Greeting Cards for Birthdays, Businesses, Holidays and more

GCU Newbies

Posts: 32

How far in advance?
Oct 26^th, 2009, 9:46pm

An interesting subject came up recently that I would like to address:

When to start creating and submitting Holiday Cards for best sales and timing!

Now I started adding 2009 Christmas cards back early Oct. but now I understand I was actually on the tail end of submissions.
So I and probably those alike who are still learning the tricks here would appreciate it if one of the Admins can make a short list of major selling holidays when submissions should be in by to help us get the most out of the holiday sales.

example:
HOLIDAY- SUBMIT BY
Christmas- Aug 1st
New Years- Aug 5th
Valentines Day- Nov 1st
Chinese New Years-Nov. 1st
etc.....

I think it would be very useful to others to understand why so early, and perhaps help the flow and your reviewers in the long run. Granted we can make cards anytime we want but if we're expecting sales on new designs we really need to understand the lead time. Im already working on Valentines and Chinese new years. For us layman its wierd to create out of season, I was on such a christmas high making cards but instead im creating future holidays cards, I get it, but its just odd.

Thanks

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Delores_132508

Gold Member

Posts: 731

Re: How far in advance?
Reply #1 - Oct 27^th, 2009, 3:56am

Lisa,
While I can't provide you with a definitive list of submission deadlines for holiday cards, I can tell you what my own experience has been. I just looked at my records, and my first Christmas card sale for this year was in August. That gives me the reason for submissions as early as August -- that's when shoppers start buying.

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Peggy_137160 Full Member Posts: 203	Re: How far in advance? Reply #2 - Oct 27^th, 2009, 4:56am yep - start designing early enough that you can have finished product ready for advance shopping customers one quarter (4 months) before the actual holiday. Now to get into gear enough to follow my own darned advice!
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Karen_137659 GCU Newbies Posts: 26	Re: How far in advance? Reply #3 - Oct 27^th, 2009, 2:24pm I learned fast - already thinking about Valentine's day and St. Paddy's day. But that's a good idea if we could have some kind of "schedule" so we can keep on track and plan. i lose track of time - I started in July of this year and I can't believe how fast the holidays are approaching.
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Mary__137064 Full Member Posts: 109	Re: How far in advance? Reply #4 - Oct 27^th, 2009, 5:13pm Looking at one of my friends, and then the card numbers clients purchase at one time, I would say anytime is a good time and then toss a few up a month or so before the holiday and maybe a few a week or two before the holiday. Cover all the bases you can without going bonkers. Bright
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DENISE_132110 Senior Member Posts: 343	Re: How far in advance? Reply #5 - Oct 27^th, 2009, 5:36pm our stock photo sites say 6 months before the holiday. though they have different uses for the photos we submit, its not a bad guideline.
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Miles_139130

GCU Administrator

Posts: 8

Re: How far in advance?
Reply #6 - Yesterday at 3:55pm

Obviously there is no definite answer to this question, but a good rule of thumb would be at least 3 months before the holiday.

If you want to be sure that the search engine spiders have your keywords, categories and title properly indexed before the buying season, you will probably want to submit your cards 6 months before the holiday.

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Linda_132742

Gold Member

Posts: 1217

Re: How far in advance?
Reply #7 - Yesterday at 4:21pm

Miles, thanks for your input. I am wondering though about the positioning of cards as they are submitted. I believe that cards are "added to the others" at the bottom of the heap, if you will. While I do not think this is fair, especially for a category that has hundreds or more cards in it...how can GCU adrdess this issue other than the VERY ineffective option of clicking the OBSCURE "newest cards" link? Any input?, anyone?...I have a couple of ideas, not sure how much of a programing nightmare they might be though....
Linda

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Miles_139130

GCU Administrator

Posts: 8

Re: How far in advance?
Reply #8 - Yesterday at 5:24pm

Linda,

There is actually a process that is in place that deals with your concerns. This process looks at a number of different factors, and calculates a card's rank on a specific page via a complex and top secret formula. Cool

The goal of this is to prevent great cards that were recently submitted from being buried on the bottom, and to also prevent old cards that never sell or rarely get looked at, from appearing on the top of the page.

I must say that it is quite an ingenious system that the AMAZING GCU programmers came up with!

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Linda_132742 Gold Member Posts: 1217	Re: How far in advance? Reply #9 - Yesterday at 6:24pm Very cool..............this is new and exciting............I like GCU L
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