You’ve seen them on Etsy, on Pinterest, through Facebook, on Tumblr, links on Twitter, and the blogs on StumbleUpon. It looks like a lot of fun. And an *easy* way to earn a little bit of extra income to boot! So how do all of those other people do it? You want to sell your “arts and crafts” too!
They started off by following these 5 easy steps that I’m going to share with you, and then you can do it too!
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English: Tryon Arts & Crafts (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Pick your Venue. You can choose a variety of different outlets. However, what you choose is going to impact what and how you create to sell. By going the online route (and there are about 2 dozen different sites that you can sell from), you can do more custom orders, offer options for your customers to choose from. Having some sort of a physical shop (again, there are a dozen different options) will be quicker with the sales and allow for face-to-face interaction with your customers. Pros and Cons for each.
- Choose your product. There are so many different “arts and crafts” that you could try to sell. Crochet, paint, sew, bead, and then each of those can be broken down into sub-categories: baby blankets, booties, interior decoration, skirts, dresses, necklaces. Find one that you are good at to get you started. You may even start off with a bunch of different ones. That’s fine, test the waters, figure out what’s going to sell and what you like to make the most. At the beginning, it’s ok to play around with different crafts.
- Make up your products. Regardless of your venue or product, you have to create something to get started with. Here is where you might cut some losses. There is no revenue coming in, but you are putting a little bit out. Even if you tell people “I can make ______”, they aren’t going to buy anything until they see an example of the quality and skill of your work. You can also decide the speed with which you start up. Maybe you throw your entire skill set down on the table, or maybe you start off with a handful of products and as those sell start adding in new/different ones.
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Interior Design (Photo credit: chooyutshing) Set up Shop. You are either talking to managers to set up your own displays, or you are taking the picture, writing the description, and listing each item. Having a place where people can see what you create is a pretty vital ingredient. This is where you are going to make your sales, establish your brand, this is the gut of your crafting business.
- Improve, enhance, get better. Always be getting better until you get to that comfortable level of creation, and then just enhance the quality of each product. Maybe expand to a different selling venue, or add in different products, give more options.
It sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? Overall it actually is pretty simple, but it still takes some ingenuity, education, planning, determination, and time. As I say a lot, don’t get discouraged if things are taking off like you would like: make some changes, and try it again. Just keep in mind that because it is so simple to sell your hand-made crafts, quite a few people are doing it, therefore it can get awful competitive. But, that’s also the beauty of it, those that have been doing it for years are usually willing to share some information on how they’ve done it…just ask them! If you want to give it a whirl, just follow those 5 easy steps (Venue, Product, Create, Shop, Improve), and I bet that within 3 months, you’ll have at least one sale on your record!
Go and see what’s for sale right now in my shop! (Hint: Click the picture)
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Family Bugs Crochet Designs 
Sounds like you’re having fun with product marketing online. You mention there are so many competitors, and that’s true. Another idea is to set yourself apart from what others are offering in a way that’s interesting and memorable. If you get creative enough in the way you do this, people will share.
Thats a very good point. Being different in even the slightest little way can give you a huge boost over your competitors. Thanks for the comment.