Selling Native American beadwork and jewlery?

Question

My Grandmother does traditional Cheyenne beadwork and is interested in selling some of her work online. I told her I would help her out. I was thinking ebay.I'm not sure how to go about it. How much does it typically costs to sell on ebay? What are some other alternatives?Suggestions appreciated. Thank you.

Answer 1

I am a Native woman. I looked on Ebay to see their prices for Native made jewelry and they are extremely cheap, well the ones that get bids anyway. You might want to check into this yourself. What i mean is that it doesn't sell for much.
You can also sell on Amazon.com as well. They are a little more upscale.
Has she ever tried selling out pow-wow's or at the community weekend market?
You can also make a blog (blogspot.com) and sell from their.
You can sell from craigslist.com
I don't know about these sites but I found them online:
cafepress.com
bid-alot.com

You also might try posting on native websites, they may have more information.
Http://www.indianz.com
http://www.nativeweb.com
http://www.hanksville.org/NAresources/

Hope this helps. Good luck to you and your grandmother!
Take Care!

Answer 2

Oh, check into this site! : )
http://www.etsy.com

Info from what I understand of it....
It is a site for artists to sell on. I signed up a few months ago, it was free to do. It costs a little to list, but probably MUCH cheaper then eBay. It's like 20 cents per item, and the listing will stay on up to 4 months if not sold. I think the site gets a very small percentage of the sale price. And I think there are a few ways you can receive payment, though they recommend using PayPal. Beyond that, it's like your own site as you deal with your transactions and shipping the items to people yourself.
http://www.etsy.com/how_selling_works.php

If you try out that site, only thing I'd also recommend then is advertise...get the word out in person, online, however you can...chat on their forums, pass around a homemade business card with the web address, etc. : )

Answer 3

Hi!

I sell Native made products on-line. I am the owner of Red Nation Ware™ "Native Goods By Native Peoples"™

My website is www.rednationware.com.

It can be quite costly to sell on-line, this is why I do not solely rely on my website for sales. I vend at Powwows and other community events.

If your Grandmother does not have alot of money (and time) to support a full time website, i would strongly suggest eBay or another auction site. A website is VERY time consuming and can be quite costly, with the marketing and service fees.

I have learned that ALOT of people are VERY weary of purchasing Native made products on-line, for fear of over-paying for something that turns out not to be authentic.

So if your Grandmother decided to sell on-line, be sure that she is aware of the importance to make her Native lineage VERY clear and available to potential buyers.

Well, i hope I've helped somewhat, give your Grandma my wishes of luck. AND i commend you for helping out your elder, that is very admirable!!!

Answer 4

I am a Native American beadwork artist of Cherokee and Choctaw decent. I understand your grandmothers desire to sell her beadwork items. However, as a long-time artist and seller myself, I can tell you that its very hard to make a "living wage" by selling beadwork. I sell things with turquoise, coral, sterling silver, and copper along with traditional beadwork on ebay. I no longer offer large seed bead pieces, however, because I never get even a fraction of the money for my work that I deserve. Instead I stick to custom orders for those things, mostly by word of mouth. People look me up for regalia piece orders or repair requests or whatever they might need. Maybe your grandmother would be able to get some good business in that way. Also, I have had good luck with drumming up new business by setting up a booth at a pow wow. I tend to make more money on the custom orders than I do on the items I already have made.

If you would like to see what I sell on ebay right now, all you have to do is type in "keychainswomannsu ebay" and it should take you right to me.

I also suggest starting a free website for your grandmother. I use tripod. It is always good to have a gallery or display of your past work for people to see. This will help her to gain new business as well. If you would like to see the benefits of a tripod website you can see what I did on mine by typing in "keychainswomannsu tripod.com" into the search engine and it will also bring that right up. I really need to update my site, badly.

Not trying to spam you in any way, and I get no kick backs from my advice by the way. Just thought I would offer a word of advice for you, from someone who has been there, done that.