I was doing a search for heavy glossy paper and ran across a company that has an established Funny Greeting Card line.  Interestingly, this company has now teamed up with Zazzle to have them print and ship their cards instead of doing it in-house themselves.
 
http://www.wholesalepapercards.com/
 
To make this work economically, they bumped up their retail price from $2.50 to $3.45.  This effectively bumped up the wholesale price to retailers but allowed the profit margin to be the same if not higher (based on qty) per card.
 
The benefits to the retailer is they can order exactly what they need to replenish stock and are not tied to ordering sets of 6 or 12 cards per type like before.  Cards are also shipped the next day, which was not always possible before.  Billing is instant also.
 
The artist/card maker benefits by not having to do any more printing, shipping, or billing.  OMG.  What is less clear is what the artist/card maker profits per card.  I suspect when they were making their own cards, they perhaps could make at least 40 cents/card after printing and overhead was paid for.  Perhaps they can do about that now but without the hassle!  They can now focus on designing and promoting.
 
I'm not sure this fits GCUs business model of today, but it a clear sign of that independant artists, POD, and retailers are perhaps finding a match that can work for all.  Perhaps GCU needs to noodle over this too!

Interesting . . my question is: who does their artwork and card creation. Do they have independent artists (like us) or do they have staff artists. I couldn't tell. If they allow "us" to do our own designing that would be great.
 
elizabeth

Very interesting Tom,
 
How is his new set up any different from just opening a Zazzle store?,sorry not understanding fully
 
Pamela

OK, so I thought about this a bit and ran some numbers, and I think this guy IS using standard Zazzle methods.  If so, at qty 20 and up he is making less than 30 cents per card.  The retailer hits the 100% profit margin point at roughly 50 cards (makes $1.60/card).  Pretty good deal for the retailer and maybe "OK" for the artist given that they now no longer have to do the printing, stocking, and running around.
 
GCU's pricing provides artist commision of nearly 50-cents out to 99 cards which is over 60% higher than at Zazzle at 99 cards.  Currently though, the retailer would have to price the GCU printed cards at $3.99 and buy 100 at a time or more to achieve a 100% profit margin.  That might be workable.