The 6 Most Important things to do To Start and Grow a Successful Handmade Craft Business
Running your own successful business is one of the best feelings in the world. And……. just to be contrary. It can also be the hardest. It is so amazing to know that the money you’re making has all come from you. Your skill, your craft, your brain and your hard work.
It can also be really hard, having to wear all the hats and spinning all the plates. Some people around you may doubt that it’s even possible and they will helpfully tell you as much so close your ears!
If you’re thinking about selling things that you have made you have questions of course. Swirling around your brain are thoughts like; How do I make my small craft business successful? Is it even possible? Can a handmade business be profitable? Can I make a living from making my handmade products?
As a handmade business owner of several years, I can tell you
YES!
yes it is! It is totally possible to make a living from your craft business and making your beautiful handmade products. Millions of people do it every day and so can you! It can be a rollercoaster, it can be a learning curve but it is never boring! and if you’re prepared to learn new stuff, get stuck in and embrace the multi hatted life, it is the most satisfying thing you can do. I mean wearing the same hat every day is boring anyways right?
As well as running my own business, I’m a former Etsy Team Captain and experienced handmade business educator. I’ve seen hundreds of businesses, selling products every day and making money from their crafts.
I’ve accumulated knowledge from running my own handmade business but also from seeing the experience of other awesome people that I know who sell handmade products and the many people that I’ve helped along their journey to sell their crafts as a business.
So here are my;
6 Actionable Tips To Start and Grow a Successful Handmade Craft Business
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1. Have a collection of products that go together and make sense to sell together
Photo by Surene Palvie
Something that I often see with new handmade business owners is that their product collection doesn’t look like it all comes from the same business. Often that’s because they may be trying out new things to see what sells, to see what they are good at making and what they like making.
Sadly if you put a wildly different mix of products that all look different you confuse your customer. If your customer doesn’t know what it is that you sell, they will go elsewhere.
That doesn’t mean that you can only make and sell one thing and it doesn’t even mean that you can only use one craft.
You can do aaaaaaall the crafts if you want to, but you need to hang the products that you make on a hook.
For example, in my imaginary business called ‘crazy plant lady’ I love crochet, paper craft, sewing, knitting, I have a laser cutter in my garage that I bought on a whim from ebay and I love sitting down to an embroidery hoop too.
That could make for a very messy product range, but If i niche down the things that I make within each craft, to plant related products, I could have a really successful range consisting of crocheted plants, laser cut jewellery in bold plant leaf designs, embroidered plants in hoops and paper cacti in colourful painted pots.
This hangs all of my crafts on one theme and If I use a similar colour palette and design across my products it will look like a really cohesive collection and I still get to do all my crafts. Also bonus points because this makes it super easy to market your handmade products as you know you are definitely talking to plant loving peeps who love bold colours which makes your branding and content creation sooooo much easier.
This point is important to remember even if you do have one craft that you are using to make your products. It’s important to find an aesthetic that brings all of your pieces together. If you are a potter for example, are you making pots with clean lines and japanese inspired shapes? Or ceramics inspired by children’s stories and the woodland, adorned with toadstools and fairy folk? There is a market for both for sure but they are very different markets so decide where you want to land and land there consistently.
2. Price Your Handmade Products For A Sustainable Business
Photo by Leeloo The First
Pricing is one of the things that I think many handmade business owners really struggle with It is so easy to fall into the trap of pricing products far too low to begin with and that will always lead to problems further down the line. And I honestly have to tell you that I was not immune from this either.
When I first started selling my handmade products, I too was not charging enough. This is a big mistake and can have serious consequences for the growth of your business. Imagine that one of your favourite shop asks to stock your work! How exciting, this is amazing.
A brilliant opportunity to increase sales and get your products in front of more buyers. but………. and here’s the kicker. If you haven’t carefully considered and priced your products with sustainable business growth in mind. A fantastic opportunity can quickly turn in to a missed opportunity because your pricing strategy just hasn’t allowed for it. Stocking in shops requires you to be able to discount your products at around 50% of your retail price (excluding vat)
Here are some of the most important things to remember when pricing your handmade products to sell for your business.
Cost everything accurately
Consider ALL the costs that went into making the product This includes EVERYTHING that you need in order to make the product. Your materials, your overheads, your time, any packaging materials.
Calculate your time accurately. When calculating your time, do it a few times. It’s really important for the sustainability of your business to be accurate with your costing. If you time yourself making one item, especially if that Item is new to you, your time will probably come out on the high side.
Time yourself accurately, making a batch of 10 and divide the time taken by 10 to find the actual time to make one item. I'm always surprised how much quicker it is to make a batch of something. I also find that the more I make the quicker I get so it’s worth revisiting this regularly. Multiply the time by the hourly rate you’d like to pay yourself for making. (NB It should be at least as much as you’d need to pay someone else to make it for you) to get an accurate labour cost for your product.
Add in profit
Profit is the lifeblood of your business. You need it to invest in tools and systems as your business grows. If you want a professional photo shoot to help your products sell (I strongly recommend this) then you need profit to pay for it. Profit also pays your taxes, and your wage as a business owner stop there! I know what you’re thinking - You already told me to add my wage when pricing Michaela so that’s covered no? NOPE!
The cost already allocated for the time to make the item is exactly that. It’s the cost of someone making it and one day that person might not be you. What will happen when you get more orders than you can handle and you decide to take on a little bit of help to make your product? Now that person is getting all the money allocated for making the item and unless you have profit added in, there is no money at all left to pay you for all the work that you do in the rest of the business and there’s nothing left to invest back in the business.
This can seriously limit your ability to grow. Personally, I don’t want a whole team of people making for me in my handmade business and maybe you don’t either, but I still add in profit so that the option is there when things get a little busy and I need to hire someone to help me for a while. It also means that my business has the breathing room to grow if I want it to.
Add in more profit
what? this is getting silly now michaela! I can hear you, you know.
So you need to add in profit as I said. that will get you to your wholesale price. But then you need a second layer of profit to allow for wholesale discounts, promotions and sales. Don't worry, You can use the handy dandy spreadsheet that I use to figure out my own pricing. Get it here It will work out how much you should be charging for your wholesale price, and your retail price to allow for profit and sustainable business growth.
Just a warning - often when working out your prices with profit margins and growth built in for the first time, it can be really scary and come out at a waaay bigger number that you are prepared for. Don’t worry, read my pointers below and if you’re already selling, at a low price point, you can always gradually raise your prices until they are more aligned with where they need to be for you to have a sustainable business.
I’ll never sell it at that price!!
Remember that your customer may view the value of your handmade items very differently to you. Maybe you would never pay £500 [insert any price here] for a painting [whatever it is you make] because it is beyond your budget at the moment and you can paint your own art for your wall so why would you spend so much? Ok, but that’s you. You are not your customer in this case. Your customer may well not be artistically talented in the slightest. They love having unique art on their walls and £500 is a perfectly reasonable price to pay for it.
I often hear handmade business owners saying things like - I could never charge the proper price for the time it takes me - So firstly I would challenge you as to the truth of that statement. If your item comes out at a high price point because of the time your particular craft takes. Think about how you can convey the value of that product to your customer.
It is true that you will need to pull out all the stops on photography and branding and educate your customer as to why the price is what it is but it certainly can be done. or, (and) maybe you could consider selling patterns, kits, workshops and tutorials as well as your finished pieces. That way you have a few different avenues bringing in money while you up your branding game and really sell those high end pieces for what they are worth to the people who both appreciate the work that has gone into it, and have the budget to spend on it.
3. Invest in the best photography you can for your handmade products.
Photo by MART PRODUCTION
Images are EVERYTHING when selling online and the thing I would consider investing money in as soon as I can when starting a new handmade business.
The Images on your product listings have to work so hard. They give the customer all the information they would usually get if they were in a shop and could pick up your item. Any information they could get from holding, touching and turning it over in their hand needs to be conveyed through your images. It’s not just about the look, it’s the texture, and the feel too.
Images also are an important part of your brand positioning. Lifestyle images give your potential buyers a chance to imagine your product in their own lives or within a life that they aspire to. Images including elements of the lifestyle of your ideal customer makes potential purchasers feel that this product is for them and brings them one step closer to getting their credit card out.
The quality of your product images can significantly impact sales of your products and can also influence brand perception. A product phototgraphed beautifully will catch the eye and invite the viewer to take a closer look. The same item photographed badly will jarr the eye and repel visitors. This is NOT what we want. You cannot plop your item on your living room carpet and take a snap with your phone and call it done.
Obviously not everyone has the budget to get a pro shoot and whilst I do urge you to save profits towards that as soon as you can you need an interim strategy for getting good images. Spending time (and maybe a little money if you have it) educating yourself on how to style and light your products and take decent images on your phone will make a big difference to your sales. There are lots of tutorials on line or if you’d like a little more expert guidance, the fabulous photographer that I work with Georgia De Lotz, runs some workshops where she can help you to get the best diy shots https://www.georgiadelotz.co.uk/workshops
Getting a professional shoot
The easiest way to get professional images of your products is to save up your profits and book a shoot with a professional photographer who specialises in product photography. If your items are postable, many product photographers offer a postal shoot, where you send your items to them and they photograph them in their studio and send them back to you. I’ve worked with two photographers in this way and can recommend either of them if their style suits your needs. Georgia de Lotz and Holly Booth.
Collaborate on a shoot
If a solo pro shoot is deffo out of budget, you can consider a collaboration with similar businesses. Sometimes groups of businesses come together to share the cost of a shoot. This is particularly common in the wedding industry so if you do anything wedding related, you may be able to collaborate with other wedding professionals.
4. Build an email list to stay in touch with your customers
Photo by KATRIN BOLOVTSOVA
Social media has revolutionised the ease with which handmade business owners can reach new customers, tell their story and sell products. Before the intenet, reaching people usually meant paying money for advertising so to have this all for free, is amazing but……….
We all know that the algorithm gods are not always in our favour. Posting on Instagram is not a surefire way to get sales in your shop. Your post may only be seen by a small handful of your followers and once it’s out there, the lifespan of a social media post is pretty short lived.
Social media is a great tool for getting inmfront of people but if you possibly can, a wise business owner encourages their social media followers over to their own email list where they know that if they send something out, 100% (pretty much) of the people they sent it to will get it. (they may not all decide to open it but that’s a blog post for another day) anyhoo - Get your socials to work for you by encouraging followers to a platform where they are more likely to convert to customers.
Build an email list (and actually email them) to stay in touch with people who love your work.
Wait!!! Wait Don’t run away, I know that no one wants to hear this, but this is a really really important part of building a relationship with your customers and potential customers for the long term. And, did you know that Email Marketing (aka actually sending some emails to the people that have said that they want to hear from you) has THE BIGGEST conversion rate of all marketing channels by miles!! MILES
People are three times more likely to make purchases from email marketing than social media
“Email marketing proves to be a powerful tool for driving purchases, with people being three times more likely to buy from email campaigns than from social media promotions. This statistic emphasizes the importance of a well-crafted email strategy in converting interest into sales, leveraging the direct and personal nature of email communication.”
3 times more likely to buy!! Let that sink in for a moment. I promise you it will be well worth your effort when you send out an email and orders come in - It feels amazing!!! Even if you don’t have a website yet, you can (and I really encourage you to do so) still have an email list so that you can stay in touch with people who love your work and want to hear from you.
Please take a couple of hours to set up a free account with an email service provider such as mailerlite, mailchimp or Klayvio - most email service providers have a free plan to start you off ( you can move your list later if you hate the platform that you pick first)
Once you have an account, you can embed a form in your website to collect email addresses or most of these companies also allow you to make a free landing page if you don’t have a website so that you can send people there to collect their email addresses and stay in touch.
Your fans will be falling over themselves to hear about what you’re working on, what your studio looks like, how your design process works. People are nosey, and want to feel connected to the makers that they buy from. And while you have their attention because you’re sending them regular emails, you can also let them know that your new collection is about to launch and offer them first access before it goes on general sale. Or involve them in the design process, by asking them which colour combo they like best to help you decide which to launch. They’ll feel way more invested in your new range if they’ve helped you with decisions on the way and then also, more likely to buy.
Please try it.
PS The one thing that has helped me to be consisitent with my email is This Lady - for a measly $9 a month (around £7) she sends me a wonderful template guide and video every week that I can turn in to my weekly email for my list and
let me tell you how exciting it is when you send an email in the morning and hear a cha ching in the after noon that you KNOW came from sending that email - It’s so cool, never get bored of it.
If I’ve convinced you about email, do consider Liz’s membership it includes waaay more than a weekly email guide you can check it out here - full disclosure, this is an affiliate link, so if you choose to give it a go, i get a small amount of money from Liz too
5. Have your own website to sell your products
Photo by Pavel Danilyuk
Platforms like Etsy make it really easy to start your business and to test the waters. I love Etsy, I started my business there, and for many years, helped other shop owners to start and grow their etsy shops too, as a community leader.
So why would I bother talking about having a website when Etsy exists? Wel……..As business owners, we don’t really have control over our business when we rely on selling on a third party platform.
Etsy has changed a lot over recent years. I have seen amazing success there and have sold thousands of products all over the world, but much like socia media companies, Etsy is it’s own business. They don’t really care that your shop in particular gets good visibility and sales. Etsy will do what is best for them as a whole and as business owners we must do the same.
You want to show your products off at their best and look after your customers. But Etsy’s customers are just that. They are Etsy’s customers, not your customers. Even though someone chose to buy from your shop. When asked where they got your beautiful product from, they will likely reply with ‘I got it on Etsy’ but we want them to say something more like;
“I got it from this really cool company on the south coast called Sea Green Ceramics. It’s handpainted. Here, I’ll send you their website.”
Don’t get me wrong, I still love Etsy and still sell there, but I realise that having all of my eggs in one sales basket is not a recipe for a stable and sustainable business. We’ve all heard stories of shops being closed for no apparent reason, and whilst much of the time there really is a good reason that shops get shut down. There are definitely mistakes being made and little or no recourse for honest sellers to challenge the decision.
Building your own website to sell your products is like staking your flag in the ground and saying, this is my little bit of the internet. You can make it look how you want, sound how you want. You can tell your customers what they need to know, tell your story and foster loyalty to YOUR business. In short, you have control. If I’ve convinced you, please do go check out my blog post 10 Handy steps to make building a website for your handmade business easier.
6. Surround yourself with cheerleaders and mentors and stay out of your own way.
Photo by RDNE Stock project
Starting, Growing and running a handmade business is an amazing path to take so If you’ve started your journey already, congrats, but wether you’ve jumped in already or still not sure, I hope that you’ll find my insights useful.
Probably one of the biggest things I see, that gets in the way of a handmade business being successful is ourselves. There I said it! It’s often our own confidence and abilities to see the value in what we are doing that really stunts growth.
Confidence becomes even lower when the people closest to you are not supportive. I’ve sat across from really talented makers who didn’t really pursue their business long enough to give it a chance because their partner at home or the people around them were not supportive. I really hope that they all have found a way around that eventually but I’m really mindful that many makers are not in ideal and supportive environments.
Cue - find someone who will cheerlead for you. I’ve found that the handmade business community is one of the most supportive and caring anywhere. So if support and cheerleading is a bit short amongst your friends and family, seek out a community either IRL or online. When I first joined the Nottingham Etsy Team many many years ago, I learnt so much from the sellers who had more experience. Like so many of us when we started I didn’t know my arse from my elbow but that community taught me the foundations of how to start and grow a good business. They cheered me on when I made progress and I can confidently say, that their mentoring and support were instrumental in my success. I’m building a community group here for handmade business owners to support and cheer each other. Come and join us for mutual support with peeps who know what’s up, because however supportive your friends and family are, no one knows what it’s like running a handmade business like people who are doing it too.
A biz bestie is invaluable. If you can find another maker who you get on well with, having someone who gets it and understands what it’s like wearing all the hats and running a handmade business is gold. You can bounce ideas off of each other, sense check things, meet up for coffee (IRL or online) and be there for each other. My biz bestie and I message regularly and meet up for coffee about once a month as we live in the same city. If i’m not sure of something, then I trust her to give me honest but kind feedback and sense check me.
Whilst communities are amazing, a one on one relationship goes deeper. I know my biz bestie well, and she knows me. She’ll hold me to account and not let me gloss over any fluff or imposter syndrome I might be trying to get past her. She’ll call it out but kindly and stop me getting in my own way and I aim to do the same for her.
So, there you have it, the 6 tips that I think every handmade business owner should know when theyr’e starting out. I knew non of them and learnt from my mistakes along the way but fortunately, I did do tip number 6 so was able to eventually get to learning the first 5.
You can make a wonderful business with your craft. Keep going, ask for help and keep learning.
To help you on your way, join the Handmade biz club community group and sign up for the handmade biz club email list to get more content right to your inbox to help you thrive as you build your handmade business.
