To do well selling online you need to get the word out about your product, and that is harder than it sounds if you are new to it.
Crafts are mainly a hobby for me, but I do run an online business promoting other products and services, and these are the methods that have worked.
Setting up a website
You need somewhere that is yours. A marketplace listing or a social account is rented space – the platform decides who sees it, changes the rules, and can close the account.
A site of your own does not have to be elaborate. What it must have:
Clear photographs. More important than anything else you will do. Natural light, plain background, several angles. Poor photographs sink good work.
Honest descriptions. Materials, dimensions, care instructions, how long a made-to-order item takes.
Obvious prices and an obvious way to buy or enquire.
A way to contact you that you actually check.
Getting found
People search for specific things. “Handmade gifts” is competing with the world; “crocheted christening blanket in cream cotton” is competing with almost nobody and reaches someone who wants exactly that.
Write the way buyers search. Use the words they would use, in your page titles and descriptions, without stuffing them in artificially.
Writing about what you make – how it is made, what the materials are, how to care for it – gives search engines something to find and gives buyers a reason to trust you.
A mailing list
The most valuable thing you can build, and the most neglected.
Social platforms control who sees your posts. An email list reaches everyone on it, and those people asked to hear from you. Ask for addresses at every opportunity – in orders, at craft fairs, on the site.
Send something worth reading rather than only sales announcements, and do not send too often.
Where to sell
Your own site gives the best margin and the most control, and the least traffic.
Marketplaces bring buyers who are already looking, at the cost of fees and competition.
Social platforms are good for showing process and building an audience, less good as shops.
Most small businesses use a combination, and use the marketplaces to find people they then bring onto their own list.
Price properly first
Before any of this, work out what an item costs to make – materials, your time at a rate you would accept, fees and postage.
Marketing an underpriced product simply means losing money faster. Get the arithmetic right before you drive traffic to it.
