How To Start A Small Craft Business At Home – Starting a home craft business or small business is not an easy task. Starting a home business means doing everything. Seriously, social media managers, website builders, graphic designers, photographers, publishers, marketers, all hats in the book should be worn.
When I started my creative business eight years ago, I spent a lot of time searching for answers so I could compete with the best. If you’re thinking of starting a home craft business, we hope you don’t have the same disappointing experience. That’s why I’m sharing the best small business resources for creative craft businesses that have helped me grow my home business. 6 digit income!
How To Start A Small Craft Business At Home
I will also preface this by saying that there are tons of resources, apps, plugins and companies for you to consider. It can be overwhelming. They may be better suited for some people, but after a lot of trial and error, I have consistently used these resources and have found them to be the most reliable resources in the long run.
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Let’s start with where you want to host your handmade or digital goods. One thing I want to say about this is that you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket. If you’re selling on a third-party platform (e.g. Etsy), you should also have a self-hosted site that no one can take away. The list below provides options for both.
Etsy is one of the most well-known marketplaces for selling handmade. With 3 billion sold in 2017, there’s a good chance you’ve shopped on Etsy yourself, or at least know about it. Etsy is definitely an easy place to start, and the Pinterest Marketplace has tons of resources to help with your questions.
Cost: 5% seller fee and 0.20 cent listing fee. Product Type – ArtFire Marketplace Physical and Digital Merchandise
The ArtFire community is made up of thousands of independent and creative shop owners offering unique handcrafted items. What I like most about ArtFire is the customer support it provides to sellers. I’ve found this lacking on Etsy over the years, but ArtFire raises the bar!
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Cost: Starts at $4.95 per month, with a subscription costing 0.23 cents. Product Type: Amazon Physical & Digital Goods or Amazon Handmade
Amazon is a great place to sell because it is flooded with customers every day. Amazon is also a high-quality, trusted brand that shoppers appreciate.
You can sell on Amazon, the main platform, or Amazon Handmade, which launched in 2017. Personally, I sell books on Amazon, but if I were selling paper flowers or craft templates, I would choose Amazon Handmade.
I absolutely love Creative Market. I use it pretty regularly for graphics and mockups on my website and products. If you are a graphic content creator, this is a great platform to sell. They have a selection of the best of the best and the competition is not as saturated as other sites.
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Remember what I said about never putting all your eggs in one basket? Here’s how to fix it. If you have to choose one of the above marketplaces to sell on, you’ll ideally want to have your own website as well.
Think of the market as a rental space. If the landlord wants you out at any time, you have nothing to say. But your website is yours. Plus, you don’t have to pay transaction fees! This means more money in your pocket and more investments!
WordPress websites are highly recommended. WordPress allows you to create a store via Woocommerce and blog from your store. This is a great way to increase traffic to your entire store. This has been the secret to my success with the Abbi Kirsten collection.
If you need a host for your WordPress site, we highly recommend Siteground. Their customer support is great!
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Another plugin I would like to mention for WordPress is Visual Composer. Visual Composer is a powerful drag-and-drop website and page builder that lets you easily create WordPress pages in seconds. Check out how to use it on my About page here.
One of the newcomers to the Shopify block. I admit I wasn’t sure about them at first, but they’ve really proven themselves. I’m currently building a Shopify store for my final course and created a one name account in 2 minutes. Shopify also integrates with tons of apps to customize your site on a site-wide basis!
Bigcommerce is very similar to Shopify, except it has been around for longer. I personally used Bigcommerce for my template store. They also integrate with hundreds of apps and I’ve been very happy with them.
Depending on the host and application chosen, the cost of these site configurations may vary. You can start at $10 per month.
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When starting a home craft business, you need to learn some basics to take good photos. Photos are the key to product success. No matter how good a product looks, a dark, grainy photo can’t convey it. Do not worry. I’m not forcing you to buy fancy gear. You can use a regular camera or smartphone, but we recommend finishing with a DSRL. Makes a big difference!
Picmonkey is the first site I started when I started editing photos. It’s easy to use, beginner-friendly, completely free, or you can upgrade to a $5/month plan for more features.
Afterlight is a great app for taking pictures using your smartphone. There are many editing options to brighten images, add filters, change color tone, crop, sharpen and more. If you need to take pictures with your phone for $2.99, it’s worth it!
One of the reasons I love using Lightroom is that it’s a one-click process. Upload your own photos and find the best preset for your specific image. After selecting a preset, your image is ready to be exported. If you’re looking for a way to add a professional touch to your photos, Lightroom presets can help. Get Lightroom and Photoshop for $9.99/month! And there are tons of free Lightroom presets online!
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When you’re done editing all your images, you need a safe place to keep them! Dropbox is my personal choice. They have always been reliable and can be maintained as needed. You can start with a free plan.
And here’s a bonus tip! If you need to resize your photos in bulk to optimize for your site, consider using a bulk photo website. It’s so easy and fast to resize all my images in just a few clicks!
When creating my own social media graphics (like Pinterest pins or Instagram images), I like to use Canva or Picmonkey templates. Use both as needed and buy graphics from Creative Market or other major photography sites when you need images for your pins.
OK, I know this is long. So take a breath. But wouldn’t it be great to discover a gold mine of resources?! continue!
My Idea To Start My Craft Business
Your product, website setup and graphics are ready to use. But now we need a way to share. After all, starting a home craft business is no use if you can’t spread the word!
One of my favorite plugins is Milotree. Simple but very effective. Milotree allows you to connect with any social media channel or email provider, so you can give your customers a friendly pop-up asking to follow you. This app is very useful for creating communication channels. My Pinterest has grown over 500% with this app!
Ah, the tailwind. You’ve probably heard of them. And for good reason. That’s all. Tailwind is a huge time saver when it comes to pinning Pinterest, your gateway to the success of your product or digital goods! I’ve been using Tailwind for 2 years and it has resulted in steady traffic to my site. And as an approved Pinterest partner, you don’t have to worry about getting your account suspended.
Social Warfare is my favorite social sharing plugin. This plugin is best used on WordPress sites. Social share icons are customizable and available.
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Hi, I am Erick Norman. A blogger specialist in Kitchen Design.