Month: May 2022

If you’re selling crafts online you’ll want the most flattering images of them you can find. Taking a great photo will do your products justice, which is what you want when you’ve spent all your time making them! Your product is the hero and its worth can suffer because of a poorly taken shot. Our friends at Cre8ion gave us some really good basic tips for great photography to share with our clients. So here goes!

Tip 1

You don’t need a professional, David Bailey style camera! If you have a smart phone you have everything you need – the technology has come on in leaps and bounds!

Tip 2

Lighting is very important! Make sure that the light is in front of the product to make it look clear and bright. You can buy mini light-boxes which are ideal for taking product shots of smaller crafts such as jewellery. You can then use different coloured backgrounds inside and the box will shine a really bright, natural light onto your items giving you a very clear, bright image with a neutral background. Your smart phone and light box work together to provide you with a perfect solution, even on a dark and murky day!

If you are starting out and you are trying to keep your costs down you could try using a white sheet as a backdrop and find as much natural light as you can. Explore your house to find where the lighting is at its most flattering for your products. Natural light works wonders and gives a true idea of the colour of your products.

Tip 3

Take different types of shots –  go for a mix of studio shots and ‘slice of life’ shots. The kind of shot you would take with your light box is a studio shot, it’s just focussing on the product with a neutral background. It’s all about the product.

‘Slice of life’ photos are all about seeing your products in situ, showing how they might look when they are in use and giving an idea of scale. These are lifestyle shots, making your customer want to live the lifestyle that includes your products. Using a selfie stick allows you to get in the picture too!

Another way to do lifestyle shots is with short videos of 3-5 seconds –  a neat, short clip of how your product looks when it moves (handmade dangly earrings for example that shimmer when they catch the light). A video might give more visual information and show your product in a better light than a still shot.

You can take short videos with phone and SLR, just to add to the experience. Video gives you a chance to  showcase the product in a live environment and show people interacting with it. Short bursts are enough, you don’t need to go full on Hollywood quite yet!

You now have a range of shots in your arsenal to use alongside each other when selling crafts online. Studio shots taken with your light box or white sheet, Slice of Life shots showing your products in situ (a necklace being worn or cushions on a sofa) and then a little short video, if appropriate. 

Tip 4

Always follow the rule of thirds to frame your shots well. Most phones have a 9 square grid for this reason – use the grid to focus your main point of interest where the lines intersect. Doing this will make your picture more interesting. If you are taking a picture that has something in the background or you’re in a more natural setting your item may not be slap bang in the middle but placed where the lines intersect, in the bottom left for example. You can also blur out the background if necessary when using the nine square grid on an IPhone. This approach works best when taking shots in situ.

Tip 5

Be authentic rather than perfect. Don’t delay selling your crafts online just because your shots aren’t 100% perfect. As long as it’s clear, with good lighting that shows the colours and the features of the product it just needs to be true to you. Remember that websites are a moving feast, unlike print. You can make changes regularly and quickly and update and refine them over time, maybe when you have more time and resources to take better shots and swap them out.

Tip 6

Include important details, such as ingredients, close up, or other things that make your product unique. The more detail you can communicate quickly in your photos, the more confidence the buyer will have in the quality of the product. Show the scale of what you have made as that is really important to the buyer as well ( a pound coin in the picture for example) as well as in the descriptions. Show your products from different angles (especially above and beneath) to show as much detail as you can to the buyer. Then they’ll receive exactly what they are expecting.

Tip 7

Avoid common mistakes:

Naff lighting – lighting with the window behind for example.

Pictures that are blurry or out of focus.

Pictures that don’t show your audience enough detail.

Pictures with something in the background that shouldn’t be there. Is there a mirror behind you showing that you are still wearing your pyjamas whilst taking photos?

Pictures that doesn’t exude quality will not capture the beauty of your product or its workmanship.

Hopefully this little ‘snapshot’ will help you to take the kind of product shots that will boost sales. Don’t spend more time trying to take a good photo of your products than it did to make them in the first place! And if you need any help with insurance for your craft business, we are here!

Admin…it’s a bit like marmite, your heart may leap at the thought of creating an ordered system from which your crafting business can thrive, or your creative spirit may sink at the thought of being reigned in on such a mundane task.  Either way, here at Craft Insurance we are able to help you get the background canvas of your business in place so you can be free to create your unique work of art upon it.

If you are searching this website, you may well be asking “what is craft insurance?” In this post, we will not only answer that, but will offer some tried and tested tips to enable you to get this and other foundations of your business admin in order. Once these are in place, you are free to to throw your all into the creativity for which you have unique talent and passion.

Creating space

Our first tip is to ring fence specific time for admin. Depending on the size and structure of your business, you may set aside a whole day for marketing, packaging and posting purchases, communicating with customers, managing finances, ordering materials and social media planning. Or, this could be half a day, or a set amount of time each day. Whatever works best for you, it is probably helpful to timetable it in to your schedule rather than trying to squeeze it in to your already full life. This will free you to do the crafting you enjoy the rest of the time.

In a similar vein, it may be worth setting aside a bit of time to make a visual schedule, which will include admin time as well as crafting time. This might not only help yourself to work efficiently,  but could be a reminder to anyone you live with that there are times when you are “at work” and shouldn’t be interrupted!

What is craft insurance?

Once you’ve established a time for admin and made yourself a hot drink, it’s then important to use the time effectively. Initially, you will need a variety of building blocks in place. Your business plan and financial management are obviously foundational. As part of these, we come back to our initial question of “what is craft insurance?”. And, “why do I need it?”. To answer this, we can refer to our own home pages. Craft insurance is for “UK residents who make, sell, and/or teach and demonstrate their handicraft, whether you are a sole trader, private individual, partnership, hobbyist, a craft club, or a Ltd company.” You need it to cover yourself when attending events where you are selling, demonstrating or teaching your craft, and also to cover your products’ liability for sales. As our mission statement says, “craft insurance keeps your hard work from unravelling”. So, if this is something you do not already have in place, call us to get a quote customised to your individual business requirements. This will be an admin session well spent.

Social media management

A large part of advertising your craft business will be effective use of social media. While this is an excellent way of reaching large numbers of people, it can also be very time consuming. Here are a few tips which might help to minimise your time spent on this, while maximising the outreach you achieve.

Consider which platforms would work best for your business and stick to them; don’t try to use every available platform. It’s best to effectively focus on a few, rather than try to spatter across many. Once you’ve decided on your direction, link accounts together. For example, your Instagram posts can go straight to Facebook, so covering two platforms in one go. While you may need to create time each day to respond to messages, you could use a single admin slot to write all your posts for the following week and then simply use the schedule facility to ensure they come out on the days you require.

Regular reviews

This leads well into some more sound advice from small business owners; simplify and streamline as much as you can. Time is a precious commodity for most of us, and while we can’t add hours to our days, good organisation can allow us to gather together some tasks, so allowing us to use the finite hours we have to best effect. Periodic reviews can be a worthwhile time investment for this. Our lives and businesses are fluid and change all the time, and what has worked well for one season may not necessarily serve us best in the next. As you review, ask yourself if there are things you can delegate. Are there things you could streamline, as with social media? If there are recurring tasks, set up reminders either on a digital or old fashioned calendar. A “to do” list can be extremely helpful in organising the jobs to be done. Try writing one every week, noting down the tasks additional to those that are routine. It is satisfying to tick them off, and if they are not completed they can simply be rolled over to the following week. If they are still there after several weeks, it might be safe to assume they were never that important and can fall off the list!

Your business plays out against the backdrop of your whole life. Setting up a small business involves long hours and hard work, but you still need to eat, to shop, to sleep, maybe to clean and most definitely to spend time with family and friends. Good admin practices are not the whole solution to squeezing more things into each day, but they can help reduce the time spent on mundane tasks. A weekly meal planner, a family calendar, and regular communication with those you live or work with will help you keep going for the long haul.

Rest

Finally, you need time off. We are not designed to work flat out and cannot sustain that way of living. It is often counter cultural to stop and re-fuel, but it’s something we all need to do. Ensure you place your business hours on emails and other communications; customers will then know when they can expect to hear from you. Get in the habit of placing some boundaries each week around time for rest, restoration and fun. You will return to work refreshed and inspired for the week ahead.

Admin doesn’t have to be a dirty word! What’s more, creative genius and good administrative skills aren’t mutually exclusive! Hopefully, what you’ve read today will help if you dislike admin and if you need any help or advice where insurance is concerned, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Great customer service is what sets you apart from the crowd, however, often, with online companies, it can also be the biggest reputation killer. Ultimately, buying online is all about confidence and you are always on trial against the high street! Always remember though, that it’s your customers who make your business happen, so treating them like royalty will always pay dividends in the long run.

When people judge your performance and how you interact with them as an online business, their yardstick is usually the high street, where the staff are highly trained in customer service. It’s not a fair comparison, but you can use it to your advantage to demonstrate the kind of customer service that can’t be beaten. 

When people tell you that you are too expensive

People will tell you that you are too expensive and that they can get the same thing for half the price on the high street. This isn’t true however, as behind your business, and what makes it different, is you and you aren’t available anywhere else for half the price! You can’t change the price as you have to pay yourself for your time and the raw materials, as well as any overheads, but what you can do is add so much value when customers come to you with queries and problems that you stand head and shoulders above the competition. There’s no need to even put the competition down when you show how positive you are and concentrate on what you do well.

When people ask you a question that you can’t answer.

Building people’s confidence when there is a problem is all about assuring them that you are going to deal with it and that any questions they have will be answered. It is a matter of pride to always go above and beyond and it marks you out as different. If you don’t know the answer to the question, it’s a great idea to go and find out and get back to the customer in a timely fashion.

When people complain

If you get a nasty email complaining about the way you have done business it is hard not to take it personally. We are all human after all. An effective way to change how you feel about it is to see the situation as an opportunity to establish your amazing reputation for excellent customer service. Take action and pick up the phone straight away if you can get hold of the customer’s number. Rather than concentrating on any negativity, show loyalty by doing something to restore their confidence in you. Phone calls are a great way of defusing trouble. Email is good for a trail of activities but the quicker you put a call in, the quicker you’ll avoid escalation. Communication requires clarity and email will not always create empathy and add value in times of trouble. Nobody likes being shouted at but facing the problem head on with a constructive attitude will make sure the customer is happy in the end. You can add value by offering a refund, a replacement and an apology for any inconvenience caused and thereby restore trust.

When everyone is asking you the same question

People get frustrated when they are not able to get their questions answered. An FAQ section on the website helps you to deal with commonly asked questions ahead of time and pointing people towards your FAQs will save you time. Keep your FAQs up to date as commonly asked questions change with time. You can also ask people via social media for generic questions about your field of business and then include them in your FAQs.

Getting your returns policy right

Be clear on your returns policy and deal with returns quickly.

You need to be really clear on your returns policy and how it works when someone wants to return something. The worst thing for your business is when a customer contacts you to return a product to find that your returns policy isn’t going to work for them. That’s going to be a real problem and that customer will probably give you negative press. They don’t want to hear that they aren’t getting the money back. Ideally, customers should already know how you will deal with things before you hit this scenario.

When you include lots of testimonials

Often people will read testimonials before they consider becoming your customer. Having plenty of honest reviews on your website is great for your business and even negative reviews can be made to work in your favour. Negative reviews offer you an opportunity to demonstrate how you deal with issues. If readers can see that you have an open and honest response to that person, that you make right with them and have addressed their problem then that builds their trust. Testimonials, good and bad, build authenticity. Having said that, make sure to have testimonials from your happy clients in full view! This creates trust among suspects and prospects. Also, you need to make sure that the testimonies you have showcased deal with common objections as to why people might not do business. If the objection is ‘Too expensive’ – communicate the value you and your products add, for example. Also encourage people to leave reviews on Google as this helps with your ranking as well!

So, in a nutshell, in times of trouble, add value to your customers. It never fails!

Add value by being insured were anything to go really wrong.

If you are attending craft fairs and markets it goes without saying that you are going to need insurance. Most event organisers will insist that you do have public liability insurance to make sure that any potential accidents are covered.

However, what if you are only selling online now? Is insurance really necessary? Is it adding value to your customers to have product liability insurance? Well, yes, it is, and we feel qualified to say this as we are one of the product liability insurance companies dealing with claims relating to a catalogue of mishaps. We have had claims relating to candles, wax melts, burners, baby toys, clothing and pet products. Accidents happen and it’s sensible to have a plan in place to protect yourself and your customers. Some people regard the cost of insurance as an overhead that they just don’t need but I’ve seen those claims come in!

Our underwriters, Hiscox, have always given us a 0% interest direct debit option so the cost of taking out an insurance policy to cover yourself and your customers can be spread over the whole year.

What’s more, if you decide to diversify and start a new range of products we can add it into your policy for free. Other product liability insurance companies charge admin fees and charges for making amendments but at Craft Insurance we aren’t like other product liability insurance companies in that we don’t charge any, no cancellation fees either. Our policies cover you for events, online, selling through other people’s shops, rent a shelf or through another online seller.  

When you need to get a quote for insurance

Click the ‘Get a Quote’ Button.

Still need to set up your own website? Maybe you’re no stranger to selling crafts online, and you’ve always received a fantastic service from the online platforms that you’ve used. You’re just tired of giving away a percentage of your profits to them! It’s now time to build an online home for all your beautiful work.

It might all seem a bit daunting at first but that’s why we’re here today to tell you that there’s no need to panic! If you are part of our Facebook group ‘The Craft Challenge’ you can watch the online challenge we ran last year to help people, just like you, to build their own site. There’s no need to splash out oodles of cash either, just join the group and watch the five clips, then follow the advice to get yourself a website. Soon you’ll be selling crafts online on your own terms and speaking regularly with your customers. Not sure if you can do it still? Let me reassure you, you are ABLE! Just follow the ABLE method below:

A is for Address

Just like your shop needs an address for customers to call at, your website also needs an address where people can find you. This online address is made up of a ‘domain name’ sandwiched between the letters ‘www.’ at the beginning and often ‘.co.uk.’ at the end (or .com, .global etc.).Our domain name is craft insurance, and our address is www.craftinsurance.co.uk – voila! You have to pay for your domain name, and then renew the payment every two years (so don’t forget to renew it as you don’t want to lose it!)

When you are picking your domain name you don’t need to be industry specific, it just needs to communicate who you are and what you’re selling – ‘craftsonlineuk’ for example. When you have chosen an appropriate name, write it down and check that when the words run together without spaces it doesn’t say anything rude!  It needs to be memorable and fairly short and easy to spell.

There are several places you can go to find domain names, and they should be fairly cheap, but shop around for deals, as you are committing to a two year spend. The most popular sites to buy domain names from are Namescheap, 123 reg and Go Daddy.

B is for Build

Now you have your domain name and website address, it’s time to build your site:

There are many different sites you can use to build your website – some of the commonly used ones are SquareSpace, Wix and Shopify where you pay a monthly amount and build your site around one of their predesigned templates. Have a look at the templates and choose a design that fits your style. You might choose a template for your knitwear business with a rustic or homespun feel or you might want to represent your jewellery as a high end product and need your site template design to reflect this.

At the end of the day, if this is your first attempt at selling crafts online via your own website, it may well be that this becomes a bit of a practice run. You can ‘up your game’ later down the line and have a higher functioning website built in WordPress. But now you have bought the domain name it is yours to keep (as long as you pay for it every two years), and you can use it for as large a website as you need.

There are different payment options you can integrate into your site as opposed to a redirect going to a third party. Think Pay Pal, World Pay or Stripe so that people can buy direct from the site – you’ll be able to press a button and they can by straight from you rather than having to redirect to a third party like Etsy or Folksy.

WordPress
If you want a unique design and more functionality you can build your site from the ground up in WordPress. WordPress sites allow you to add plugins in order to increase the website’s functionality and make the customer buying journey easier. These kind of sites are better for SEO, (helping Google to find you first) and give you more options long term. They are more expensive than a site built using a template but it’s because they represent more of a long term investment that will pay dividends. WordPress and Woo-Commerce builds are normally paid for in one hit or whatever arrangement you make with a creative / website building agency. Most agencies will use this platform as it is one of the most common platforms.

Woo-Commerce
Woo Commerce is the shopping side of the WordPress world and integrates well. This is for the more

serious e-commerce businesses as opposed to one you would use starting out. Definitely one to go for once your business is established.

L is for Layout

Your website needs a site map which aids navigation around your website.

It’s important you map out the navigation of your website to indicate which content will be held on which page.

Here is an easy site map to get you started:

About / Blog / Testimonials / Products / Contact (with FAQs).

An About tab is a great place to talk about your inspirations is important to you and people want to know some background. It’s also a great place to describe your processes using explanatory and expository video.

A blog is great way of telling people about what you are doing and where you are going.

Testimonials help to build people’s faith in you and your products, make sure that they mention your high quality and value for money. Let them know that what you are making is worth buying.

A Products section is where people can see your products clearly and that there is a clear link to purchase. You can communicate exactly who you are and what you do with photos of your work. If you are sending the visitor to another site the process has to be super easy or you’ll lose your buyer.

By far the most important thing on your website is having a clear route to purchase! All the important information needs to be clearly available but showing the visitor how to spend money on your products is by far the most important part of selling crafts online via your own site!

E is for Extras

Chat
An online chat box allows customers to write to you and it can be switched on and off as required. You can even set it up as an app on your phone and then respond to enquiries in the same way as you would on a messenger app. Online chat is a great option if you need a nice, short snappy conversation to give the customer an answer. Online chat is not an essential, but certainly useful and customer friendly.

Pop Up or Lead magnet
A pop up pops up (no surprises there) and allows people to leave their email address. This is vital for email marketing. On our own website we offer a free newsletter about upcoming events and it enables us to touch base about new products, which craft fairs or markets you are going to be at etc. This is often housed in a .pdf

Another way to secure information (email) is to give something away for free, like a

downloadable .pdf or a cheat sheet for exchange for email. You could give away a free kitting pattern as a download for example as a little extra value in exchange for the visitor’s contact details. It shows that you are not just on the take, you want to give great value as well as selling to them.

So, how about it? The ABLE method will ENABLE you to take the plunge and start selling crafts online. For further tips on taking great product photos, writing winning content for your site, social media dos and don’ts and customer service in the digital world please join our Facebook Group and take the Craft Challenge.