Whether you're on that rise and grind lifestyle, looking for a new side hustle, or are interested in learning about new ways to earn some extra income, you should consider custom keychains as a way to grow your personal wealth. Merchandise sales are a time tested and consistent way to turn a small investment into greater returns. Explore how custom keychains are a great product to start or supplement your business with branded merchandise.
Why Custom Keychains?
If you want to make sales you need inventory. There are several reasons why custom keychains make a good starting point when considering what type of inventory you want for your business. The top two reasons for choosing custom keychains are versatility and low initial investment. In addition to this, other reasons to consider are logistics, marketability, and competition.
Versatility
Custom made keychains are a highly versatile product which makes them a fantastic choice for starting your sales journey. Not only can you choose from a variety of manufacturing and material styles, but also you can create different themes for every occasion. So as trends change, you can easily adapt your product line to meet those trends. You can start with a single design and sell only that option, or you can also add designs as your business grows to reach an even greater audience.
For instance, say you're an illustrator who draws a web-comic and has a decent fanbase online. Creating merchandise of your characters is a way that you can reward your fans and increase popularity, while also earning extra income from your ideas. At first you may just want to sell keychains of one main character to see how it goes and eventually grow to have an entire lineup.
You may also just have one core design you want to sell--as an example, your brand logo--and you want to offer it to your customers in different colorways. It is simple to build variety in this way too and may even encourage your audience to collect all the combinations.
Initial Investment
This will be key to a lot of people, especially if you're just getting started. The barrier of entry into this market is very accessible. With low startup costs and ease of creation and fulfillment, custom keychains represent a highly attainable path toward success. Most of these keychains have a low per-piece cost and provide increased savings when purchased in bulk. So for even a few hundred dollars, there is an opportunity to get started with fairly sizable inventory that you can resell at a profit. And the best part is: with custom keychains it's unique inventory because it's your design. You have a product that no one else is selling.
You will also find that suppliers like PromotionalKeychains.biz offer price break discounts for larger quantities. The more you invest, the better the savings per piece, which will increase your overall margins.
Logistics
It may not be fun to think about the logistics of your operation, yet the more you plan ahead the better prepared you will be for success. An advantage of selling custom keychains is their size and weight compared to other items. Because they are small and light, they are less expensive and easier to ship, as well as taking less storage space in your warehouse (which may be your garage or basement!). If you're selling and shipping online, this means you can use padded mailers instead of having to take up even more spaces with multiple different box sizes. And if you set up shop at a booth or stall it's much easier to transport a larger quantity of product for all day sales.
Working with a company like PromotionalKeychains.biz has the added advantage of a team of professional artists to get your ideas translated into a final product--so you don't have to worry about all the technical ins and outs of the manufacturing process. You can come up with your artwork, hand it off, and then focus on the other areas of your business. Most of the time you will have your new keychains ready to go within a few weeks. During this waiting period, you can prepare your website with the new product information so that you can publish immediately when your inventory arrives.
Marketability
The marketability of your custom keychains depends mainly on two things: the "what" and the "who." What are your keychains meant to accomplish? Are you promoting your brand? Will these be keepsakes from a popular destination for visitors to remember their trip? Are they fan merchandise for a band? Thinking about what the keychains are meant to accomplish will help you in their creation. Similarly, knowing who the keychains are targeting will inform your decisions equally.
Herein lies the appeal of custom keychains. Since you can have a varied inventory and continually introduce new designs, you will always have something fresh for your customers. And often, the same customers want multiple iterations of your merchandise. Think of Nike. Fans of the brand will wear shoes, shirt, shorts, hat, and so on with multiple colors or styles of each--all displaying that trademark Swoosh. Or if you are in a band you can design a new keychain for each tour.
People love to collect things, especially if they are unique or in limited supply. By easily creating a variety of custom keychains you have a desirable product that is highly marketable.
Competition
Unfortunately, in any market there's going to be competition. Don't be discouraged, though, this can actually help you set your brand apart from the rest of the pack. Find out what your strengths are and study the competition to gain an advantage. If a certain category is too crowded you might have to shift to a different segment. It can help to look into these areas before deciding what type of custom keychain you want to sell. If no one else seems to have fun creative floating keychains you could target the nautical market.
How To Get Started With Custom Keychains
You've done your research and decided that you're at the point where you're ready to begin selling custom keychains as a business venture. So how to start? Here's a brief summary of the next steps to take.
Choose A Custom Keychain Style
There are different types of custom keychains both in material and how they are manufactured. Choose the kind that will work best for you. Do you need it in 3-D? Will you have color fills? What kind of packaging do you want? If you're not sure, you can browse the different styles of custom keychains at PromotionalKeychains.biz to see what options are available. Remember to consider your costs and desired profits during this phase; it may help inform your decision.
Prepare Your Art
When preparing your art you should consider the overall size, shape, and material of the keychain you plan to have made. The particular keychain style you choose can influence things like how small of detail will look good, how many colors can be added, metal platings available, and so on. If you are using your logo, do you want the keychain to be shaped like your logo--how much border will you need.
The team at PromotionalKeychains.biz are happy to help you with your artwork if you need assistance. Send over your high resolution image files for best results. Our artists will design a proof for you to approve before manufacturing begins. We also Pantone match colors if you have a brand identity that needs to stay consistent.
Production
During production all you have to do is wait! We do all the work. Normal production times are listed on each product page. However, in general you can expect to wait up to 4 weeks after proof approval for your order to be completed. Plan accordingly if you need to meet a specific deadline. When your order ships you will get an email with tracking information.
Sell Custom Keychains For Profit
Finally, we're at the part where you can begin to earn some cash for keychains. You have a fully stocked inventory of amazing custom keychains and it's time to sell. There are a few scenarios where selling keychains has proven more successful than others. Which will apply to your situation?
Things To Consider
ROI
How much have you put into the cost of the keychains and how much do you need to earn back to make it worth it? Be sure to include your time as part of the cost. Maybe at first you can "pay" yourself zero so the time is essentially free, but eventually this will factor into the equation. It includes time making the art, travel (to store, post office, etc), marketing (how long does it take to put on your website, advertise on social), shipping time, etc.
List of Costs / Potential Costs
- Item cost
- Time invested
- Shipping materials (boxes, labels, tape, supplies)
- Shipping fees (to FedEx, UPS, USPS, etc)
- Transaction fees (if using 3rd party site like etsy or ebay)
- Sales tax remittance
- Travel/Gas (if driving to set up shop at event, specific location)
- Additional overhead (renting a space, employees, etc)
- Returns/Replacements (factor in some cushioning to help absorb losses)
Once you add all of these up you'll have a rough estimate of what each keychain actually costs for you in the end. Now you can decide how much to add onto that to earn as profit. Start with at least double your cost as your sale price. Check competitors to make sure that's in the ballpark, maybe you can increase your price even more. And obviously there are factors like whether or not you'll offer free shipping, or pass that cost to the customer. As you get started you'll gain a feel for what is or isn't working and how to adjust.
Value Added
Alternately, you may not even intend to make a profit off of the custom keychain itself. It can be a value added proposition for another of your larger and more profitable products. Every purchase of one of your main-line items comes with a sticker and custom keychain. This type of add-on is great for customer satisfaction and loyalty, and also serves as advertising for your brand.
Where To Sell
What you earn also depends largely on where and how you plan to sell your custom keychains. Are you going to setup a booth at an event where you need to sell as many as possible? Or maybe it's a "register item" at an existing store where you plan to only sell one occasionally over a longer period of time. There are a whole range of possibilities for selling custom keychains, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.
Online
Selling online gives you the biggest reach to the widest audience. You don't even need your own website to do it. There are many marketplaces to help facilitate your sales. The advantage to putting your products on one of these marketplaces is that you instantly have a potential audience of millions of people and you don't have to fuss with the technical aspects of running a website. However, the downside is that you will pay more in fees to use these services.
Your Own Website
Having your own website to sell custom keychains online will give you the most control, but it will be more work. In addition to creating the site, you will have to do more work marketing your product to attract visitors. It can be well worth it once you have your community. There are also some platforms that can help you build your site--making it easier for a non-tech person to get started. You may want to consider the following services (these are suggestions, not endorsements):
Popular Online Marketplaces
You are probably already familiar with many of these websites because you visit and shop from them yourself. With relatively few obstacles you can create an account and start selling quickly. Again, the main advantage to an existing online marketplace is the established audience. People know to go here when they're shopping online. But you will have to sell more to make more since you can count on fees often taking at least 10% or more of your sales. These are some sites well-suited for selling individual custom keychains that you have created:
Flea Market / Swap Meet
Establishing yourself at a flea market can lead to a consistent and high volume amount of custom keychain sales. They provide an abundance of foot traffic of people with cash in their pocket who are there specifically looking for anything cool they can find. You can get started with as little as a folding table upon which to present your keychains. Of course you will probably want to build more attractive displays and signage to increase interest. A potential downside is that you may have to pay a vendor fee to set up a booth--this can depend on the location.
If you're not sure where to look, do a web search to find flea markets in your area. Most regions have year-round locations with additional seasonal markets.
What About Garage Sales?
Though yard sales or garage sales might feel similar in concept to a flea market, they are probably not a good place to sell custom keychains. People patrolling these neighborhood sales are looking for dirt cheap deals and hidden treasures. They will be unwilling to pay retail prices on "new" merchandise.
Events
Special events are worth looking into as a place to sell keychains. Especially if you happen to be affiliated with the event and your keychains match the theme. The first and best example is if you're selling merch for a band. Other possibilities include conventions, annual fairs, or representing your brand at an expo. Summer festivals are similar in concept to flea markets, where you can pay to have a booth and can count on lots of potential customers viewing your wares.
Middleman
You may also be looking to take a middleman approach to sales. This works best if, for instance, you have licensing rights to some properties. The idea is that you make the initial investment to turn your IP into physical products, then sell these to merchants who either buy them from you bulk upfront, or pay you commission based on sales. This way you become more of a manager instead of doing sales direct to consumer. While this can be more difficult to achieve, it can also bear greater fruit as you cast your net wide.
Summary
Hopefully this article has given you a good idea of what it will take to sell your own custom keychains and why they can be a lucrative way to earn some extra income. The variety of keychains you can create is immense and they are a product that everyone uses. If you want to bring your ideas to life or promote your brand, ordering bulk keychains can provide you with a large and affordable inventory of merchandise to resell.
When you are ready to get started on your venture, visit PromotionalKeychains.biz to select your favorite keychains and get to work with our artists. You'll can find custom keychains here, as well as custom coins, and custom lapel pins if you want to expand your product offerings. All are an affordable way to get high quality products that represent your art. Thanks for reading. Have more questions or tips to share? Leave them in the comments below!
