What should you make to sell in your home based craft business? Do you make handmade items that are unique? Is your product useful or something a customer might need? These are all questions you should absolutely know before you start your business.
Knowing the theory of supply and demand will ensure that your new business will be both fulfilling and profitable. Supply and demand means knowing what customers want and need, and being able to reproduce your items for them.
What are the five things you can look for when finding what the demand of customers will be and how to supply them with the right hand made craft? What should you know right now that your potential customers already know?
1. What do your customers need or want?
- Creating your own products, and knowing which ones that your customers like is like holding the holy grail of a professional crafter.
- If you have your own niche and style for products, then you can create a large inventory to sell over a long period of time.
- Find trends through observing and keeping track of what your customers buy, but also through things such as magazines, craft websites, online auctions and your competition.
- As in all businesses, trends are usually short lasting. Because of this, your niche should be your focus, and trends should be used to alter your items to compliment those trends.
- The Big Idea! For example, if you make things that are for the home decorating market, you need to follow the trends in this market and alter your products to blend into the latest trends.
2. Always have plenty of product to sell.
- There are several ways that you can determine how much inventory you need to have.
- When taking orders at home or over the internet, it is easier to meet the needs of a customer.
- If you are going to a craft show, you should always have extra available.
- You can talk to those in charge of the craft show or others who have sold their items the year before.
- Make sure that you have an idea of what your best sellers may be, according to what other customers have been buying.
- If it is a certain time of the year, always make sure to stock up on items that are popular for the season.
- While this will fluctuate from year to year, over time you will be able to see what the needs from customers are.
3. Keeping ahead of the workload.
- No matter what niche, always keep an extra supply of whatever may or may not sell.
- This makes it easier to meet the needs of customers, and will offer faster turn around time when needed. By having extra crafts available, it will make you look more professional as well.
- It is best to not be in a bind when you have potential customers asking you for an item that is becoming fairly popular.
4. Keep records of everything you sell.
- The easiest way to catch on to what inventory will be needed most is by keeping track of what you are selling.
- The Big Idea! Of course, you need to keep good records for your business anyway, but you need to have a spreadsheet or journal log of each type of craft you sell. When you sold it, price point and where you sold it. Keeping pictures associated with this log, is a great memory jogging tool.
- You can do this not only by keeping records of products you sell online, but also different records for craft shows that you have gone to and what was popular that year.
- Because customer demand often grows through networking and word of mouth from other customers, it is likely that the crafts that sold the best the year before will also be a strong sale the next year.
5. Now it’s time for research.
- If you’re just starting out in the crafting business and are unsure of what the supply and demand will be from customers, then get out to some craft shows and watch. This is market research! Note to yourself which booths have the most traffic, what displays not only look good, but are easy to shop.
- Check online at ebay.com and etsy.com to see what others are selling. With ebay.com you can research to see what has sold in your category and for what price. You can even follow popular sellers to see the quantity they are selling for any given time frame.
- On of the biggest mistakes home based craft business owners make is… making what they like and not making what the customers want to buy. If you are making gifts for family and friends, this is not considered market research.
No matter what your types of craft, what niche you decide to use, and where you decide to sell your crafts, the most important thing is to be prepared with extra inventory of your products in order to reach the demand of customers. If you look into trends and know the most popular items are, you will always be able to walk away from a sale successful and looking professional because of your preparations.
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