in a lot of many ways, and now we have digital print that has crawled into almost everything from apparel, home decor, mobile covers, shoes, packaging, and so on.
Just like that, weddings too, are one such business where the print is unleashing its magic. The trend of personalization is rising in weddings and print is making it all work.
In a race to make a wedding unique, people are coming up with interesting ideas to add a personal touch to it with the help of digital printing. From wedding invitations, photobooth banners, selfie stands, and props, guest photo books, custom place cards, bespoke print decorations, and photo banners, wedding with personalized print items is skipping heat beats, making headlines, and creating viral sensations, which is what everyone wants today.
With weddings happening every next minute, getting your print store ready with custom wedding-related products like invitations and place cards will enhance your store presence and sales because weddings are a booming business.
From 2020 to 2023, the industry is projected to experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) decline of 1.5%, with an expected 2.1% decrease in 2023, leading to a total revenue of $1.4 billion. The years 2020 and 2021 witnessed a 6.5% and 12.0% revenue decrease, respectively, attributed to the widespread cancelations and postponements of weddings amid the COVID-19 pandemic. So, you can guess by the year 2024 how much these figures will swell up.
Why Start a Wedding Invitations and Custom Place Cards Print Business?
Even though the wedding business is flourishing with millions of weddings happening around the globe, employing thousands, and generating countless revenue; it is quite natural to wonder whether selling custom wedding invitations and place cards business will be worth it or not.
Well, it is absolutely a promising business idea because there has been a major shift in the way weddings are organized today and personalization is the most-sought feature in it.
People are opting for personalized decors and arrangements than traditional things, which is where web-to-print comes in demand.
Wedding invitations and place cards, both are important part of the wedding preparations and they matter the most because both are for the guests that come to the wedding.
Thus, in order to impress the guests, people want their invitations and place cards to be personalized and designed in the best way possible, and hence you with the same service can generate higher revenue than you can just imagine.
Wedding invitations have changed pretty much. The present generation wants to make their wedding unique somehow and invitations are one such section of weddings where they can get all creative.
The same goes with place cards that are kept on tables to guide the guests, have to be printed with guests’ names on them, and therefore both require an efficient web-to-print online designer using which the customization can be done.
Although much free software is available which provides free templates for both invitations and place cards that can be edited, downloaded, and printed; who has the time to sit for it during the wedding season?
Also, only a few basic templates are offered for free in such software, so people prefer a professional web-to-print store for it where they not only get hundreds of free templates to choose from, but can edit the size, design, color, text, print, pattern, etc., of their choice and also, or order them in bulk with a streamlined ordering process. So, needless to explain any further, you must go ahead with this business idea.
Steps to Follow to Launch Your Wedding Invitations & Custom Place Cards Shop Online
Since you might be convinced by now how lucrative the wedding invitation and custom place card printing business is, let’s move on to the steps you must follow for a successful launch of the same.
Step 1 - Study the market and your competitors
Even though it is a known fact that the wedding business is massive and is ballooning, before plunging into any business, you must start with the basic step and i.e., market research. A little market study on your own won’t do any damage. Analyze current market trends, keep an eye on what your competitors are offering, and plan your business accordingly if you want to stand out among the crowd.
Step 2 - Map your business plan, and budget
Decide what kind of business you want to launch, whether it will be just for weddings or you will offer all kinds of invitations later on. Whether it will be a start-up or a full-fledged business model? First, figure out what and to whom you want to sell and map out your budget accordingly.
Step 3 - Get your print store ready
Once everything is finalized, get your print store designed and developed by a professional who can make it attractive. Make sure you have content and designs in store such that you can lure customers easily.
Step 4 - Integrate the soul of the store
For running a wedding invitations & custom place cards shop online, you need a remarkable web-to-print software as without it nothing will make sense. Approach an experienced web-to-print solution provider and integrate the necessary tools like web-to-print technology to enhance storefront features, back-end operations, payment and security features, and product designer tool to offer the freedom of customization to the customers.
Variable data printing allows customers to create mass print orders
Step 5 - Test, analyze, and launch
Before making your print store public, don’t forget to test everything from the functioning, navigation, content, appearance, and security of the store to the ordering process. You can ask someone from your family or friends to use the product designer tool and create, customize an invitation and place an order. Check if everything is working fine. If no then make the necessary changes, and if yes, then go ahead and launch it.
Step 6 - Shout out and market
After launching your store, it is important to let people know. Promote your store on all online platforms and market them offline as well so that it can reach a wider audience.
Step 7 - Watch out for the trends
Customers’ preferences keep changing and they keep experimenting with new things and like to follow trends. So, make sure you keep your print store updated with the latest trends and offer something unique for customers to keep coming back to you.
How a Web-to-Print Editor Will Change the Game of Your Business?
The common perception we all have about web-to-print is that it is all about printing whereas, it is much more than that.
Web-to-print technology benefits the overall business because of its long list of smart features such as an
- Intuitive interface
- Built-in order and print workflow management
- Easy integration with any eCommerce platform
- A form-based editor with multipage support
- Centralized dashboard
- Pre-loaded library of clipart and fonts
- Editable templates
- 3D preview
- Multi-lingual and multi-currency options
- Mobile-responsiveness
- Real-time production, and at-a-glance job schedule status features
- Automated emails and notifications for approvals and updates to/from customers and so much more.
In short, web-to-print solution appeals to both the customers as well as the store owners and hence is in great demand a lot lately. Where traditional printing was highly time-consuming and required heavy machinery and tools as well as manpower to get the printing job done; web-to-print, on the other hand, automates everything, and anyone can print sitting in any corner of the world.
The web-to-print editor is so user-friendly that anyone with no prior design experience can also start using it without any kind of training or technical assistance.
It allows its customers to create, edit, customize, save for later, share, and download a print-ready file all in one place with a single tool. Hence proved that web-to-print is not just about print, but it is indeed a game-changer for the overall business.
Bonus Tip
By integrating a DesignNBuy’s web-to-print online design tool onto your print store, apart from all the above benefits we mentioned, did you know there is also a bonus for you that you can tap into and earn more than you thought?
Yes, you may start with a simple wedding invitation and custom place card selling but once your business gets established as a brand and flourishes in the market, you can expand by adding other wedding-related print products in your store by simply integrating the suitable web-to-print solution and enjoy the profits of cross-selling by offering them products related to a wedding like stickers, labels, banners, selfie-stands, coasters, signages, etc.
Wrapping up
Wedding invitations and custom place cards will never run out of business because weddings will keep happening and personalization is loved by all. So, if you want your print business to meet the desired goals, choosing the right web-to-print solution provider is important and we Design’n’Buy are known to be the best in business for decades.
So, contact us now and let the wedding shenanigans begin!
*This post has been updated on Dec 2023.