Today I have been sucked into a vortex of programming, and did not have a lot of time to dive into Thing-a-Day. But I did manager do some playing around with some of the shipping supplies I ordered last week: some cardboard 8.5×11 mailers, and a bunch of coin envelopes! Details follow.

I was rather excited by the arrival of the coin envelopes, as I figured these would be a nice way of combining bundles of small cards together in an easy-to-ship package. This opens the possibility of making business card-sized things I’d like to make and sell in small collections of 10. I tried to think of a way to package the cards nicely; I ended up finding something called a “currency band” that might work, and failing that finding large 6-inch “napkin bands” would be the next step.

The 8.5 by 11 mailers were interesting also. I found I could put 3 or 4 full-sized ETP pads into them, or a layered stack of all three products: an ETP75, an ETP5885, and an ETP4X6. I am thinking of making some “goodie boxes” that I could provide as a sample kit for retailers who might be interested in carrying the products. I haven’t approached anyone, though there have been two inquiries. If I set up a sample kit, I would need to have wholesale quantities of say 10-20 units per box ready to ship at a fixed cost that is profitable for the retailer.

It’s nice to have these tangible packaging ideas around. It makes me more willing to think about setting up an at-home shipping operation, because there is part of me that really likes packaging. Part of me also like filing systems too. I just don’t like handling invoices and filling out shipping labels. UGH. But that’s the direction I’m moving in, step by step.