If you're not having much success with your handmade business,
it might be because of the products you're selling.
I know as artists we want to believe that our work is sellable
no matter what right? But the hard truth is that that's not always the case.
When starting a handmade business
it is crucial to be able to separate our business from our art
so we can focus on creating products that actually sell. That's why today I'm
going to tell you 5 things to avoid with your handmade
product. These are things that just make selling or keeping up with business harder than it's worth.
Now if you're an artist who isn't actively selling your work
or you're not trying to make an income out of this,
this doesn't really apply to you. Get out there
and just keep on creating, do what you're already doing.
But if you're trying to build a successful handmade business, take out your notebooks
and pencils because there is a lot to learn.
Hi, my name is Mei Pak
and I help makers artists and designers make a living by selling their handmade products online.
So my handmade jewelry shop makes two hundred thousand dollars a year in sales.
And today I'm going to share some of my past experience that I hope will help you too.
Okay, so there are five key things to avoid with your handmade product.
These are common mistakes that can cause a handmade business to fail pretty quickly.
And with all the time and money you've put into making this happen,
I really want to see you succeed, okay? So pay close attention.
First of all avoid selling a product with zero demand.
I want you to think about the product you're selling.
Does it have competition? Is there an existing customer base
or is the product in high demand? If you answered yes to these questions,
you're on the right track. That's
because you have proof that your product is something customers actually want. If a customer wants it
and you have it you can sell it, it's that easy.
Now you don't want to sell a product with no demand.
If yours is the only product of its kind in the market that’s
probably for a reason. People simply aren't interested in it,
or they're not looking for it right now. And if they're not interested,
they're not searching for it and they're not going to find your business.
Even if they do stumble across your website
or your Etsy Shop a customer is just not going to buy something
they don't have an interest in or a need for, right? Logic.
For example, if you're selling glass pacifiers for babies,
you're probably not going to get much business.
So make sure that whatever you choose to sell is something people
are actually interested in. If you're not sure
whether your product has demand look at the most popular products on
Etsy or on Amazon, even check out social media to see what's trending on there,
what's getting a lot of engagement,
and on Google to see other brands and shops just to see what's trending,
what's selling, what's already out there. Even if your product isn’t the most popular,
that's okay. Just make sure that there is existing competition out there because that's a good sign
it's a product idea that works and that sells well,
otherwise people wouldn't be selling it in the first place.
Now, of course the exception to everything I just said is if
you have an invention of a product, like you
invented something new. Those types of products are really hard to sell
because it requires a lot of educating the market on what your new thing is,
and I would usually leave those kinds of products to really big
corporate brands who have the finances to spend on marketing
and advertising on brand awareness.
We don't have time for brand awareness here.
We want sales. We want to go straight
for the sale and the guaranteed way to doing that is if you're
selling something that is already proven to sell well.
The last thing you want to do is spend hours creating the perfect box of dogs treats
for humans just to find out that humans are more interested in people's treats,
right? So moving on. The second thing you want to avoid
is products that take a ton of time to create. We're running a business here
and that means being able to meet demand without exhausting ourselves.
If it takes you two days to make one product,
you'll never really be able to sell much. You just won't be able to keep up with it.
It's not sustainable. Of course, if you're selling high-end
products at a big cost that can be an exception,
right? For example, if you make custom sculptures that take dozens of hours,
you can charge thousands of dollars for them.
Still though I will caution you
because it is generally harder to make sales for higher ticket products like this.
So it's a risk right? There just aren't
as many people willing to spend that much. Another example might be furniture
makers who spend weeks creating a handmade cherry oak dresser.
You can charge much more for an item like that.
But you also have to spend a lot more time
and money to create it in the first place
and then you need to find a very specific customer base to promote it to. It's
just harder to sell really expensive products.
And another con to that is you're not going to sell expensive products
as often which then creates that roller coaster feeling of running a business that no one enjoys.
It's just harder to sell really expensive products
and the one great way I know to bring consistency
and stability in your handmade business is selling products that
have accessible price points. That's going to help
take the edge off and so you don't wonder
when your next sale is going to come in. That kind of product makes it easy
for you to make multiple sales every day.
So choose a product that you can make quickly
and efficiently so it's priced accessibly. Like if you're making jewelry or greeting cards,
you can probably create quite a few products in one day. That will
make your business much more sustainable.
Now, I'm not saying you can never ever sell bigger ticket products
just that it shouldn't be the only thing you sell.
It's a much more comfortable lifestyle to sell primarily accessible priced products.
In other words diversify your products based on their price range.
The third thing you want to avoid is selling products that are hard to
reproduce. We need to take advantage of economies of scale.
That means you want an increased level of production,
which is nearly impossible when creating one-of-a-kind pieces.
Think about it. For every product you make you spend an equal amount of time if not more
time creating product photos, writing a compelling product description,
and just setting up the whole product listing.
If every product you have is one-of-a-kind,
you will have to repeat that process over and over and over again,
and that kills a lot of time you could be spending on creating more products
or doing more marketing which is essential for sales.
Now I'm not saying you need to avoid completely selling one-of-a-kind products altogether.
I know that a lot of artists pride themselves on their one-of-a-kind pieces. All I'm saying
and it just means that you should avoid having all of your products
or even your main products be one-of-a-kind. A business built completely off of
one-of-a-kind products is going to be pretty hard to grow. One-of-a-kind products also
tend to be more expensive which means less accessible prices
and just generally harder to sell it to the average person.
So in the long run, it's incredibly difficult to make a meaningful, sustainable
income when every single product you've got is one of a kind.
Of course, you will find plenty of successful artists that defy that
rule but they are the exception
and not the norm. If you want to have a mix of one-of-a-kind and reproducible products
that is totally great. Just make sure that your
reproducible items are the ones you're featuring more.
They're going to be your best sellers, your bread
and butter. The fourth thing you want to avoid
when it comes to your handmade products is creating designs that take a lot
of extra time to do. That means cutting out all of those bells
and whistles that end up making your price higher
and make you work harder unnecessarily and provide little extra value to the end customers.
I know, I know as artists we love to pour ourselves into our designs.
I know I am an artist myself. I want to add the glitter
and the sequins and the ribbon and the whole kitchen sink to a design
because I we enjoy making things
and we appreciate the process. But from a business standpoint every single hour
we put or minute we put into our work is a minute or hour
we could be spending creating more products
or designing new designs. And that extra hour spent will make your product
prices more expensive too which will deter customers.
So this is something I like to say, but make smart design choices,
even when you don't want to. You will be
so thankful when you're getting through that long list of
orders and you don't have to spend the extra time adding the glitter
or paying the extra money supplying the glitter because
maybe people don't care about the glitter.
But honestly everyone cares about glitter, right?
Finally you really want to avoid making a product that requires a lot of effort from your customer.
Whether that means they need to like submit a bunch of personal information
for like a custom product
or they'll need to do some sort of building themselves when the product arrives at their house.
For example if they buy a custom piece of furniture.
Like don't make it impossible to put together make it easy for them.
Because if they wanted to do that, they go to IKEA, right? Actually probably
all furniture requires some assembly at this point.
So I don't think that was a great example,
but basically don't make your customers jump through too
many hoops. Customers want things to be quick
and easy.
That's why they're shopping online in the first place.
They don't have the patience to fill out terribly lengthy forms or to read a chapter book worth
of instructions. Having said that I know personalized and custom products are great.
My husband's new shop is a personalized product but there's a balance right?
It's not great when your customer needs to make a ton of minute decisions.
So for example, if you're selling a personalized bridesmaid tote bag,
just ask for the name of each bridesmaid. Like you don't need to know anyone's life story here.
You can also make things easier
for your customers by providing a simple template
or base to fill out a small handful of personalized decisions. Your
customer wants their purchase to just be a click away.
So do what you can to make that happen for them. Kind of an extension off that point
this is a point that I find hard to communicate
but I'll try. I also encourage you not to create a product
or an entire business that is based off of a niche that is very ultra specific.
Like maybe you create a product that only people who have a master's degree in I don't know some
really rare degree that like only a thousand people in the world
have. Because then there’s not going to be a lot of people to buy your products from.
So that's another thing
I want you to consider. It's not easy running a handmade business,
but with the right products, you can make it a lot less exhausting
for yourself and a lot more successful.
If you're worried that your product might be hard to sell consider making some tweaks to it
or selling it alongside other
more customer friendly products
and be prepared for those to be your best sellers. When you've got a great product
it's so much easier to build a great customer base.
So what are the products that you love making?