I would like to start my own craft business to make some extra income at home. I do cross stitching and latch hook. I was thinking of setting up a website advertising and including pics of projects I've done already. The business would pretty much be taking orders, but need some advice on how to get it started. How do I get the website set up? What is the charge? Any free places to do it? How about advertising on it? Do I pay for that? Any help would be great. Thanks!
2007-10-25 09:25:54 · 4 answers · asked by trcyddy 2 in Business & Finance ➔ Small Business
I suggest you start slowly but more surely. For one, you don't know if there is a demand for your product, what types of cross stitched products the customers want, what designs they prefer, etc.
Why don't you first test the market before you embark on a full scale ecommerce operation? Start selling at auction sites -- ebay http://www.ebay.com and etsy http://www.etsy.com -- are a good start. Etsy.com is particularly good because the site is an auction site specifically for hand crafted items, so you stand a higher likelihood of finding buyers in etsy.com
Selling at these marketplaces will allow you to learn:
- the types of products customers want
- how to write a description of your items (writing ad copy to sell your product is a skill you must learn)
- how best to photograph your items
- what boxes to use in packaging and shipping
- how to ship the items including insurance, tracking numbers
- how to deal with customers
2007-10-25 09:43:14 · answer #1 · answered by imisidro 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There's lots of sites that have free web space, but some of them don't allow you to sell off it. You'll have to check around. I've got a paid site, it's $15 a year for the domain name and $190 for the hosting. A digital camera works great for getting pictures that can be dropped into the site.
However, having a site doesn't mean people will find you. What you can do is forego a regular site and just post your pictures for free on one of the picture sites, and refer people over to that.
eBay is pretty glutted right now with craft stuff, but there is a good crafters board/auction site over at etsy.com that is specifically for stuff like you want to sell.
If you want to act as an independant contractor and find someone else to sell your items, you can wholesale them to another person and let that person do all the hard legwork of moving the merchandise. I wouldn't think there's much of a market for latch hook (you'd never get your invested time paid back on that), and cross stitching seems to sell mostly with small items... Can you sew? A whole range of possibilities open up if you can. You'd make a better profit on materials and your time.
2007-10-26 01:48:14 · answer #2 · answered by Elaine M 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Why not just sell the stuff on eBay? Get a Pay Pal account. Would be a start anyway. Will give you an idea of what people will pay. Cross stitching sounds like it takes a huge amount of time so I would keep it small and sell things on eBay. Good luck!
2007-10-25 16:39:54 · answer #3 · answered by Carl 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you do decide that there's a market for your items, you'd want to look up a cheap (not free) web hosting service. Godaddy is a really good one... I think we paid $5. for our domain name. I'd go with paying for a site every time because they provide customer support for you, whereas you don't get that with a free site. Goodluck!
2007-10-25 17:10:40 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋