Everybody knows a good business will strive to keep its production costs down. When the cost of a product is lower, the retail price will be lower ~ at least it should be.
I was commissioned to create a set of note cards and needed some A2 envelopes. Invitation-size envelopes. In the past I got envelopes at Office Max, so I headed to my local store only to find that Office Max is the Devil.
There they were, all of the envelopes, and among them were the A2, invitation-size envelopes. Yay, I thought, until I saw the price. A box of one hundred envelopes was, and I’m not kidding, $18.50. Envelopes! That’s $.18 a piece! I never paid that much in the past! To add insult to injury all of the envelopes had the Office Max label and there were no others to choose from.
There was no way in hell I was going to spend $18.50 for a box of stinkin’ envelopes. I walked out of the store vowing never to return again.
Charlotte reminded me of a place where I could most likely find what I was looking for at a price much more reasonable than the Devil was charging. Anchor Paper Express. When I walked into the store I immediately decided to start making more paper crafts. This place is a scrapbookers heaven! I even told the lady behind the counter I loved her more than Michaels and I wasn’t kidding. The papers were divine, the punches and cutters were plentiful, there were inks and dyes and pigments, embossing plates, and a number of other gadgets and instruments I wasn’t even familiar with.
Here’s the best part: you pay for paper and envelopes by the pound. Fancy paper and matching envelopes. By the pound! That’s genius! Mix and match to your heart’s content. However, I couldn’t find plain, white, A2 envelopes in the gigantic paper/envelope warehouse part of the store. I asked the woman behind the counter (the one to whom I professed my love) if they had what I was looking for. But of course! Guess what? Plain, white, A2 envelopes, the ones selling for $18.50 at Office Max, were sold at Anchor Paper Express in a box of two hundred and fifty for…$10. That’s $.02 a piece as opposed to $.18 a piece at Office Max.
Can you say cha-ching?!
I wasn’t kidding about looking into doing more paper crafts. Anchor Paper Express totally inspired me, and now that I have two hundred and fifty plain white envelopes you’ll surely be seeing some new products coming out of the Auntie B’s Wax World Headquarters very soon. And lucky you, I’ll pass on the low cost of production to my customers.
Thanks, Charlotte, for the suggestion to check out Anchor Paper Express. And Anchor Paper? I really do love you.
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