Making Money from Confetti
What is a confetti? They are very small pieces of usually coloured paper thrown during festive occasions such as during couple’s weddings and calendar events such as new years celebrations. Note: Originally grains were thrown during weddings but were soon replaced with small pieces of paper.
Today other materials besides grains and small coloured pieces of paper are used as confetti. Some of the confetti materials being used today are metallic paper that are glitzy, rose petals and other parts from plants like leaves, recycled newspaper, soap bubbles, fabrics and other materials that can suspended in air for a short period.
There are still other materials used as confetti but are more ostentatious such as fake paper money and even real money by people who can afford it. Other people like politicians for example use confettis with campaign promotional messages and throw it to potential voters during their campaign activities.
Can a Confetti Business be Profitable?
The simple answer is “Yes”. As proof we have the company Shropshire Petals who is one of the leading biodegradable confetti producers in the UK. They sell a lot of products related to flowers but as they stated in this article from The Business Barn titled: Family Biodegradable Confetti Business Leads UK Market their best seller are their confetti products.
There are two (2) good news from this article. First, it shows that there is good demand for confetti products and this article proves to us that customers are willing to spend more for quality products like biodegradable plant based confetti. Second, it proves that biodegradable products such as flower petals can be successfully exported despite the time constrains of their shelf life.
If you check online you would most probably see that there are many businesses that supply confetti. However many of these business do not supply confetti alone. They also supply other products related to party and event celebrations. The other products that they sell are usually balloons and other party and event decorations.
Still there are businesses that specialise in confettis. For example simply typing “Alibaba confetti” would produce a lot of direct information about wholesale suppliers of confetti products. So it is up to you if you want to either be a party and event supplier or a wholesaler of confettis.
Confetti Machines
I checked Die Cutting Machines which are used to make confettis on an industrial scale and saw one in Alibaba directly marketed as a confetti making machine. The machine is being sold for $10,000. I used the Google search term “confetti making machine Alibaba”. I strongly suggest you do your own online search if you are interested in buying one.
I also checked YouTube videos using the search term “mass producing confetti” and found that confettis are being produced by industrial machines also on an industrial scale basis. The machines are fed rolls of very wide sheets of paper and other confetti materials and the machines do their work with very little human intervention.
So if you are interested in entering the business you should take note that the confetti materials are the least of your problems and the mass producing part is your biggest problem. This is especially so if you are trying to compete with generic confetti products. There are already many long established confetti making businesses with years of experience in the industry.
Be Unique
Since it would be very hard to compete with long established confetti making businesses one of the best things you can do is to be unique. You can offer for one non-mass produced confettis. There are already for example confettis inside balloons or confetti and card combos in the market.
This means you might not be the actual bulk manufacturer of confetti but you can repackage the confettis with other products to create an entirely new product all your own. You can design the prints on the cards and balloons for example and you can print them directly or you can subcontract the printing processes to printing companies.
Be A Contractor
If you want to specialise in making confettis of all types then you can be a contractor. You can organise the confetti production process between your customers and your 3rd party suppliers and contractors. This is especially true if you have limited startup capital and lack the necessary resources to produce the confettis on your own.
For example a customer might want confettis that are larger than normal confettis with prints on them but only want limited quantities of them. Normal confettis do not fit this kind of product request from a customer but this could be an opportunity for you to earn money for these kinds of product needs by customers.
Let us say for example a customer wants confettis that look like small paper money but with their own design on it. One of the first things you can market is to be a designer of the confetti itself and to offer to oversee the physical production of the custom confettis using your contact suppliers and contractors.
After designing the custom confetti and having it printed by your contact printing shop you then can offer to find suppliers of for rent confetti blowers and even be paid to operate them during the day of the celebrations. You can even market these custom confettis as event souvenirs to the guests. This is just one example of how to be a contractor.
Prints That Customers Will Cut Themselves.
You can do the printing of the custom confettis especially if they are simple enough and preferably in black and white. Although you can use a computer printer for printouts with superior results there is also a market for Xerox Machine produced prints. In this case your clients are paying you for your services in printing the confetti prints as well as the rental of your machine.
As you can see there are now new products and services that you can offer. If the confetti design and printing business dry up you can still offer your printing services and printing machines to create other printed products. This is an advantage over party and event product suppliers and even confetti manufacturers who are locked into offering their main products only.
If your clients wants differently designed and shaped confettis then you have the advantage of being able to offer them differently designed and shaped confettis unlike more traditional suppliers who are locked to offering only mass produced and similarly shaped confettis. The design part is easy enough to do but what about the shape?
One thing you can negotiate is to have your clients take care of it themselves in order to save them money especially if their order is only a limited run. If they want then you could offer to find people who are willing to cut the confettis according to your client’s specifications. Cutting pieces of paper into shapes requires very little skill and it is not hard to find people for the task.
There is a Big Market for Custom Confettis
I did a check if there was such a thing as Pokemon Confetti and sure enough I found both official and unofficial Pokemon confettis in
There are confettis patterned after the superhero Batman both again official and unofficial as well as a mixed bag of differently shaped Halloween themed confettis. In fact there is a multitude of confettis of all shapes, designs and themes being sold online. You can differentiate your confettis from these by creating designs that are unique to your confettis…
Make Your Confettis Collectable
Let us for example use Disney. If they have produced confettis that are specially made for an event like the opening of a new attraction and specifically stated it in their confetti then there is a high chance that these confettis would not be disregarded but rather be collected by people. Imagine if the confetti for example has a “I was there during …” marker.
If these confettis were produced in limited quantities and people know that they are limited then automatically Disney collectors would find value in it especially if the markers clearly indicate that they were only produced for that said event only. You can also do this if you have a small boutique confetti business.
For example if you have a client who wants confetti for a wedding. You can design in very small (almost in micro) letters the name of the bride and groom as well as the date of the wedding and other details you might want as long as the group of words stays intact during the cutting process of the paper. This paper can be used as confetti, a wrapper or background paper designs for the wedding. This is just one example of how confettis can serve more purpose than just a throwaway product.
Other Confettis Besides Paper
Of course there are other confettis besides paper that you can market but this article is too long as it is already to discuss marketing these other types of confetti. What you can do however is to also offer your clients alternatives besides paper confetti and try to differentiate your design and shape to create unique confettis which would let your clients stand out.
Conclusion
There are already a number of long established confetti wholesalers in the industry and you might have difficulty competing with them especially if you have limited capital and resources. What you can do however at least as a start is to offer more customised confettis. This may involve mixing confetti with other products and services.
Your products and services must be ones that the bigger and more established competitors cannot offer like unique designs and tailor-made contract jobs. You can start out small by being a contractor of products and services using 3rd parties. Take note also that confettis are just small pieces of paper taken from a big sheet of paper. This big sheet of paper can be a marketable product for you as well.