Comments | n0nnahs: Crafting for a bit of profit

n0nnahs

Crafting for a bit of profit

Apr 18, 2010 12:46

I've done a bit of searching around on Etsy for various things I thought maybe I could make and sell for a little extra money. The market is absolutely saturated. I wasn't thinking that I could make a living this way by any means, but it was a way to feed my desire to take back up some of my past crafting interests and make a little money from it ( Read more... )

Comments 4

tonight_we_fly April 18 2010, 20:10:48 UTC

Be careful. Many people that do knitting and stuff can become quite attached to their creations, and it may be a lot harder to part with them when you're selling than through gifts to friends/family or something.

Apart from that, go for it!

n0nnahs April 19 2010, 09:20:04 UTC

I'm not worried about becoming attached to my creations in that sense. There are really two problems - 1. finding a niche and 2. finding a happy medium in terms of pricing. A LOT of the handmade goods you see for sale are hugely underpriced - they barely cover the cost of materials let alone the creators time. For example, if I knit a pair of socks with a bit of a pattern to them, the cost of the yarn alone can be £10-20 (or more) depending on the quality. Add in the 15-20 hours it takes to knit them, even at minimum wage, is AT LEAST £87 - no one is going to pay £100 for a pair of handknit socks. (I have no intention of selling such things either - these are definitely a gift-type knit.) Obviously if I were going to be doing this as a real business I could get materials much cheaper. If I sold things like a knitted brooch, I could sell it for £10-15 and come away with a small profit and I think that's a reasonable price for handmade accessory/jewellery, but would other people ( ... )

nw1inverness April 19 2010, 09:29:36 UTC

Even though etsy is saturated I don't think it would hurt to put a few things on there. I spend a lot of time finding the perfect thing on there rather than buying the first thing I see. You make lovely things and I think they would sell. Are there any craft fairs over there like in the states? If not, want to organize one? I'd help!

n0nnahs April 19 2010, 11:45:40 UTC

Yeah I probably will - I won't go hog wild and make 50 of anything. Heck, I'd probably only make a few things and see how they sell. There are craft faires, but I've not been to them yet so I don't know what sort of things are being sold. You definitely have to go with a big stash of stuff to those though. I need to organise that small room to make a good workspace instead of using it to dump things I don't need/use and plan to get rid of one way or another.