Is an outlet working for selling your crafts?

We are always on the search for new outlets to sell our crafts and we can often be disappointed if an outlet does not return the income we were hoping for.  I thought I would outline some of the ways that you can assess an outlet so you can use the experience to make decisions on future outlets.

Location

A simple one to start with, what is the location on your outlet.  Is it a craft fair in a tiny village in the middle of no where?  Are customers likely to see that there is an event on and come down to have a look at what is for sale.  Have a really good think about how many people are realistically going to see the event and attend.  Or walk past a shop and nip in for a browse.

Promotion

How many people are actually aware of your outlet.  If it is a craft fair for example how much advertising was done to try and inform customers that the event was taking place and what they could expect to see there if they were to attend.  If you are looking at an actual retail outlet, how much advertising is done to promote the products that are on offer.  Or how much advertising is done to let people know what is stocked.  Good promotion can really make such a difference to an event.

Bare in mind that a simple post on www.facebook.com is free for the organiser to create and share. Therefore it doesn’t need to be an expensive leaflet drop or TV advert, although these things would help if done.

Shared experiences

Sometimes it is hard to make evaluations on your own.  Therfore talk to those around you, or at the same outlet.  By discussing between yourselves how good or bad sales have been you will be able to guage whether everyone has had poor sales or whether it is more specific to your products.  Different products sell better at different events so this may be something to bare in mind when evaluating.

Similarly if you are considering a new online outlet it can be very informative to talk to other crafters to guage what they think about the platform if they have sold on it.  Just be aware that different platforms may work better for different items.  To give you an example I have heard that Folksy is a good outlet for handmade jewellery.

Product Review

If you are finding that a lot of your chosen outlets are not proving to be very successful it may be time for you to do an inward review of the products that you are selling.  Are they reasonably priced, well made and desireable.  If you are constructive with your evaluation of your products you may find that the reason they aren’t selling may be more to do with what products you are offering.

Timing

There are two aspects to timing you need to have a think about.  One is the timing of your attempt to sell and also the timeframe that you are giving your products the opportunity to sell.

If first we look at timeframes the best example is a new online outlet.  If you sign up with a new online platform and expect to be making sales within the first week this may not be very realistic.  With many online platforms your items need to be given time to be discovered.  This means that if you have set yourself a short time to see a return, you may not be giving the platform enough time to develop into a worthy selling outlet.  This approach is true of retail outlets and online selling platforms.

The other aspect was timing.  So have you got the timing of your products right.  To give you an example if you are trying to sell thick wooly winter knits during the height of summer you are very unlikely to make a sale.  In the same way if you are trying to sell Halloween themed items in the Spring again this is unlikely to prove successful.  You need to think about when customers are likely to purchase certain items and make sure you are pitching your items at the right time of year.

When we are trying to sell our items it can be very difficult not to take a poor craft fair to heart.  However if you are looking at making your craft business work you will need to make sure you analyse the event from a business point of view.  Not all outlets work for all crafters and the key to success is finding which outlets are the best fit for your items.  Let me know where does or doesn’t work for you, as I am sure we are all different.

If you are looking for more places to sell your crafts have a look at https://www.claireyatfairycrafters.com/top-10-places-to-sell-crafts-online/