Many of us have craft hobbies. These include knitting, carpentry, jewellery making and baking. These can often just be things we do for leisure. But what if you could turn your hobby into another form of income?
Craft businesses can be a great way to earn money doing something you enjoy. It may mean getting a little more serious about your hobby and learning a few business skills, however you’ll also be able to immerse yourself into your craft and get more out of it. Here are just several tips for turning a craft hobby into a business.
Work out the costs
For you craft business to be profitable, you need to keep an eye on costs. Work out how much materials will cost you and how many hours you’ll be putting in. This can help you to set your prices so that you’re making a return. You may want to invest in machinery to help speed up production. This might include a sewing machine for making clothes or an electric band saw for carpentry.
Set up a website and social media pages
A website and social media pages are essential marketing tools for modern businesses. They can be great platforms to show off your craft and you may even be able to start selling through these platforms. You can build your own website for free, although a lot of people prefer to hire a professional website developer. Social media pages are meanwhile easy to set up yourself (just make sure to use business pages and not personal pages).
Sell your products at craft fairs and on craft sites
If you’re looking for somewhere to initially sell your crafts, you should try craft fairs – these are local events which can allow you to rent out a stall for the day and sell your crafts to enthusiasts. There are also many sites for selling crafts.
Decide whether to mass produce
Mass-producing your product could help you to make more money by allowing you to produce and sell more in a shorter amount of time. However, it could mean giving up some of the freedom of your craft – you’ll have to stick to set designs, introduce quality controls and possibly adopt machinery to take over certain processes to speed things up. Weigh up whether mass production is necessary. An alternative option could be to hone your craft and charge more for individual pieces.
Consider designing packaging
If you do choose to mass produce, designing packaging could be the next step. You may be able to design this yourself using packaging design software. Alternatively, you could find a packaging company to create it for you.
Approach retailers
Once you’ve started mass-producing and packaging your product, you can start approaching retailers. They may be able to help sell your product in larger batches. They will of course take a slice of the profits, so this could mean doing a bit more number crunching.
Don’t forget the admin
Running a business requires a lot of admin that you’ll need to keep on top of. Bookkeeping is the most important admin task – you need to keep records of your finances so that you can calculate and pay the right amount of tax. This could be a task that you take on yourself or you could hire an accountant.