Make Money Online selling your Crafts

sell your crafts This is a guest-post by Skellie. If you’re a blogger or webmaster you might enjoy her blog, Skelliewag, which provides tips and tutorials writing innovative web content.

Many of us make crafts for relaxation, fun, mental stimulation, for the challenge, and to give to others. In this post, I want to explain how you can sell your crafts from home and profit from something that was previously only a hobby.

Etsy.com allows you to easily create your own online shop with an easy to remember address (username.etsy.com). You can list crafts you want to sell for the very cheap price of 20 cents and include photos and a description. You set your own prices for each item and Etsy takes only 3.5% of the sale.

You can sell a wide variety of crafts on Etsy, from woodwork and metalwork to fine embroidery and everything in-between. If you’re more of an artist than a craftster you can sell prints, drawings and paintings, too. One artist, for example, has sold 1,525 items!

Making Etsy work

I’m no expert on crafts myself but I do know something about online promotion. The most successful Etsy stores will have a pre-built relationship of trust with potential buyers. A great way to do this is to create a blog or website around yourself and your crafts. If you provide a lot of value to visitors on this site then more and more people will come to visit — all of them potential buyers for your creations.

If you’re not familiar with blogging I’d be happy to offer advice on getting started if you e-mail me at the address on this page.

You can also add your blog, if you decide to make one, to the Etsy Sellers Who Blog ring to generate some interest around your site and meet other people in the Etsy community.

Some advice

I would also recommend starting small with your store. You don’t want to invest hours and hours into making several intricate quilts to sell only to find that you are having trouble sending visitors to your shop. It would be wise to start small, using only a few, relatively cheap items, and expand as you make sales.

I’d also suggest focusing on crafts you have previously made as an occasional hobby. This means that the creation process will be enjoyable for you regardless of whether you make a sale, and will ensure you’re not too disappointed if an item doesn’t sell. If you create items specifically because you think you can get a high price for them, or because they’ll be quick to make, and not because you enjoy that type of craft, your enjoyment will be tied to whether you sell that item or not.

I’d love to see any Etsy stores or blogs you create if you found yourself inspired by this article. Feel free to link to what you’ve made in the comments section below.

Happy crafting!

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