Top Tips for Selling Your Crochet Items
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The wonderful thing about deciding to start selling your crochet projects is that you can continue to do what you love and make an income from it. I always crocheted for my daughter when she was a baby, it was a hobby that I started whilst I was pregnant, I absolutely loved making baby booties, they were so quick and satisfying to make. As time went on, I wanted to continue making them, but I did not have a baby anymore. I started an Etsy shop and put them on there, I made a sale within my first week!
Before you decide to sell, you should know what you want to achieve. Do you want to cover the cost of your wool? Do you want to make so extra money to treat yourself? Do you want to start a crochet business? How much time are you willing to put in and sacrifice for your business? How much time can you devote to crocheting?
Let me tell you about my tops on how to sell your crochet items.
Tip #1 - Know what you want to get out of selling your crochet.
Before you decide to sell, you should know what you want to achieve. It can be easy when you first start to run away with ideas and lose focus of your path, this can become over whelming. So, ask yourself;
Do you want to cover the cost of your wool? Do you want to make extra money to treat yourself? Do you want to start a crochet business? How much time are you willing to put in and sacrifice for your business? How much time can you devote to crocheting?
Write down your goals, write down any boundaries you may have (ex. I do not want to work at weekends) and keep a note pad for ideas, this way you can offload into the pad before you sleep. Trust me when I say this will help prevent you from staring at the ceiling with a tornado of crochet tings spinning around inside your head.
Tip #2 - Decide what your going to sell.
Deciding what you are going to sell may be a given to you, are you already making lots of blankets for family and friends and now want to get paid or you currently make hats for all your children but have the time to make surplus. That is great if you already know, and you can skip straight to Tip #3.
When deciding about what to sell your first question to yourself should be, are you going to sell ready-made items, made to order items or both?
A benefit of selling ready-made items is that there is less pressure, you make can make your own stock in your own time and you get to choose what you make. However, if you decide to make to order, for example something that is personalised or an item in a specific colour, then you need to have worked out how long this will take you, ensure you can stick to the timescale and make sure you do not overload yourself with orders.
Once you have decided on what to sell you can get more specific, are you going to sell blankets, hats, baby booties, coffee cup cosies? The list is exceptionally long, and you will never fall short of ideas.
Selling small items like baby booties means you can make more stock in a shorter amount of time, reduce postage and packaging costs, and use up less space storing them. However, your income will require you to sell more to make more and driving sales can be time consuming.
These tips will help you whatever it is you choose to sell.
"Make what YOU want to make: If you love making hats and beanies, make them! If you want to make amigurumi, do that! It’s totally up to you what you want to spend your time making, so you actually enjoy doing it." – Shehla from Blue Elephants
Tip #3 - How to price your crochet items.
Now this is something I have no formula for, although there are suggested formulas out there and they make work for you.
A popular formula is:
materials + labour cost + expenses = wholesale price
wholesale x 2 = retail price
Putting this formula to the test on my popular baby booties would be:
£1 + £10 + £1.17 = 12.17
12.17 x 2 = £24.34
Now I do not sell wholesale, so personally I eliminate the wholesale part of the formula and use the wholesale price as the retail price (£12.17), it is a bit of an odd number so in this case I would round it down to £12.
For me I am happy that this is a great price for the booties, I am not selling myself short and I the price is not too high that it cuts down my potential customers.
There will be times when this pricing formula does not work for you and you will have to produce your own price, you can look at other items in the same marketplace, work out your cost as you absolutely do not want to price below this and lastly use your experience. If you have sold an item for a certain price before then you know people are willing to pay this. Was the price too low for you, did you not make what you wanted? Trying to increase the price with each sale and as your confidence builds.
Remember sales are not just reflected by your pricing there are other factors that come into consideration when someone is buying your project so do not be too quick to lower your prices before you have considered if there are other reasons your item is not selling.
Tip #4 - Where to sell your crochet projects.
There are many places to sell handmade crochet items I am going to list them below;
Online Marketplaces
Social Media
Website
Craft Fairs
Markets
Pop-Up Stall
Farmers Market
Independent Shops
Find more detailed blog on where to sell you crochet items here.
Tip #5 - Photography.
I cannot stress enough how important your photography is, it is the first impression, it is the thing people will see first. Your products may be great however if you do not nail the photography then you may never sell a single thing.
Photography is so in important I have written a separate blog dedicated on how to photograph like a pro.
Tip 6# - Seasons and Celebrations.
So, this one is something I learnt after a year or so, change with the seasons, you will also find that you a boost in sales if you are selling a themed item at the right time.
Colours come in and out of fashion with seasons, certain home décor items are the same, you must have seen impressive crochet pumpkins adorning everyone's house in Autumn, (whilst I am mentioning pumpkins find my free pumpkin pattern here).
Christmas is the biggest celebration in UK, it is a clever idea to start listing your Christmas items in October. Other top celebrations are Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween and then you have celebrations that are happening all year round like Birthdays, Weddings and Baby Showers.
Make some beautiful crochet gifts made especially for seasons and celebrations, it is good to keep on top of what is trending, and it is easier than ever now with the social media platforms telling us.
Lastly, remember the how the saying goes, Rome wasn't built in a day...
So you might not make your first sale overnight or even in the first month but that doesn't mean you should give up. I started selling my stuff and made a sale within a week and I was ecstatic, but then some weeks I sell nothing and it can be daunting. But remember you are doing what you love and every sale should be celebrated!
Good Luck!
Feel free to comment any questions below in the comments box and I will respond to you as soon as I can, I am always happy to you hear from you.
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