Many people create their own handmade items, mostly started as a hobby. It can be a handmade jewelry, shoes, cupcakes, bags, art and the list can just continue. Why not sell your handmade items online and start earning money? You can't work for 24/7 but your online platform can! Here is how to sell handmade items online.
List your Handmade Items on Online Marketplace
One of best place to start with is the online marketplace. It is a type of ecommerce site where product or service information is provided by multiple third parties, whereas transactions are processed by the marketplace operator. People tend to log on to online marketplaces that are organized and products are much more accessible to them. Places like eBAY, Amazon, Alibaba, Rakuten, ShareASale, Snapdeal are some to name a few.
Prepare With The Fees Involved
In order to make money, there must be some investment involved. Many popular marketplaces will charge listing fee for product that you want to sell there. Some marketplaces also take a percentage of sale you made there. Therefore it is important to find out these information before deciding which marketplace to list your handmade items online.
Method of Payment
Most popular marketplaces will have the common preferred method of payment. However this is not absolute. You may need to check the preferred payment method of the customers you target when deciding which marketplace to list your handmade items online.
Easy to Get Customer Support
A marketplace with easy accessible phone and email contact will provide you with better support if needed. It would be even better if they have 24/7 online chat to solve your problem instantly. This will ensure you to have a better selling experience to avoid frustration which in worst case, you may be demotivated and quit selling your handmade items online.
Start Your Own Website When Your Business Grow
When you already have your customer base, then it is the right time to start having your own website as most of your customers will follow you there. Having a website is definitely the foundation to build a sustainable business online. It gives you full control over your business.
Similarly, there will be cost involved. But as you continuously run your business online, the cost will be much lower than an online marketplace. Of course, it is not wrong to start your own website the moment you start selling handmade items online too. It is actually the same. You still “pay a fee” to drive traffic to your store. For example, you pay a fee to online marketplace to leverage on their massive traffics whereas with your own website, you pay to 3rd party to drive traffic to your website.
It could be overwhelming for newbie to create your own e-commerce store from scratch. To make it easier, there are many user-friendly website builder that you can use. I would recommend a simple to use website builder Wix which is free for starter or alternatively, if you prefer something more robust, do try Shopify where they offer free 14 days trial.
Please note that it is only worthwhile switching to your own website if you are willing to commit your time to build a sustainable business online. Otherwise the cost of building a website may not be worth for the amount of sales generated.
Alternatively, to save cost, you may want to consider learning how to build an e-commerce store from scratch to promote your handmade items online. One learning platform that I would recommend is Wealthy Affiliate.
If you have any questions on how to sell your handmade items online, do drop me a comment below and I'll try to assist.
12 thoughts on “How to Sell Handmade Items Online”
What a lovely way to create some money online – makes a nice change from the push button softwares and marketing ploys!!!!
Do you actually see any success selling crafted items online?
I see you have a cake as an image – is this your homemade niche? Great article you have here
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the compliment. Actually, the niche of baking cakes is from a close friend of mine. She is so talented baking cakes and now she quit her full time office job to focus selling her cakes on Facebook. I see success and opportunities everywhere. Is a matter of the actions that one is willing to take. Hope you will come back for more articles on how to build a sustainable business online.
Thank you for your informative post. I wasn’t aware there were so many online marketplaces, such as Alibaba, Rakuten, ShareASale and Snapdeal. What do you think about Etsy?
I occasionally dabble in artistic endeavors and my friends tell me I could easily sell some of my drawings and pottery. I just never think of it… but it could be a nice way to earn pocket change, if nothing else.
I will have to check out some of these sites. THanks!
You are welcome Diana. Great to know that this article is helpful. I will be posting 2 articles every week. Hope you will come back for more. Cheers!
Setting up my own store and selling my own products has been a dream of mine for many years. I’ve sold a lot of other peoples products and made a little $money$ that way, but that doesn’t have the satisfaction of selling something you made yourself.
My only problem now is figuring out what I can make that someone would want to buy. I’ll eventually figure that out, but for now, I’ll keep promoting other peoples stuff.
Gary
It is always best to sell own product. However, a lot needs to be taken into consideration if you decided to do this. Things such as pricing, stock, delivery and payment method needs to be determined. I’ll be writing an article on this very soon and hope you will visit my site again.
What do you think about selling on Etsy? There are a few free platforms for selling that I found as well. They are like etsy but don’t charge fees, places like zibbet don’t charge any fees.
What does it take to sell handmade good successfully online? In places like Etsy, it is easy to be lost in the sea of other products available. I think having your own website and a good knowledge of SEO is almost a better way to go. I think taking amazing photos of your work is essential as well as very detailed descriptions.
Like what I mentioned in my article, it is always more sustainable to sell via own website where you will have full control. It is very competitive selling on marketplaces like Etsy….. unless your product is really unique and in high demand.
What a great read on how to sell handmade items online. You mentioned wealthy affiliate and I got interested in it. Is it a platform that a complete beginner can use since I’m really new to the online world in general? And is there possibility to really make money with it? Thanks a lot and waiting for your response!
Yes. WA is a community learning platform. Everything you need to know on real ways to make money online is here at WA. I am a beginner when first joined and since then have heard many members sharing their success on making money online. Here’s my personal review of Wealthy Affiliate. I also show achievement from members and also myself in this post. Hope it explains all.
http://clickwebsuccess.com/wealthy-affiliate-my-personal-review
Hi Florence,
Thank you for dropping by at my website and giving your comments. Your posts have been very informative.
Yes I do promote my handmade items at facebook at https://www.facebook.com/projekdorcas
and also at Carousell at https://carousell.com/dorcassell/
Here’s the link to my website http://projekdorcas.com/
Keep up the good work you are doing.
Siew Kim,
You have a great site. I love the handmade pouch very much. If I want to buy, how can I go about it?