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Thursday, January 1, 2015

The Story of Printastic Party Games

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a pleasant holiday. I'd like to take the time to introduce myself and tell you how I started Printastic Party Games.

I had always wanted to start my own business, and I wavered back and forth for years to figure out what kind of business I would start. I narrowed it down to either an editorial services business or a greeting card company. I came to the conclusion that the latter would be more creative and enjoyable. Initially, I wanted to sell origami cards. I was creating cards for family and friends and got great feedback. However, I realized origami was very time-consuming and costly with all the supplies I would need. I also thought about creating custom crossword puzzles for special occasions since I was a huge fan of word and trivia games. Once again, I was concerned about undertaking this venture with a limited budget.

At the beginning of 2014, I decided to start a printable party games business that would cover all special occasions and holidays. The customer could download PDF files and print as many copies as he/she wished. This also enabled me to save on printing and shipping costs.. My games would be customized with anything the customer wished, such as background color, font, and wording to fit the theme of the party. I figured customers could also use the games as greeting cards, gifts, and save-the-date reminders. Game choices would include crossword puzzles, word searches, word scramblers, matching games, trivia games, and much more. My approach would be to get the customer what he/she wants as quickly as possible. I decided to open an Etsy shop because the costs would be minimal as opposed to a traditional website. I spent several months doing research and creating games.

Our shop finally opened in September 2014 without much fanfare. Because my background is in editorial services, not marketing, I didn't really have a game plan for drawing traffic to our site. We had no sales our first month in business, but I figured it takes time for people to discover an Etsy shop. Beginning with Halloween, I started getting several views a day and had some success. I sold several holiday-themed games, along with a couple of custom crossword puzzles. I was also pleasantly surprised to get a few orders for corporate events. In addition, I joined several Etsy teams and attended a NYC Meetup for Etsy sellers. The latter was very helpful because the featured speaker gave some great advice.

In 2015, we plan to introduce Bingo and scavenger hunts to our Etsy shop. We are listed as vendors on the site Punchbowl and we hope to cross-promote with other party vendors and event planners. In addition to promoting shop updates on this blog, we hope to provide you with party-planning and gift ideas. I would also like feedback regarding what you would like to see in our shop.

Within the next week, we will be updating our shop with an expanded wedding/bridal games section. Stay tuned!

Have a PRINTASTIC day!

Kathy



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