How to make your fortune at cards

Step 4 Work out your manufacturing route

Having established that no one wants to buy the idea off you for an amount that would make such a transaction interesting, you are left with the only other route to market - getting them made yourself and selling them. Most companies these days outsource their manufacturing to experts. It is called "contract manufacture" and the beauty of it is that the chosen manufacturer is set up to make your product and can not only make a good job of it, but also make anything from a few to many thousands of products for you.

This is where the whole project gets interesting. A very important part of any new product is the market, and establishing the market need is vital to the success of any new product. Apart from the market need, price is also a big factor in determining success. However low price is NOT as big a factor as you might think. People want value which does not translate as cheap.

Look at the price of other similar products. In this case, packs of cards range in price between nothing (free promotional give aways) and a few tens of dollars (very exclusive sets for collectors), but within our market prices range from between $4 and $12, which included nice standard playing cards at the bottom end and quality tarot cards at the top end. In the UK the price break comes at about five pounds (5 GBP) and that means that a 4.95 price sounds like it will really fly, especially if the idea is strong.

Now the only way to really trial the market is with product. You can get one pack of cards made but they will cost you $30 to $50, and will be digitally printed, so not quite as good as the real thing, and much too expensive. Prices quickly drop and if you order 100 or 200 packs then prices come down to a respectable figure and low enough for you to test the market. At this point you are not going to make a killing, just test the market, but then you will only be investing a few hundred dollars.

If you can afford it and you are confident that you can sell a few hundred packs, then you are much better off having a few thousand made, the cost comes down dramatically and you can have the highest quality, properly printed cards manufactured, which will then allow you to sell them to retail stores and on-line merchants and so increase your market reach.

The web is a brilliant tool for matching up entrepreneurs and manufacturers. before the web people like you and me had little or no access to any manufacturer that wasn't listed in our local phone book. Now you can (and should) search on the internet and get a number of suppliers to quote for your project. To do this it might be handy to have at least one card designed (but be careful not to give away your idea) which you can use to get quotes.

In most cases the important features are:

• how many cards in each deck
• how many deck you want in your first manufacturing run
• how many colours on the reverse
• how many colours on the face
• do you want one of their standard reverse patterns

To get the cost down, it is likely that you will be manufacturing in India or the Far East. This will add costs of shipping and customs and duty to the prices you are quoted. In addition to which, if you place a largish order, your own country's Excise and Duty guys will want to make sure that you are registered with their systems and permitted to import the stuff (in the UK this means that you need to have a VAT number or what is called a PseudoTURN number) be warned that getting these numbers or getting registered can take a few days to get and if your stuff is waiting in the docks to clear it will not be allowed past customs until you have the right numbers. More of this in a later stage.