It takes commitment to sell your crafts online. If you’re willing to put in the work required to bring traffic to your site, it can be quite rewarding to sell your crafts online.

The biggest mistake people make when they create a website for selling crafts lies in failing to determine a strategy for promoting that site. They create gorgeous sites that are often works of art in and of themselves, but then they fall short on marketing the site. There are over 100 million websites, and that number is growing every day, so your work is not done once you craft business website is designed. Without a strategy to promote the site, an online craft business will not survive.

Luckily, there are great, cost effective resources that can help you to promote your online craft business. In fact, there’s no shortage on information about building an online business. The biggest challenge lies in separating the truth from the hype. I’ve written several articles about selling crafts online. You may also want to check out my favorite resource for building an online business, Site Build It! It’s affordable, it provides you with all of the tools, information and support you need to launch an online business from scratch, and my favorite thing about Site Build It! is the fact that the company is run with absolute utmost integrity.

If you are selling crafts online with your own site, you’ll need to find ways to promote your site so it ranks well at the major search engines. One fairly simple and free (or inexpensive) way to promote your site is through backlinks. A backlink is simply a link to your site from another site. Search engines like them because they see them as a “vote” for your site. That is, they assume that if another site links to your site, it is, in effect, saying ‘this is a good site’.

One simple way to get backlinks is through the Value Exchange program. It’s free to join. You simply enter in keywords that are related to your site, and you will be provided with a list of other websites and their owners who have also joined Value Exchange and are interested in exchanging links. You can also download the free e-book Make Your Links Work (scroll about half-way down the page) for more tips on promoting your site with backlinks.

For more free and inexpensive ways to promote your website, please see Tips for Selling Crafts Online.

At some point in the growth and development of your craft business, you’ll need to determine whether you plan to target wholesale contracts. There are pros and cons inherent in selling wholesale, so it will be important to think through your options to decide whether venturing into wholesale craft sales will fit with your resources, your work preferences and your long term goals and vision for your business and yourself.

If you wholesale your crafts, you’ll be selling your work to a buyer who intends to resell your items at a higher price, usually at least double the wholesale price. Before selling crafts wholesale, consider the following:

1. You’ll need to ensure you have a large enough production capacity to manage large orders. Since you’ll be selling crafts for less per unit, you’ll make this up on volume. Therefore, it’s important to ensure you are ready to manage that volume.

2. You’ll sell your items for a lower price than you would if you sold directly to retail customers (usually half of retail), but you’ll sell your items in a higher volume to fewer buyers.

3. When you attend shows, you’ll bring only a range of samples of your line of product, not endless inventory. You’ll take orders for items that you will then produce and deliver at a specified date. Many professional craft artists say that it is nice to know that items they are producing are already purchased.

4. Feedback on work will come from professional buyers; your contact with the end retail customer may be quite limited.

5. You’ll typically attend fewer shows than you would if you were selling on a retail basis, and you’ll spend more time in production in your studio.

6. Your sales will consist of larger but less frequent purchases. That means you’ll have to be good at managing your money because income will not come in a steady flow.

If you decide that pursuing wholesale contracts is not right for your craft business, your focus will be on retail craft sales. When you sell your crafts at retail shows, you will be selling your work directly to the end customer. To determine if this strategy works for your own craft business, consider the following:

1. You’ll sell items at a higher price than you would if you sold on a wholesale basis, but you’ll sell smaller quantities to more customers.

2. You’ll need to bring plenty of inventory to craft shows, so you’ll need to make plenty of items ahead of time to sell at retail craft shows.

3. You’ll get direct feedback from and contact with your customers, which can be very satisfying and important to some craft artists.

4. You will make all of the money from the sale of the product (as opposed to approximately half when you sell wholesale), and since you’ll attend more shows, you’ll have more frequent influxes of cash.

5. Retail craft shows provide opportunities for interaction with customers and with other professional craft artists. This interaction can be important to some people who work alone and can provide important opportunities to network with colleagues and to understand your customer.

6. You will very likely attend more shows that you would if you were selling wholesale, some craft artists enjoy attending art and craft shows and see this in a positive light, while others do not enjoy the time spent away from the studio.

7. Time spent at shows will take you out of your studio. You’ll need to ensure you have enough time in your studio for production and balance this with number of shows you chose to attend.

Selling crafts retail or wholesale is not an either/or proposition. Some craft artists choose to incorporate both strategies into their craft business. If you have a clear understanding of your work preferences and your vision for your business and your lifestyle, you’ll be well prepared to make smart choices about the business strategies that will work best for you.