Amazon – sweep of sand

Do you have an entrepreneurial spirit and a creative passion? Then selling handmade goods might just be for you! But where to sell them? There are so many platforms and options, it can be overwhelming. I’ve tried 4 options: Amazon, Etsy, a custom website, and a craft show. Some are much easier, some are much more effective. Here’s what I learned.

Amazon Handmade

Amazon sounds great right? Everyone shops there so it must be a great place to sell. Now that they have a handmade sellers option maybe you’re thinking that’s the place to go big with your handmade goods? Well… maybe or maybe not. Here are a few things to think about…

First, it is a major gigantic huge hassle to get started. Not sure why it needs to be so hard, but it is. Maybe Amazon just wants to weed people out. I don’t know but there are a ton of hoops to jump through just to start selling.
Adding new products is also a hassle. Amazon’s photography requirements are almost impossible to meet without a pro photo shoot. And their user interface is cumbersome, especially on mobile.
Oddly I have not had great sales on Amazon. To be fair I did not spend a ton of time trying to figure out their search engine. And since adding products is difficult I don’t have many nor do I maintain them well. But relative to my success on Etsy, Amazon has been dismal.
Reviewers can be harsh. They seem to think they are talking to a giant corporation rather than a person who made the thing.
Theoretically they charge a monthly fee, though they’ve waived it 3 years in a row.
People don’t really think abut looking Amazon for lovely handmade things. They have more of a mass-produced reputation.

Rating: Neither easy nor effective! All in all, in case you can’t tell, Amazon Handmade is my least favorite option.

Etsy

Ahhh, I do love Etsy. It’s been a wonderful experience for me. Here’s why I love it.

Signing up and setting up your shop is super simple. You can literally do it in an hour or so.
Adding new products and managing inventory is easy, even from your phone.
They have a massive following of people looking for handmade things.
Reviewers realize that you are a real person and thus you occasionally make a mistake. Most know that if they contact you, you will fix it.
It’s almost no risk since listings only cost 20 cents to post
Its easy to share to social media and there is a big support community
Rating: Two thumbs up, Etsy is both easy and effective!

woman in yellow turtleneck sweater smiling, two thumbs up — Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Your own website

There’s a lot to unpack here. A custom website is something you may want but should you do it? And if so, when? Consider this…

selling handmade goods on sweepofsand.com

If you have good technical skills you can build your own website. But expect it to take a lot of time to get it right, even if you use templates.
If you have to pay someone to build, and likely maintain your website, it can be very pricey. Think about if, and when, this is right for you based on your business.
You will need to pay for the domain and the hosting as well as a fee per sale to accept credit cards. Still its probably much lower cost than other platforms if you build it yourself.
Creating the website is actually the easy part. Unless you are an expert in SEO you will get no traffic to your site. Don’t know what SEO is? Well if you have to ask…
You still have to drive traffic to your site. Etsy gets millions of visitors for you. No one but you is going to do that for your own website. Think social media marketing, influencers, advertising, and yes more SEO. If that’s not your thing maybe your own website is not for you.
On the plus side, you can express your branding better own your own website than a sales platform, and you have a lot more flexibility in what you sell. Plus it’s just plan fun.
Rating: Not easy to make it effective but it is super fun!

Craft Shows and Festivals

I don’t have much experience here, which is because it was not a good fit for me. I did one Craft Show so your experience will no doubt differ but here’s what I learned.

You have to make tons of inventory in advance. If you usually make things to order this will be a time and money suck.
You may need to spend time and money designing and setting up your booth plus signage. Note I went overboard on this!
Many crafters do these shows more for fun and/or to make connections than to make money. The ones I spoke to were happy if their sales covered the booth fee. What??
If you enjoy people-time this may be much more suitable for you than online sales
It is a pretty big time commitment. From prep to setup to long days at the show. Think about how much you can expect to make per hour, net of booth fees.
Rating: Neither easy nor effective, compared to online sales, but some people might like it anyway.

selling handmade goods - Takoma park folk festival — My first event – Takoma park folk festival

The bottom line for handmade goods

Overall, for many people Etsy or craft shows are a good place to start selling handmade goods. Craft shows are great if you crave human interaction, have lots of free weekends, and ready-made inventory. Etsy is great if you are more comfortable with technology and social media and prefer making products to order. Having your own website should be a longer-term goal if it makes financial sense for your business.

Share your own questions and experiences in the comments, we’d love to hear from you!

Sweep of Sand provides home decor with a fresh flair. Products are available on Sweepofsand.com and Society6.com/sweepofsand. NOT at craft shows and no longer on Amazon.

sweep of sand art and decor
surf city, nc ~ fenwick island, de ~ bethesda, md

Why are millions of people selling on Etsy? And how can you stand out amongst them?

Many people start selling on Etsy for the obvious reason, to make money. But lots of sellers, like me, do it to fulfill themselves. There’s no risk and you can satisfy both your creative and entrepreneurial yearnings while at the same time doing something totally different than your day job. You’ve got nothing to lose so why not give it a go? Some people go all in and quit their jobs. I rather like having a nice paycheck so I dabble in my shop as time permits.

I started my Etsy shop when space opened up in my life. Although I had no products developed nor any particularly artsy skills I jumped in with both feet. My shop has been more successful than I ever hoped with over 300 sales in my first year. Yet I know people with amazing artistic talent who haven’t sold a thing on Etsy. Why? Here are some keys to Etsy success. Spoiler alert, it’s only a little about the product.

Create your brand to stay on their minds. Your brand is how your customers see you and how you make them feel. Your products, logo, marketing, photos, packaging, fonts, and content should be created with your brand in mind. Before I even knew what products I wanted to offer I knew I wanted them to have a fresh coastal vibe. Be careful that your photography reflects your brand. Crop images, adjust lighting, make sure the background is clean.

Build up your social media platforms to bring in visitors.

The great thing about Etsy is it gets tons of traffic. The bad thing is that there are those other millions sellers you’re competing with. Online product marketing is all about social media. Developing a social media following is a must to drive traffic to your products. If you are a part-timer you can’t spend time on every platform so figure out which ones are best for you. I focus my engagement time on Twitter and Instagram. Instagram is great for establishing branding. Twitter is easy to get lots of followers and visibility. My sales grew noticeably once I got a few thousand twitter followers. I also post on Pinterest and Facebook occasionally.

Diversify your products to improve your odds. While it is important to have focus it is also important to have diversity to get started. Having more items gives you more tags and attributes and hence more ways to be found, Plus it lets you adapt to changing trends, and try out new products. With handmade platforms like Etsy you can make products to order so you can offer a lot of different products without high inventory costs.

Learn about SEO to rise above. Research and keep up with Etsy’s search algorithms, as well as Google’s. If your products aren’t in the top of the results no one will even see our products yet alone buy them so a little research will help a lot. Use tools like Ad Words to identify strong tags. But don’t obsess on stats until you’ve established yourself.

Get sales to get sales. Seriously. People don’t want to buy from a seller with no sales. Catch 22? Yes. So you’ll need a strategy to get those first sales and reviews. My strategy was to start out offering low prices, unique products, and over the top customer service until I had a few sales under my belt. Many sellers offer specials, buy ads, or even sell face to face through Etsy. In addition to giving you creds, products with sales briefly land higher in search results, leading to more sales This leads to an odd phenomena where one item sells like crazy for a while then something else takes over.

Having an Etsy shop is like having a mini business. If you only focus on production you will quickly find yourself drowning in product. Spend some time on marketing and the sales will come.

My shop keeps me busier than I had planned but every sale still puts a smile on my face. Time spent creating is pure joy for my soul. And when I think about the fact that people all over the world have things that I created in their homes? Well that’s just plain crazy.

Thanks Etsy.

Sweep of Sand provides home decor with a fresh coastal flair. Our products are available on Etsy and at Sweepofsand.com.

sweep of sand, coastal home decor
surf city, nc & bethesda, md

Tag: Amazon

Where to sell handmade goods? Hint: go with easy & effective!

Amazon Handmade

Etsy

Your own website

Craft Shows and Festivals

The bottom line for handmade goods

Like this: