Thursday, October 3, 2019

How to Organize Your Collectible Cards


If you’ve ever been a card collector in any capacity, whether it’s with sports cards, Pokemon cards, or more advanced strategy card games, you’ll understand that a collection can get out of hand really quickly without a plan in mind for organizing everything. The number one thing you can do right when you start collecting is to organize right away. If you don’t, you’ll have an extremely tough time finding what you need or knowing where to put new cards.


Use thin cardboard boxes.
Sometimes your card game will come with these little cardboard boxes in order to keep them stacked up nice and neat with the perfect amount of space on all sides. Unfortunately, if you don’t have some, you’ll have to either stack your cards in a way so that they fill all side in a box and don’t slide around when loose or you’ll simply have to buy decided boxes.


Decide on an organization method.
This is an extra step and isn’t technically a necessity, but when you have an organization method to your madness, well, things are much easier to locate. Just as well, when you gain new cards, you’ll know exactly where to put them to keep up with your organized collection. If you had never organized them with a specific method in mind at first, though, you’ll have a heck of a time finding what you need or where you want to put new cards.

Dividers are a must.
This is a follow up to the previous item, but you definitely want to invest in (or just make) dividers for your cards. Once you have an organization method decided on, it’s important to have dividers in order to enforce that style of organizing. If you don’t have official dividers, you can always take a sheet of cardboard (usually from a broken down box) and cut out the exact piece you need to use as a divider.


Store in a cool, dry place away from light.
You always hear about this when it comes to electronics and books. Well, it’s no different for your card collection. Just like books, cards are made of paper and want nothing to do with humidity, dampness, being exposed to light for too long, or heat. Since so many collectible cards are worth quite a bit of money (or can be, not all are), it’s worth protecting them and storing them correctly. You don’t want to think you have everything stored away for good for a few years only to come back to some warped cards or text on them.

Thursday, June 14, 2018

10 Surefire Practices for Creative Merchandising Success


#1 Practice: Know Your Customer
If you know your customer and who it is you are aiming your campaign, then your battle is half over. Do you have a specific age customer? Men or women? Median income or higher income? Does your ideal have a particular hobby or need, skill or interest?

#2 Practice: Prominently Display Customer Benefits.
Your potential customer will be the person who wants to know how your product can help them in their life. Give them what they want and make and display those most endearing qualities prominently.

#3 Practice: Know Your Design Budget
Create a prototype of your packaging and work with a professional to get an estimate to see what it will cost to make your packaging come to reality. If your overall expenses for packaging are over budget, you'll need to redesign to bring design within budget. If you have several configurations, ask yourself which one keeps you within budget?

#4 Practice: More Design Options Are Better than Less
Start with several designs then choose the best one. Ask your family and friends for their help; the more savvy shopper they are, the better. Stay objective and retest. Leet is sat a few days and retest, again.


#5 Practice: Reverse Engineer the Competition
If your competition is using a particular kind of packaging and shelf space? What makes their packaging so successful? What are their customers saying about their packaging? Easy to access, open, visibility, lettering and color? You don't have to re-invent the wheel.

#6 Practice: Measure design acceptance by Consumer
Will the customer accept my design? How is it like or different from others in the same category? Will the vendor have difficulty stocking my product? Can it be easily handled by the customer? Will you be using cardboard boxes? Would plastic be better in a tropical climate?

#7 Practice: Consider which material will be best to use
If you are using cardboard boxes how will stacking them in the warehouse effect them? WIll paper be worst than plastic? Does your product need more protection or less? Do you have a product that requires stronger packaging?

#8 Practice: Consistency among brands
Do you have a consistency that customers can recognize among your various brands? Is your packaging reminiscent of other brands? If so, is there a reason for the similarity? Will your brand be so similar to other brands that it will be hidden? Visibility and recognizability bring sales.

#9 Practice: Shopper Appeal
Does your product need customer hands-on experience at the point of sale? Will your vendor allow open-box display? Will your product easily break if handled by children? Will your product lose its quality after extended exposure?

#10 Practice: Consider Customer perception
Wat will your customer see the first three seconds? What is your customers first impressions? Are they drawn to what is inside the box or the box itself? Can your product be easily understood by the packaging?