Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Starting A Work At Home Crafts Business

By Theo McLanahan

If you're a creative person, you may want to think about selling crafts and start your own work at home crafts business. You can make a decent amount of money doing this, and many people already do. They market their items at craft shows, sell their crafts through local stores, or handle their own sales online through auctions site or their own online businesses.

In order to sell your crafts, you will need to discover your own profitable specialty. A little market research is needed to accomplish this. Consider the example of making 100 knit hats, only to discover the local market is already saturated and you would not make a profit. To avoid this, you should research local craft fairs, gift shops, and online sites.

Try to find out what crafts items are selling well. Do you have any ideas that would add something new to an already existing popular product? Your work at home craft business will have a higher chance of success if you invest some time to research your particular market. Don't forget to watch the movies or read the latest magazines to see if anything crops up that could prove to be a hot item.

Your next step is researching whether you need a business license as a crafter. This depends on your intended market, but you may well need to prove that you own a crafts business before even trying for a booth at a fair or even purchasing certain supplies. Make sure you get your applications in well in advance so as to save yourself unnecessary stress later.

Once you've stocked up on sufficient inventory, you are ready to register for shows, build a website, and develop new products. If you want your work at home crafts business to have a website but don't have the budget for a custom job, look into www.esty.com, a popular site with crafters. In order to set up your own website, an online store front, and for unlimited items to be sold in your craft store, you will need to commit to a small percentage of sales. PayPal will process these payments securely. eBay is another alternative, in which you would sell your items individually.

You need to keep up with your customers' feedback while you are increasing your inventory and sales revenue. What are buyers telling you about your products? Which items sell well, and which ones sell poorly? You need to keep your work at home crafts business current and ensure that your products steadily get better.

Establishing your own work at home craft business is actually not a very difficult venture. If fact, starting a craft business is one of the easier businesses to attempt as you can truly work whatever hours are convenient for you.

When you work from home, you can enjoy making a profit doing things you like while you build your work at home craft business.

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