ASU alum's personalized greeting card kiosk debuts on Tempe campus
Sammi Ekmark, an alumna of ASU, and her husband launched Ink'd Greetings, a company that provides kiosks where users can customize and print out greeting cards. A kiosk was recently installed at the Sun Devil Campus Store on the Tempe campus. Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU News
Everyone knows how disheartening it is to dash into a store to grab a last-minute holiday card and find the selection picked over and in disarray.
An Arizona State University alumna has created a solution to this annoyance and brought it to the Tempe campus.
Sammi Ekmark, who has an undergraduate degree from ASU, and her husband, Andrew Ekmark, operate Ink’d Greetings, a kiosk that makes personalized greeting cards. Their company now has 16 kiosks nationwide, with six in the Valley, including one in the Sun Devil Campus Store at 525 E. Orange St. They’ve sold more than 5,000 cards.
The project is personal.
“I love greeting cards, and I’ve kept them since I was little,” said Sammi Ekmark, who is the co-founder and chief product officer for Ink’d Greetings.
“So Andrew got me one for every holiday, every birthday, every occasion you could think of.
“One Valentine's Day, he goes in last minute and the card section is disheveled. There's a lack of inventory. He can't find what he wants. It’s so inefficient. It takes up so much space.”
That sparked an idea, and the pair decided to interview some retail experts.
“It was definitely a consumer pain point for them,” she said.
Sammi Ekmark was already an entrepreneur, starting her own cookie company while she was at ASU, where she played on the tennis team and earned a bachelor’s degree in English language and literature.
The Ekmarks spent months figuring out the details, like how the kiosk would work. Last November, they launched their prototype.
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Andrew Ekmark, the CEO of Ink'd Greetings, and ASU alumna Sammi Ekmark, the chief product officer, have placed 16 kiosks around the country and are still expanding.
Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU News
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Ink'd Greetings has more than 1,000 card designs.
Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU News
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Tianmiao Lai, an employee in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, selects a greeting card from the Ink'd Greetings kiosk at the Sun Devil Campus Store on ASU's Tempe campus.
Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU News
Kiosk users can choose greeting cards from over 1,000 designs, personalize the inside message, include a QR code for a gift card to over 75 retail outlets and restaurants, and then print it out. All the cards cost $2.99.
Users also can design a card on the Ink’d Greetings website and then print it out at a kiosk.
The idea works not only because kiosks take up a tiny amount of retail space, but also because the vast array of card designs includes underserved categories, like cards in Spanish or for religious occasions that big greeting card companies don’t cover.
“They would need to print 500,000 cards in Asia, ship them to the U.S., and if they don’t sell 500,000, it’s not worth it for their business model,” she said.
“So this lets people feel valued, and we’ve gotten great feedback.”
Also, the kiosks never run out of bestsellers, which include designs from the humorous adult-oriented "Cards After Dark" line.
The Ekmarks participated in InvestU, a program of ASU Enterprise Partners that serves as a strategic venture network for companies with a tie to ASU. The network’s goal is to provide a platform for startups to raise capital through its angel investors and leverage resources across ASU’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.
The Ekmarks have raised about $2.5 million for the company, which has a team of eight employees.
Sammi Ekmark said they not only found investors through InvestU but also mentorship.
“We have one investor who is really driving us forward and is really helping out,” she said.
Once Ink’d Greetings produced its first prototype, the Ekmarks worked on refining the iterations.
“From the consumer standpoint, we lowered the height of the screen and tilted the screen a little so it’s a little easier to type. And we got a more reactive screen,” she said.
They updated the software, which at one point wouldn’t allow users to easily make corrections to their personalized messages.
“There are probably 20 things or 25 things that we've learned over this last year that have really impacted the quality of both the print and the customer experience, and just the guaranteed reliability that this is going to print you a card when you click,” said Andrew Ekmark, a Phoenix native who is co-founder and CEO of Ink’d Greetings.
Ink’d Greetings pays a flat fee per design and has hired several ASU students to create cards.
Graphic design major Luka Miller became an Ink’d Greetings designer when Sammi Ekmark reached out via LinkedIn.
“They give us a tagline or a potential idea for an illustration, but she gives us free rein on what’s inside, which can be a continuation of the illustration or something else funny I think of,” Miller said.
“Sometimes I’ll make a sketch by hand for different ideas, but I design on the computer.”
Miller also is a student worker in ASU's Enterprise Brand Strategy group, where she works on social media graphics and other projects. Her career goal is to work in the entertainment industry, perhaps creating movie campaigns and posters.
She designs about two Ink’d Greetings cards a week and loves the flexibility.
“Sammi has been so great to work with, and this has been a great opportunity,” Miller said.
Sammi Ekmark said that the team hopes to expand the card designs in the coming year, including ASU-branded designs and the ability to make charitable donations.
“It’s really a convenient, fun and affordable way to give gifts and make people smile,” she said.
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