8 Ways to Sell your Crafts (& how to choose the best one)

When running a craft business, there are several options for selling your goods. This article takes a look at 8 general ways to make sales, as well as how to choose the right one(s) for your business.

Direct & Indirect Sales Channels

A sales channel is any platform you use to sell your handmade goods. It’s where product and money exchange hands (or virtual hands).

There are direct sales channels; where you deal directly with the customer. And there are indirect sales channels; where there’s a person or business in between you and the customer.

The direct sales channels many handmade business owners use are:

• Website
• Online marketplaces
• Craft shows & events

Indirect sales channels many handmade businesses use are:

• Retailers
• Affiliates
• Distributors
• Sales representatives

 

1 – Website

Your website is a place to showcase your products, without competition from other vendor’s listings. You can build your own from scratch or start with a platform such as Shopify, Squarespace, Indiemade, Big Cartel, Wix, etc.

 

2 – Online Marketplaces

Online marketplaces are websites that host a variety of handmade businesses and products on one platform. Each seller is responsible for posting their products and dealing with their customers while the marketplace processes transactions.

 

3 – Events

There are a variety of events you can sell handmade products through, including craft shows, farmers’ markets, festivals, trade shows, trunk shows, etc.

 

4 – Retailers

You may get your products into online and brick-and-mortar stores by selling them wholesale to retailers or through a consignment agreement. Selling wholesale means the retailer places an order and purchases your product, usually for 50% of the retail price. A consignment agreement means you lend a retail store your product; if it sells, you’re paid a percentage of the retail price and if it doesn’t, the retailer gives the product back after an agreed-upon time (here’s what’s considered a fair consignment percentage).

 

5 – Dropshipping

This type of operation allows online retailers to list your products for sale, however you’re responsible for fulfilling orders. Instead of shipping your goods to the online retailer (like you would with a wholesale or consignment deal), you keep them and ship them directly to customers when a sale is made.

 

6 – Affiliates

These are people who are willing to promote and sell your products through their own sales channels for a commission on each sale.

 

7 – Distributors

You sell and send your products to a distributor who then sells and ships your products to retailers. This adds a second middleman, which can eat into profits even more than a retailer. They often charge another 25 – 30% of your wholesale prices. You must have large profit margins to explore this option.

 

8 – Sales Representatives

Similar to distributors, sales reps will represent your brand and help sell your products wholesale to retailers. They will travel to buyers, have a showroom where buyers come to them or set up at a trade show to showcase products. Sales reps also get a commission of each sale and act as a middleman between you and retailers. Faire is an example of a business that acts as a sales rep for businesses selling wholesale to retailers.

 

How to choose your sales channel(s)

It’s good to use more than one sales channel so you have multiple ways money comes into your craft business. If you only use Etsy to sell your handmade products and Etsy makes a change to their algorithm that makes your products harder to find, your sales can drop in half overnight. Having sales coming in through another sales channel makes that drop in revenue more manageable. 

However, you don’t want to use too many sales channels or you may find it hard to juggle them all.

Each sales channel will need your consistent attention and efforts. If you simply post items on Etsy and then leave it for weeks while you focus on craft shows and retailers, you won’t make many sales on Etsy.

Here are some tips to help you choose the best sales channel(s) for your craft business.

 

Step 1 – Weigh Pros & Cons

Research the different sales channels where you can sell your products and the pros and cons of each. Let’s take a quick look at the general pros and cons of the more common sales channels used by handmade businesses.

What’s considered a pro to some may be a con to you and visa versa (e.g. if you have coding experience, coding your website may be a pro to you while a con to many) so be sure to make your own conclusions.

WEBSITE

PROS

• Complete control over design and customization
• Able to create a branded experience from start to finish for shoppers
• Can gather customer information for future marketing and sales
• Full reports on shopper behaviour through Google Analytics
• No competitor’s productsare  listed on your site
• No listing or commission fees
• SEO (search engine optimization) and marketing efforts direct traffic to your site
• Ability to add a blog
• Ability to add a newsletter subscriber form

CONS

• More expensive to set up, purchase a domain, host, etc.
• Requires basic website development/design skills or hiring a developer/designer
• Must build traffic from scratch, which can take several months
• Maintenance of a website can be complex
• Must set up a shopping cart system and offer secure payment options
• Can look unprofessional if not well-designed
• You’re responsible for fixing all bugs and glitches
• Requires an understanding and constant effort when it comes to SEO (search engine optimization) to grow traffic

 

ONLINE MARKETPLACES

PROS

• Quick, easy and cheap to set up a shop
• Marketplace is already established and trusted
• Large customer base
• Easy to add, edit or delete listings
• Shopping cart function and secure payment options

CONS

• Lots of competition
• Marketing your shop drives traffic to the marketplace instead of your website
• Little control over shop design & setup making it hard to brand
• Unable to gather customer contact information
• No control over algorithms
• Shoppers may recognize the online marketplace’s brand as opposed to your brand
• Sites like Etsy give you no control over reviews being posted – negative ones are displayed even if they’re inaccurate

 

EVENTS

PROS

• Great for market and product research
• Networking opportunities (can meet other vendors, shop owners or press)
• Existing customer base (the event organizer will do the majority of marketing for you)
• Build local awareness
• Can produce a lot of revenue in a short period
• Is a marketing channel and a sales channel

CONS

• Competing with other vendors and products in the same venue
• Table fees can be high and there are additional costs to design your display
• Significant time is required to prepare, set up, sell and take down
• Often a small space to display a lot of product
• Must create a lot of stock without a guarantee it will all sell
• Requires sales and customer service skills
• May have to travel if your city or town doesn’t have organized events
• Most require you to apply with no guarantee of acceptance

 

WHOLESALE

PROS

• Reach new people through a retailer’s shoppers
• Retailers take care of marketing and selling
• Typically sell large quantities in one order (which can make up for lower profit margins)
• You can set minimum order requirements
• Reach people who are in a shopping mindset and more likely to buy
• Helps market your brand
• Gives your brand credibility
• Store owners may provide feedback to help you improve your products

CONS

• Retailers purchase your products at approx. 50% of the retail price
• You must be on top of orders and able to fulfill them in a timely manner
• Must create professional-looking lookbooks and line sheets
• Usually required to make your products in large quantities
• Must always be ahead of buyers’ schedule (retailers often buy months ahead of a season)
• Must have cash flow to purchase materials for large orders (some retailers may want net terms which allow them to pay you 30, 60 or 90 days after they receive their shipment)
• More office work and shipping
• Can require large trade shows, cold calling, store visits or working with a distributor or sales rep to acquire new wholesale accounts
• Competing with a variety of other products in the store
• Sales associates don’t know the details of your products as well as you do.

The other detail to consider when selling your products to retailers is that there are two customers you must consider:

1. The storeowner – the owner or the store’s buyer who purchases your products at wholesale prices. They focus on sourcing products that are profitable, a fit for their brand and their shoppers.
2. The store’s shoppers – the person who shops in the store and buys your products at retail price. The store may target a slightly different market and attract a slightly different customer than your business and products do.

 

Step 2 – Consider you & your business

Aside from the general pros and cons of each sales channel, you’ll also want to consider:

Strengths

Start with the sales channel that’s a good fit for you and your strengths. If you’re familiar with SEO (search engine optimization) and have a design background, building or improving your website may be a good place to start. If you love chatting with people, consider craft shows. If you’re great at creating products with high profit margins, selling through retailers may be a good fit.

Time & Budget

If you’re short on time and money, building your website may not be ideal. Craft shows also require a lot of time to create stock, plan your display, set up, sell, take down, etc. Therefore an online marketplace could be the perfect sales channel to start.

Business & Products

Certain products may be a good fit for some sales channels while making it hard to earn money through others. One-of-a-kind products or hard/expensive-to-ship items may be a good fit for craft shows while being difficult to sell to retailers. Many retailers want to know exactly what they’re getting and order the same item in larger quantities.

If your business and products aren’t fully developed and you’re still working on finding a profitable niche, craft shows could be a good platform for market research. An online marketplace is a good sales channel to start with when developing brand identity, while an established business with strong branding needs its own website to give shoppers the full experience.

Goals

It’s important to consider where you see your business in 3 – 5 years and which sales channel will help you get there. Goals should be factored into decisions from the beginning so you’re not building your business on a model that won’t work in a few years.

If you hope to open a retail store one day or your items aren’t easy to ship, you may focus on growing your business locally through craft shows and retailers. If you’re planning to expand your business globally, your focus might shift to online sales channels such as your website, an online marketplace or online affiliates. If you prefer to focus on creating and leave the majority of marketing and selling to someone else, retailers, distributors and sales reps are good options to explore.

 

Step 3 – Prioritize

Based on the pros and cons of each sales channel, and the goals you have for your business, your strengths, etc. choose the sales channels you believe are the right fit. 

Although you should (eventually) have more than one way to make sales, if you’re just starting out, focusing on one will feel less overwhelming. 

You may also consider the 80/20 principle; 80% of results tend to come from 20% of causes. So although you may have 3 sales channels, it’s likely one of them will bring you the majority of your sales.

It would be very difficult for a solopreneur to keep up with all the tasks necessary to start, grow, and maintain a successful Etsy shop AND keep up with regularly attending craft shows. You can do both, but consider which will take priority. 

Choose one sales channel that will get the majority of your time and money.

 

 

I hope this article helps you choose the right sales channel for your craft business.