Where to Sell Your Crafts

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When making money on your crafts, it is important to find the right venue for selling. However, there are a few things to keep in mind when choosing your venue. Here a few common venues crafters choose to sell their items on and how you can determine which one is the best option for you.

1. Online commerce sites.
Finding a commerce site is easy to do. Many sites like eBay, Amazon and Etsy offer selling opportunities for crafters to sell their goods at a fee. Some can range from auction fees to fixed price fees to flat monthly fees. You can list your items on the site for a period of time usually ranging from a few days to a few months. While upfront fees can seem inconvenient, your items will get a great deal of exposure on many of these popular websites.

2. Your own website.
While those mainstream websites, may be your first choice, another option is to set up your own website. Websites can be set up with little to no start up cost. Having your own website allows you to not be limited by fees per item. It also provides more flexibility in your marketing and sales. While this is a great cost-conscious option, you may find that it requires a lot more marketing to draw customers to your website.


3. Garage sales.
Garage sales may be the most common way to sell crafts for the small time crafter. This option works well if you only have a few items that you may be interested in turning into cash. It is quick and often, requires very few start-up costs. However, frequent sellers may find it difficult to generate sales with the infrequency of garages sales. While your neighbors may find your crafts interesting, you may find it difficult to target enough customers with craft minded interests in the 3 mile radius of your garage.

4. Craft Fairs
Finding your target audience may be easier when you get crafters under one roof. When attending craft fairs, you will find that everyone is there with one main goal in mind, to buy crafts. Many crafters use this opportunity to make some of their most profitable sales there. Craft fairs typically require their vendors to go through screening processes and pay considerable fees in order to set up shop. This may range from as low as $20 per day to hundreds of dollars for a weekend. Also, your business will depend heavily on the amount of attendees, the day, the weather and several other factors that may or may not be in your control. Keep in mind that many fairs do not refund vendor fees.

5. Consignment stores.
Another venue may be that of the consignment stores. This venue is a lot less common and they may be hard to find, depending on your location. Consignment stores work like online commerce sites, but with a physical location. Many of these stores are set up where the seller pays a fee to place their items on sale in the store. The seller will get a percentage of the money earned on their items, depending on the agreement made by the consigner. This works well if you want your items sold but prefer not to deal directly with the sale. This also works for higher value items.

There are many factors you should consider when viewing all of these options. Costs and exposure are two main important factors. Each venue has its pros and cons, and multiple venues can be approached simultaneously. Choosing the best venue for your products is essential to the profitability of your business.