Does the idea of selling your crafts appeal? It did to me. I bought book after book – selling online, selling at craft fairs, selling by mail order, all of it. Eventually I began to think I must be a dunce: I had all this information, I was in complete overload, and I still did not know where or how to start.
So I took a step back.
The problem with all that advice
Most of it is written for a business that already exists. It assumes stock, a customer base and a decision about what you sell – and it tells you how to optimise those.
If you have none of them, the advice does not connect to anything, and reading more of it makes the situation worse rather than better.
What to do first instead
Make a handful of things and try to sell them. Not a range, not a brand, not a business plan. Six items and one attempt at selling them.
You will learn more from that than from any book – what people ask about, what they pick up and put down, what they buy, and what price stops them.
Then work out the numbers. Materials, your time at a rate you would accept, fees, postage. Add them up honestly. That tells you whether this can work at all, and it is the single most-skipped step in handmade selling.
Then narrow down. Whatever sold best is your answer. Make more of that.
The practical requirements
The boring things do matter, and they are less complicated than the books suggest.
Depending on where you live and how much you sell, you may need to register as a business, keep records for tax, and hold a sales tax licence or its local equivalent. Craft fairs frequently ask for proof of one, and some require public liability insurance.
Find out what applies in your area before your first fair rather than after. Your local business advice service will tell you in one phone call, free.
Keep receipts from the start. Reconstructing a year of material costs afterwards is miserable.
Pricing, since it is where most people go wrong
The number you arrive at will be higher than similar items are listed for, because many sellers are not counting their own time.
Do not match them. Competing on price against people working for nothing is not a competition worth winning.
If the price seems unsellable, make something faster or something people value more – do not accept less per hour.
And be patient
Most craft businesses build slowly, from repeat customers and word of mouth. That is normal and it is more durable than a fast start.
