Selling Craft Online

With ever-increasing numbers of users shopping on mobile devices, getting started with selling craft online is more important (and more straightforward) than ever before. If you’ve never tried it, then it is not too late to start. Why not use this short guide to throw yourself into it today and make up for lost time!

The first thing you need to do is be aware of which platforms and tools would work best for you in order to simplify the process. Here are some of the easiest and most popular ways to start selling craft online:

1. E-commerce Marketplaces

Often a starting point for online sellers, these platforms take away the complexity of having to maintain and market your own website or organise taking payments.

• Amazon is used by both new and experienced sellers alike and it has a vast customer base. There are a number of different methods for selling on Amazon, you can start with individual listings or open a professional seller account.
• eBay: Many people start their online sales journey with eBay. It’s great for auction-style listings and fixed-price sales, catering to a diverse audience. After you’ve gone over your free amount you have to pay fees which, on average, amount to between 10% and 15.55% of the final selling price.
• Etsy: The crafter’s choice, it’s user-friendly and it’s perfect for handmade, vintage, and unique items giving you access to thousands of customers. Drawbacks of using Etsy are the number of different fees that the platform takes and that sellers must comply with strict policies to avoid shop closures.

If you choose to use an ecommerce marketplace it is a wise approach to calculate what your fees would be for each and how much of your profit margin the fees would eat up. Then you can work out which price point to choose for your goods.

2. E-commerce Platforms

These platforms allow you to create your own online store without needing extensive technical knowledge. You won’t have to pay fees as you do with a marketplace but there will be a subscription fee to pay every month/annually. Calculating the cost of using an e-commerce platform is thus more straightforward.

• Shopify: A comprehensive solution with customisable templates, secure payment processing, and robust customer support. It’s known to be easy to use. A downside of Shopify is the pricing structure – for analytics features you have to pay more.
• Wix: Offers drag-and-drop website building with e-commerce functionalities, making it accessible for beginners. Creating and customising your own website could not be simpler. The main downside to Wix is that if you ever want to leave the platform you can’t take your website with you – you’ll have to rebuild from scratch.
• Squarespace: Known for its elegant design templates and easy-to-use interface, suitable for small to medium-sized businesses. Squarespace’s downside is that third-party integrations and tools (known as plugins) are limited.

3. Social Media Selling

You can utilise social media platforms to reach customers directly with the advantage of not having to pay any fees for listing products or transactions.

• Facebook Marketplace: Allows you to list items for sale in your local area or to a broader audience if shipping options are enabled. It’s very, very easy to use, so ideal for digital refusers or sellers of large items (such as sculptures) but will entail meeting with a stranger to exchange merchandise.
• Instagram Shopping: Instagram is a highly visual platform that allows you to showcase products from multiple angles – great for artists, content creators and designers. Integrates with your e-commerce store and allows you to tag products in your posts, making it easy for followers to purchase directly by redirecting them to your website or another external link to complete payments.
• Pinterest: With Buyable Pins, users can purchase products directly from Pinterest posts. The great thing with Pinterest is that you can get started for free, see if it has a benefit for your brand, and move away from it without much of a financial investment if things don’t take off for you.

4 Shopping apps

Unfortunately, shopping apps that handcrafters were able to use, such as Poshmark and Mercari, are no longer available in the UK, although they are still going in other countries. Both were free selling platforms that let you sell just about anything, including handcrafted items, allowing you to run an online shop for free. On top of that, Mercari eliminated the need for in-person meet-ups by offering shipping or local delivery instead.

!! Perhaps there is a gap in the market here for UK app builders to provide a free space for selling craft online!!

However, you choose to sell online, make sure that you use relevant keywords to optimise your listings, attractive images, and comprehensive descriptions to make your listings stand out. Also, it’s important to treat your customers as well as you would if you were meeting them in person. Providing excellent customer service encourages positive reviews and repeat business. Finally, learning how to use analytics will help you to understand what’s working and what isn’t, and then you can improve your strategies.

Please drop us a line if you need help to get started with your craft insurance for online sales, we’d be delighted to assist.