A recipe for success for your handmade goods this Christmas.
Before long the sights, sounds and smells of Christmas will be upon us and many of us will be gathering together with friends and family to share good food and nice presents. The crafting industry is coming alive with crafters creating items to sell to their customers ready for gift giving.
In order to be successful in your handmade goods this Christmas there is a recipe for success that you can follow. The recipe consists of a number of ingredients that you can take one by one and mix together and along with small craft business insurance this can lead to the best outcome for your business this Christmas.
Ingredient 1 – Products
Carefully select products that you know your customers will love. This might be a best seller that you already have, or it might be bringing out a new product specifically for the season. It is important that you think about the range of items that you have available and how easily you can make these. This may involve ensuring that you have all the elements of the product ready to create your Christmas products.
In order to pick the best products to create and sell for Christmas, it is important to understand your customers and potential customers so you can find their favourite products. You also need to understand what their buying habits are and whether they like to purchase small items or larger lavish gifts. This will help you to pitch your products perfectly, ready for the Christmas season.
Try to have products for all budgets so that you can appeal to both the customers who are looking for a larger present as well as those who may be looking for some cheaper stocking filler type gifts. If your products have a use by date on them make sure that this will last until after the festive season has finished and mark it clearly on your packaging.
Ingredient 2 – Pricing
This can be a difficult one to get right and there are a number of ways that you can price your products. The pricing method that you choose will be determined by the size of your business, the number of items that you have for sale and the time that you have available to work on your pricing. When it comes to Christmas sales it is always worth looking at ways you can packaging some of your products together into hampers or special gift packages. It is also worth looking at offering discounts ready to boost your Christmas product sales.
One of the simplest ways to price your items is to look at the cost of the elements of your products, the time it takes to create them and any other costs that you have (such as small craft business insurance) or equipment and spread these out across your products.
Ingredient 3 – Packaging
More and more consumers are looking for businesses that not only create beautiful products but those that also think about their impact on the environment and the world around them. Packaging is a great way to show off your products as well as demonstrating that you think about the impact that this can have in the environment. There are lots of options available that can be recycled and that can still be branded to your own business colours and themes.
Christmas is also a great time to add some sparkle and shine to your packaging. Why not add some festive paper to your boxes or add some Christmas themed wrapping? If you are attending some Christmas fayres, you may want to think about coordinating your packaging with your table display. You should also ensure you have the right small craft business insurance in place to cover any eventualities whilst you are at the fayre. This could include any accidents or injuries that may occur as a result of your table and display as well as any problems that may occur as you move your products into and out of the fayre.
Ingredient 4 – Marketing
This last ingredient for the perfect Christmas sale is essential to getting people to see your products. There are a number of aspects to marketing and each of these can be undertaken in isolation or as a part of a larger marketing package. Social media is a great way to show off your products and you can use the platforms to sell directly to your customers. Each social media platform operates in a slightly different way and will have slightly different users. Whilst it can be tempting to jump onto all of the platforms, you should pick a platform that you are comfortable with and build up your confidence on this platform before moving onto others.
Good quality photographs of your products are key to a successful social media campaign, and these can be used across all of your marketing strands. You can buy small light boxes that you can use to place your products inside to get some wonderful pictures. They are relatively inexpensive and give you the option of creating a number of different festive seasons from within the box.
Other areas of marketing that you might want to look at include using online platforms such as Etsy and Shopify, your own website and of course traditional marketing methods such as flyers and posters to let people know about your products and your business as a whole. Now you have the perfect recipe for success for your handmade goods this Christmas. So, sit back, relax, and start planning where you are going to promote your products and which items you are going to have on the ‘nice’ list for your Christmas sales.