Stickers are lovely; everyone likes to express themselves in a visual form and stickers give them a chance to do it. They are all around it, and all of us are queer to find a sticker pack that resonates with our personalities. However, like millions of other sticker heads, finding a good pack of stickers of good quality is difficult.
This shows that there is a gap between the demand and supply of good quality stickers in the market. And wherever this gap exists, there is an opportunity to build something new. Yes, today we are talking about a highly profitable and low-investment business idea that can change your future for the good.
Sticker businesses are not only commercially successful, but they also give adequate space to your creative soul to explore new ideas. A good sticker business can make a fortune for you with no heavy logistics and no extraordinary human resources.
In this guide, we are going to talk about how to start a successful sticker business, what steps you need to follow, how to market your brand, and the things that you should keep in mind. If you think stickers are something with which you can live your life, read this guide till the very end.
What is a Sticker Business?
If we look carefully at our surroundings, one of the most common things that we will notice is stickers. Stickers are everywhere. Be it the packet of your favorite cookies or the handbag that you bought last evening, every brand has its special sticker.
Not only that, people are taking great pride in expressing their thoughts with relevant stickers. Today, stickers are getting more important as people are more explicit about their choices, values, and stands. Everyone is looking for a way to express their individuality.
That is why stickers are again gaining deserving traction from people from all walks of life. However, finding the sticker that correctly represents your state of mind is not that easy. There is a visible gap in the demand and supply of stickers in the market, creating an opportunity for new players to enter the market.
The sticker business is one of those untapped areas where there is adequate space and a need for new creators. If you think you can bring life to human emotions, the sticker business is made for you. However, it could be overwhelming to know where to start in the sticker business.
In this detailed guide, we are going to talk about how you can start your sticker business and scale it using different marketing techniques. We will also dive deeper into the dos and don’ts of the sticker business.
Types of Stickers
You will be amazed to know that there are hundreds of types of stickers available in the market. From being printed in bulk to being extremely customized, sticker types know no boundaries. In this section, we are listing some of the most common stickers that are available in the market.
- Die cut stickers
- Single cut stickers
- Border cut stickers
- Borderless stickers
- Stickers sheets
- Domed stickers
- Starch/UV-resistant Stickers
- Large stickers
- Meme stickers
- Photo stickers
- Bumper stickers
- Laptop stickers
- Customized Stickers
- Branded Stickers
Is Sticker Business Profitable?
An important question that you should ask yourself before starting the sticker business is – Is sticker business profitable enough? The end goal of any business is to make profits, and so should be yours.
As per the market reports, the total market size of die-cut stickers was over $151 million in 2021. This market size is expected to grow with a CAGR of 3.3%, crossing $200 million in the coming years. The total margin in the sticker business is also very high. If marketing is done right, you can earn up to 85% of your profit on a single unit of stickers.
Apart from that, there is a considerable gap between the demand and supply of stickers in the market. Trends change every day, and so do stickers. Sticker business could be highly profitable if you are well aware of the latest trends. By breaking through online stores such as Amazon and Etsy, you can easily make thousands of dollars in a year with your sticker business.
What is the Cost of Starting a Sticker Business?
You can start your sticker business free of cost. Yes, you read it right: a sticker business can be started free of cost if you outsource your sticker production to a third-party printing partner.
This can save you from investing a huge sum of money right at the start of your business. However, if you have the investments ready and you are planning to go all in, it would cost you somewhere between $5,000-$25,000 to start your sticker business.
The major part of these investments will be towards a printer (either regular or a commercial – depending upon your budget), setting up your online store, paying your designers, and marketing your business.
Setting up your website, buying a domain and hosting for it, and setting up your delivery partner would also add up to the cost. Apart from that, if you are planning to run offline or online ads for your new brand, it will further stretch your cost to start a sticker business.
But remember, all this is just good to have, and you can always start without them.
How to Start a Sticker Business?
Now you know all the basics of sticker business, here is a detailed step-by-step guide to starting your own sticker business. All the steps mentioned below are very important, and thus, we advise you to go through them before jumping into the industry.
The right knowledge will help you scale your business to reach new heights.
Know Why Do You Want to Sell Stickers?
One of the most important things that you should think about is your reason for starting a sticker business. What problem are you willing to solve by selling stickers? Is making money your sole intention while starting this business? If not, why are you doing it?
All businesses have ups and downs. And knowing your reason will help you hold on to your business even during testing times. Some of the most common reasons for starting your sticker business could be:
- Helping people express themselves in a creative way
- Filling the gap between supply and demand in the sticker industry
- Assisting businesses in making their brands more recognizable using stickers
- You have sticker ideas that can resonate equally with millions of others
- You want to disrupt the sticker industry with your innovative ideas
These are some of the reasons why you are thinking about starting your own sticker business. And finding your reason will assist you in creating the brand value that aligns with your ideas. Think and know your reasons.
Choose Your Sticker Type
As we mentioned earlier, there are tons of different types of stickers in the market. It might be very intimidating for you to cover the entire industry with your printer, but it is not possible (at least not from day 1). To ensure that you are focusing on building a stable brand in the first phase of the venture, focus on one single type of sticker that you want to sell.
You could select a theme and try to develop a vast catalog before moving to other themes. Try to focus on one sticker type at a time and then move to the others so that your audience can find the stickers once they reach your store or your website.
Some of the most popular kinds of stickers that you can start with are our smartphone stickers, quote stickers, meme stickers, photo stickers, logo stickers, and planner stickers. These are some of the evergreen sticker types that are always in demand. However, try to offer something that makes your brand stand apart from your competitors.
Know Your Target Audience
This is an important part of niching down to your sticker type. You can sell your stickers only if you know you are your target audience. Knowing your audience will help you in making the required changes in your stickers as per the needs of your customers.
When you know who you are targeting, you can follow the social media trends that your potential customers might be interested in. This will empower you to make customized stickers for your target customers. It will also assist you in advertising your stickers in the right place at the right time.
Do Your Research
If you are reading this blog, there is a high chance that you are an active reader and research before taking important decisions. You will be glad to know that your research skills will help you a lot while working on your sticker business.
Keeping up with the latest social media trends will require adequate time and research from your end. You will also have to learn about the likes and dislikes of your target customers by researching their habits and lingo.
Doing your research will give you detailed insights into how this business operates and work as a guide for your future decisions.
Get Your Designing Right
Designing your stickers is the most important part of starting a sticker business. No one is going to buy your stickers if your designs would be dull. However, if your designs are attractive, offbeat, and fresh, they could become best sellers in no time.
If you are a designer yourself, make sure that you know the current design trends and what kinds of designs are appreciated in the market. Having an in-depth understanding of image editing will help you craft your stickers just the way you want to express a certain emotion.
However, this does not mean that you cannot start a sticker business if you are not a designer. You can hire a design expert that will make it easier for you to design your stickers. You can also hire a freelance designer online if do not want to hire a full-time designer.
Decide on Your Printing
Now, when you are done with the design, you need to focus on finalizing your printing. There are different ways you can get your stickers printed. You can start printing your stickers with your regular office printers by using any adhesive printer. But those will be very basic in quality, and you will not be able to print a lot of them.
To get the best-in-class printing without buying a commercial printer, you will need to connect with a third-party printing vendor. You can completely outsource your printing in the initial days of your business to get the best product and delay the upfront investments.
Once you feel that you are ready to move forward with setting up your commercial printers, go for it. Buying a commercial printer will reduce your cost of production and increase your profit margin. Here are some of the best commercial printers that you can find in the market
- Affiliate links to the printers
Print the Samples and Get Feedback
After finalizing your printer, you should get the first lot of your stickers printed. This lot of stickers will give you the first impression of your stickers, allowing you to give them a final touch.
You should share these stickers with your family and friends and ask for an honest review. Those reviews will give you a first-hand perspective on the fine details that you might miss. Take these suggestions and implement those that add value to the overall quality of your stickers.
This is also the time when you develop a mechanism for cutting and packaging your stickers. And do not forget to ask about the price that your friends will be willing to pay for your stickers. This will help you a lot in the next step.
Decide the Price of Your Stickers
Most businesses can never reach their goals for either sales or profits because they do not price their products right. Pricing a product is an important part of running a sticker business, as pricing it too high will make it an illogical purchase for your target audience, while pricing it too low will impact your profit margins significantly.
The most important things that you have to keep in mind while pricing your stickers are:
- The overall cost of producing each sticker
- The price shared by your friends and family as the feedback
- Pricing of your close competitors
- Using psychological pricing and creating bundle packs
- The cost of shipping your stickers
- Flexibility in the price
- The total profit that you are expecting from the sale of each sticker
Keeping these things in mind will give you a holistic view while deciding the price of your stickers. This could be confusing for you, but a better understanding of your product and competitor research will make it less daunting for you.
Build a Website
This is another very significant part of building a sticker business. Most of the new-gen businesses do not have a physical store, and that enables them to focus on building their brand via an online store.
Your online store will be your website that you can set up via WordPress. However, before you start building the website, you will need a domain address for your brand.
You can get a domain name from “GoDaddy“.
In addition to securing a domain name, you will also need cloud hosting to store all the data for your website. Luckily, “GoDaddy” also provides hosting services. What’s more, if you choose to get hosting from them, you will receive a free domain included with your plan for one year.
Take advantage of this deal by clicking here.
WordPress is a free and open-source content management system that will make it easy for you to set up an online store for your business. Here are some of the tools that will speed up your journey to build a website for your sticker business.
- WooCommerce – Open Source e-Commerce Plugin
- Divi Builder – Most Popular Website Builder
- Yoast SEO – Effective SEO Plugin
- JetPack – An All-Rounder Web Optimization Plugin
- WPForms – Form Builder for Your Website
- Link Whisper – Advanced Internal Linking Plugin for Your Website
- SEMrush – Best SEO Tool for Detailed Insights, KWFinder is a great alternative to SEMrush.
- BunnyCDN – Superfast CDN for taking your overall website load.
Choose a Reliable Shipping Partner
Now that you have your website ready to be launched, it’s time for you to figure out your shipping partners. A reliable and cost-effective shipping partner can enhance your brand reputation by delivering the stickers to your customer unharmed and right on time.
On-time deliveries and seamless returns are something that can make you stand apart from your competitors. Even though stickers are lightweight and do not cost too much to ship, safe delivery is a must for stickers.
Even though there are hundreds of shipping partners that you can opt for in the U.S., some are more trustworthy than others. Here is a list of the most reliable shipping partners that you can find in the country.
- United States Postal Services – Best overall
- Sendle – Suitable for Lightweight Packages
- DHL Express – Best for International Deliveries
- FedEx – For Fastest Shipping
- EasyPost – Most Affordable
These delivery partners are most reliable when it comes to delivering packages right to the doorstep of your customers.
Sell Your Stickers on Amazon
Amazon is home to over 2 billion customers monthly. If there is one marketplace that can change the entire course of your business, it is none other than Amazon. With extremely low startup cost and millions of potential customers, Amazon has everything a small business owner need to make it big. According to the latest research, Amazon Prime members are some of the most loyal customers on the planet.
And the best thing about selling on Amazon is that you do not have to pay anything upfront. Amazon does take a share of the sale, but you can cover that up by increasing the number of sales. Being good on Amazon rankings is another advantage that you can have over your competitors.
Here are some of the major advantages of selling your stickers on Amazon:
- Amazon’s brand value adds to the credibility of your brand
- No need to create a website to get started with Amazon
- Amazon takes care of the shipping and payments for your products
- Amazon gives a level playing field to all the products; the better you sell, the better you rank
- Amazon is known for its seamless customer experience
How to Market Your Sticker Business?
When the internet is flooded with content of all types, it can be overwhelming for you to decide where to start. Marketing your sticker business is not easy, but taking one step at a time can take you a long way. Even though there are hundreds of marketing techniques, you have to focus on the platforms where your target audience spends most of their time.
Organizing your sticker designs and sharing them with your audience could seem to be a daunting task at first, but it gets easier with time. Educating your audience is another important part of building a brand. You have to understand that customers are not going to buy your products but the emotions that your stickers stand for. Your marketing must reflect your aims of starting a sticker business; this will make your brand memorable.
Here are some of the methods using which you can market your sticker business smartly:
Use Social Media Effectively
Social media is one of those mediums that can convey your ideas to you directly without any filters. It gives you the superpower to connect with your end customers and take instant feedback to improve your stickers. Social media is all about how presentable you can make your products and pitch them to your potential customers.
However, more than being pitched for stickers, customers are willing to know about stickers. Customers want to be educated before making a buying decision.
Educating your customers using infographics, posts explaining why you made specific sticker designs, and sharing your journey will attract genuine customers to your sticker brand.
Build a Brand Around Your Stickers
There is a very famous saying that marketing is like a first date; if you only talk about yourself, there won’t be a second one. Building a brand is all about connecting your customers to your identity, and that is always a mutual transaction. You have to interact with your customers in a fun way, and giveaways could be a way for increasing engagement with your audience.
If your budget allows, you can also go for merchandise, as they are great for brand recognition. However, taking small steps in the starting of your sticker business is advisable. Use social media to its full potential and interact with your audience consistently.
Try Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is a powerful tool that is used by global brands to connect with their customers. Even though most new businesses do not opt for influencer marketing at the early stage of their venture, if you can afford it, you can reach a large audience in a single campaign.
You can also share your stickers with social media influencers for free and ask them to review them for you. If things go right, your stickers might appear in their social media posts, as social media influencers love aesthetic things.
You can also design personalized stickers for those influencers that are popular with your target audience. This will make your stickers reach millions of new potential customers
Stay up-to-date with Trends
Staying up to date with the latest social media and meme trends is crucial for any sticker business owner. Most of the sticker market is about having the latest stickers in your inventory. The more relevant your stickers, the better it would be for your customers to find and buy them.
Make sure that you are following news and popular social media pages that share trendy content. Consider leveraging tools like an AI social media post generator to streamline your content creation process. Also, keep pitching new ideas to your designers, and never think too much before trying something new. This is what will set you apart from the rest of your customers.
Things You Should Keep in Mind Before Starting a Sticker Business
In the article above, we shared a detailed step-by-step guide for those who are starting a new sticker business. However, apart from those steps, there are some things that you should keep in mind before starting a sticker business:
- Know if sticker business aligns with your ambitions and goals in life
- Designing is extremely crucial when it comes to the sticker business. Learn the fundamentals of design, and it will help you a lot
- If you are too confused about your strategy – write things down and simplify
- Calculate the money that you will need to establish and run the brand
- You cannot cover everything from day one, know it. Start small and grow it with time
- Good printing = good stickers. There is no alternative to choosing a high-class printing partner
- Stickers should be – For the customers & Of the Customers. Good businesses are always about customers and not the product
- All businesses have to scale after a certain time. Keep this in mind while making an important decision
- A good business is never a blind shot. Always know the numbers of your business at your fingertips
- Running a small business is one of the toughest jobs out there. When you are building a brand, keep your head high and work towards achieving your goals
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Conclusion
Stickers are not mere visual treats, but they are also a part of the holders’ identity. It depicts the values, principles, and orientations of the people carrying them. More or less, stickers are like tattoos for your laptops, mobile phones, and backpacks.
Stickers spread smiles, and thus, any sticker business is not only about design or prints; it’s about broadcasting those messages that your customers want to share with the world. Creating a new sticker business is not as easy as it might sound, but it is also true that the sticker market is still not unleashed to its full potential.
While building your brand, you have to ensure that you know the reasons why you are doing it while also knowing the things that you want to do. Once you know your audience and decode a unique style of your stickers, it will become easier to establish yourself as a brand. Do your research, develop a process, and implement your strategy.
Sticker business could be highly profitable if you know how to make your space in the market. We hope that this guide will answer all of your questions about starting a sticker business. We are sure that this will give you adequate insights into the industry and how you can establish yourself as a successful sticker brand.
