November 16, 2025
Whenever there’s a national occasion on the way, greetings cards are big sellers for the print industry. But the biggest occasion of them all has to be Christmas. You’ll have businesses sending out branded cards to their clients and partners. You’ll have designers who need their collection printed before they can sell them. And you’ll have individuals who just want something a little more personal.
The short answer is; by adding value to a customer’s order. Use upselling and cross-selling techniques to make them spend more. In other words, get them to move their design onto a more expensive stock or add a special finishing.
At we1print, we have seven quality stock choices to choose from, as well as the standard options of silk and uncoated. We also offer three laminations, Spot UV (low-build and high-build) and foiling in two different colours. You can take advantage of all of these options and offer them on to your clients!
Stick around for the long answer though, and we’ll tell you how to persuade customers to actually go for these options…
What is the absolute first thing you need to do when pushing any kind of sale? Answer: Understand their end goal.
If you don’t understand what they need, you can’t understand how you can help. And if you don’t understand how you can help, all your upselling and cross-selling efforts are going to be completely arbitrary, and your customer will see right through you. Find out what they want to achieve and then only offer an upsell if you think it will genuinely help.
For example, a designer whose whole brand identity is about being understated probably isn’t going to be so keen on adding Spot UV. However, a finish like that might be very appealing to a businessperson who needs their branded Christmas cards to look top-dollar. Why not suggest a quality stock choice to that designer client instead?
Bonus: helping your clients with genuine advice will forge stronger, more loyal client relationships as well as increasing profitability on individual sales.
People love a bargain. The idea that you could get added value for a discount price is just so tempting and people actually feel like they’re missing out if they don’t go for it! You can harness this feeling of Buyer’s FOMO by creating order value milestones.
An order value milestone is a target price that you give your customers, and you tell them that when they hit that target, they’ll get a little prize. A classic that you’ll see everywhere is “Free delivery when you spend over X amount.”
The idea is that it pushes your customers to spend just a little bit extra. Not a huge amount – nothing so unreasonable that they just don’t bother – just enough to tempt them.
Perhaps you could offer an upgrade to luxury envelopes when they buy a certain number of cards? Or, a discount on matching gift tags?
So, you’ve thought through all the ways you could add value to the card design; laminations, Spot UV, foiling, or just using a nicer stock type. What do you do if it feels like none of these options are appropriate for a client? Well, you could just leave it – after all, you don’t want to be giving disingenuous advice (see point number one). Or, you could move on from the product and make it about the service instead.
Can you give them faster turnaround times? Or even the option to pick their delivery time? What about multi-address delivery? See if you can tempt them with an offering like this and increase order value that way.
Finally, never underestimate the power of emotive language. You may think that customers use logic to define their purchases but there’s always a more abstract side to things, especially at times of celebration.
Sometimes customers just want to buy something special just because they want to, or they want to look good in front of others. Either way, if you can frame a product choice as the premium option, they will see it as the premium option.
For example, your clients probably aren’t worried about what all the different stocks are called. They just want to know which is the better quality. So, instead of listing your stocks a “Silk”, “Uncoated”, “Woodstock Betulla Pulp”, and “Gold Dust”, you could list them as “Standard”, “Economy”, “Premium”, and “Luxury”.
If you get your language right, it might even do the upselling for you.
Physical samples are a brilliant aide for when you’re persuading a client to spend more. Get them so see the benefit with their own eyes, and feel it with their own hands.
