What Inspires Amanda Wright to Sell Handmade Greeting Cards in the 21st Century
Wit & Whistle is an online store loaded with amazing paper goods. We couldn’t stop ourselves from interacting with founder Amanda Wright and here’s what the tete-a-tete was like.
1. What made you come up with an idea of starting up Wit and Whistle? Please share the story with us.
I started Wit & Whistle in 2009, because my job as a graphic designer wasn’t allowing me as much creative freedom as I had hoped for. I really missed working with my hands, drawing, and being able to incorporate humor into my work. I started making greeting cards on the side, and to my surprise people bought them! My husband encouraged me to quit my day job and focus on building my own business. I finally took his advice, and slowly but surely Wit & Whistle took off.
2. You have been selling online and offline. Which do you prefer and why?
Selling offline at shows definitely has its perks. It’s so nice to chat with customers in person, get feedback, and see which products they like best. That being said, I prefer selling online. The physical labor of selling at shows — preparing and packaging tons of merchandise, lugging everything to the venue, setting up, manning the shop, and then packing everything up again — is exhausting and time consuming. My online shop mans itself, there’s no setup or teardown, and I can get work done around the studio while the sales come in. For me selling online is more efficient and more profitable, but it took years to build up my customer base on the internet and get to this point.
3. Being a part of craft business, What do you think brings out the best creativity in you? A cup of coffee, some old movie? We would love to know.
Laughter is a big creativity trigger for me — many of my products were inspired by joking around with friends and family. Pretty much anything that appeals to my weird (and slightly macabre) sense of humor can get my creative juices flowing. Watching the old classic Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory never hurts either.
4. In this age of e-cards, is it easy to sell handmade greeting cards? How do you make your cards stand out?
In spite of the convenience of e-cards, people still buy a lot of printed greeting cards. The effort of sending someone a handwritten card shows much more love and thoughtfulness. E-cards can’t compete! I make my cards stand out with my slightly-crass-but-not-too-over-the-top sense of humor and my unique hand-drawn lettering and illustrations.
5. Finally, we would love to have 2–3 of your favorite product URLs.
Note from Boxtiq: The third one is not a greeting card but nevertheless, it’s super special because of the design.
To check more of her collection, please visit her store here: http://witandwhistle.com/