Do you want your craft business to be a success? (Well, yes of course you do!). Do you want to make a real profit and not just cover your costs? Are you looking for ways to boost sales of your crafts and designs and get more product views and social mentions? Follow these tips and read the useful posts we have selected to give your shop and craft business a much needed boost this month.
In the first of our Craft Business Makeover Posts we’ll look at practical changes you can make to your craft shop, the next post will focus on changes you can make to your marketing strategy. We’re also keen to feature real shops who have transformed their shop since they first opened – if this is you we’d love to feature your shop and story – please email hilary@folksy.co.uk or leave a comment.
Are you ready to give your craft shop a makeover?
Sometimes just a few little tweaks in the way you approach your business can make all the difference… but not always. If sales have stalled completely (or never got started) a radical makeover might be needed.
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Banish Time Vampires!
You might be saying right now – I don’t have time to work on my shop, I’m too busy. Are you really too busy, or do you just need to get organised?
Where in your shop activities are you wasting time? An extra few hours a week found through streamlining your packing process or creating a more results-focussed marketing strategy could really help. Take 10 minutes to write down all the activities you do and how long they take (be honest!) from making the item, creating packing slips, printing off stickers, dealing with accounts, emails, to listing new items.
Are you spending too long on small details that don’t actually make a tangible difference to your craft business?
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Honestly Assess Your Products
Whether you have been making your products for years or you are just starting to sell your crafts on the internet, you have to always remember that it’s your products that make your business. Marketing is vital, but without a great product at the right price, you don’t have a sustainable craft business.
Take stock of what you are making and importantly what’s been selling if you have had your shop open for some time. Big companies make mistakes with product lines all the time – they learn from mistakes and move on to new ideas and designs.
Thinking of Selling your Crafts Online?
How to make product people will buy
Will My Crafts Sell?
Pricing Your Work to Sell to Shops
How to Price Your Crafts
Running a Sale / Discounting Products -
Update Your Photographs
Better photographs = better online sales figures. Don’t waste your time promoting crafts which have drab or out-of-focus images – they won’t get shared or clicked. Learn how to take better product shots.
Choose 5 or 10 of your best products and find a morning to do a photo shoot. Don’t try to do everything in one go as you’ll be overwhelmed by the editing. Use the first ‘product photo makeover’ session to test ideas and look at other product shots first to see what kind of approach you like. Our Folksy Shop Talk Forums are full of sellers who can give you a second opinion on what works best if you need feedback.
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Revamp Your Branding
As a craft business it will really help if you find a way to unify your style and approach to product design, material choices and marketing by creating a brand identity. Your brand identity encompasses your logo and your photography, right the way through to how you package your products and speak to your customers. You can use all of these to stamp your personality on your craft business. Find out more in this great post:
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Update Your Product Descriptions
If you have lots of products for sale this can seem like an overwhelming task, especially when we advise that you don’t ever copy and paste chunks of text as duplicate content is not looked on favourably by search engines. Break the task down by updating your descriptions in batches. Use Google Analytics to find out which products are being ignored and focus on updating these first. Use the tips in these posts:
Learn how to write great product descriptions
Listing and Time Management Tips
We’ll be back with more tips in this series to give your craft shop a makeover. Sign up to the seller tips newsletter if you want to get weekly tips for selling craft online direct to your inbox.
Have you recently updated your Folksy Shop? – leave us a comment or tag us to let us know so we can take a look – we are @folksy on Twitter and @getfolksy on Facebook
1 comment
Your article about sales of craft & design is exceptional. Anyone who will follow your tips can boost up his business & sales.
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