Professional crafters?

[Kaylyn]

I'm giving serious thought to focusing more on my knitting/crocheting in my spare time and possibly starting to sell some stuff online. I'd even love to be able to eventually support myself this way in the long run. I know there are a few professional crafters here and there on these boards, so I guess I just want to know where to start. Have a few things ready made for quick sales and offer myself up for commissions and custom work based on what I've already put up for sale? Is Etsy pretty much the go-to site for this sort of stuff, or should I have an independent site also? And what about prices...I know obviously, recoup cost of materials and time and add some for profit, but how should I figure out what my time is worth? Is there a standard dollar amount per hour that most people use?

I'm sure I'll have more questions later, I'm sick and exhausted right now, so I'll see if I think of anything else once I get a reply or two.

[MaggieTheCat]

I (personally) recommend looking around for local arts and craft shows/fairs where you could sell your work. I don't do a lot of business online because I'm terrible at marketing, but I do great at craft shows. They are a lot of work but a lot of fun (IMO) and besides making money, it helps get your name out there in the community.

As far as pricing, there are a number of formulas that I've seen for how to determine pricing. If you do a google search, maybe for something like "handmade knitting price guideline" or something you can probably find something. I personally don't use them, I go more by "intuition" as it were. I generally aim for around $10-15/hour plus cost of material. That's on the low end but my main customer base is also kids and young adults who don't have a lot of cash. And my material cost is almost nothing (I work primarily with polymer clay; polymer clay costs around $2 for a 2oz block, which I can get 10-15 charms out of, which I charge $4 a piece for. So, for $2 I'm getting $40 worth of product.) so I'm really only charging for my time. I don't have a day job, but my husband's job pays well and he can support us on his own income. Mine is mostly for fun things like vacations, going out to eat, etc. So charging "appropriately" is not quite as crucial to me as it would be to someone who needs the money for food and rent and such. I would suggest making sure you are well established and comfortable with your pricing and current crafting income before you decide to make the plunge into completely supporting yourself through crafting.

Also look online to see what other people are charging for comparable pieces. Etsy is an okay place to sell stuff, but there are a lot of sellers and a lot of them under price their work, so either your work has to be unique or superior in some way, or you will have to price accordingly even if you undercut. This is one reason why I like vending in person better than selling online. There is another pretty popular site similar to Etsy called Artfire that I've heard good things about, but recently they did something to change their policies that people didn't like. I don't have an account there so I'm not sure about the details.

You will also have to apply for a state tax permit if you're going to sell to anyone in your state, or at local art shows. They're usually not hard to get, at least mine (in Texas) wasn't, and it didn't cost anything. You'll also then have to collect and pay income tax. The easiest way to do this is to just sort of build it into your price. If you want to get $10 for an item, charge $11 or $12 for it. Otherwise you'll have to calculate whatever percent your local tax is on top of $10 which can be a hassle, and then (if you're vending at a show) you'll have to be prepared to collect and give out change, which is a big hassle. It's generally recommended to only charge whole dollars for items, especially your first few times vending so you don't have to deal with coins.

I could really go on and on about vending at a show and what you should be prepared for, but I don't have time right now and if you're only going to sell online, then I won't get into it. There are a lot of other crafters here too (Kanalah and zombiequeen come to mind immediately, I know there are others too) so hopefully they can add their input too.

ETA: Duh, how could I forget about spark, who deals with all the crazy requests that we hear about? She does a lot of business online so if you're aiming to not vend at shows and just do business online, she'd be the person to talk to.

[Kogarashi]

I'll sound off here too. Like Maggie, I do it more for "fun money" than to support our income, so take my comments with a grain of salt. In general though (pricing aside), it should help out at least a bit.

First off, I'll second the recommendation to look for local (or relatively so) shows to sell at. Having a presence at a physical venue is almost always worth it, even for those who sell a lot online. I personally have two conventions I sell at during the year (when other obligations, like having a baby, don't interfere), and they provide a good chunk of my personal income. You'll want to look into the costs of going and see if things will balance out at all. Ideally, the amount you earn during the show should cover the entrance fees, any housing and gas, and food, and still give you money to take home. I cut down on some of my costs for the conventions by sharing space with a friend (who splits the cost with me), staying with her and commuting in instead of at the convention hotels, and not going to conventions that require me to fly. If I sold more, volume-wise, I might be able to let the last two slide, but I can't at the moment.

The biggest perk about selling at local shows is that you get to meet your customers face-to-face, present a personable front, and get your name out there without much marketing effort. It's a great opportunity to hand out business cards (if you do shows, get some, seriously), and some people who take cards may remember you later and check out out and end up purchasing something from you. You also get the chance to pitch the sale personally to potential customers, possibly swaying them towards buying when they normally wouldn't just by looking at a listing online.

That's not to say online sales are impossible to pull off, obviously. I do honestly recommend Etsy and/or Artfire (I don't know about Artfire's issues at the moment, so check them out before you commit). Etsy doesn't charge to set up a shop account, rather charging for each listing you put up (far less than eBay does), plus a percentage of sales you make. Listings stay up for four months before you have to pay to renew them, too. I've gathered that Artfire is probably similar in setup.

A personal website isn't necessary. I've known some people who do all their sales via Etsy with maybe a DeviantArt account or blog (usually Blogspot, but not always) to back it up. I have a personal website myself, but it's more to give me a nice central location to showcase the different things I do without having to resort to free options that are full of ads. I don't actually get sales via my website. Other people do from theirs, though, so it depends on your preferences, really.

Maggie's right in that there are a lot of people on Etsy. I don't know how the knit/crochet market is on there, unfortunately. Jewelry is fairly swamped and harder to get into, but other items are more niche and thus easier to sell reliably. I do painted folding fans myself (and dabble in some other crafts), of which there aren't that many sellers at the moment and we're all pretty unique from each other. Because of this, I haven't had too much trouble generating sales despite my complete and utter lack of marketing since I joined just under two years ago. Just listing items gets you (briefly) on the front page in the "what's new" scrolling applet. Even if you don't opt for Etsy, I do recommend hitting their site and reading up on all the "how to boost your sales" etc. articles they have. They frequently have useful information.

As for pricing...I have trouble with this one too. The first step is to figure out how much you spend per item. Don't sell them for less than this (obviously). You can try to figure out how much your comfortable with charging per hour for your work, though depending on the item, this can sometimes result in a product that's prohibitively expensive for your market. To remedy that, I would say go to places like Etsy and Artfire and research. Look up items similar to what you're trying to sell and see how much the different artists charge for their wares. You'll find some that are obviously undercutting themselves and others that are obviously way overcharging and probably selling little if anything, but there will also be those who do well for themselves. On Etsy at least, you can look at past sales to see what sells well for a given shop. You won't see prices on those, but you can compare them to current wares to get an idea of how much the good sellers are selling for. Use this research to help adjust your prices.

Personally, I could probably raise the price of my fans another $5-$10 each without much fuss, though the prices I currently sell at are good for conventions due to the market. Much beyond that, though, and I'll probably just end up driving most if not all my clientele to my competitors who sell comparable work for cheaper. To me, at least, my current prices are worth it because the materials costs are almost negligible, and because I'd rather make slightly less per hour on a job I absolutely love doing than more per hour on a job that I loathe.

One thing I can't stress enough if you choose to sell online, regardless of venue: make sure to take good product photos. I can't count the number of times I've run into an item on Etsy that may have been the next Mona Lisa, except for the fact that I couldn't see the details well because they used a cheapo webcam in their bedroom with the curtains shut. I've seen too many murky, blurry, just plain not trying photos on Etsy and other places simply because people don't take the time to get good lighting and props for their items. Put some effort into your photos if you're selling online, because the photos are the best online sales pitch you've got going for you. (And yes, Etsy has articles on taking good photos, too.)

I'll probably think of more later, but I hope this helps (and is understandable) in the meatime. Good luck!

[Seshat]

Pricing:

Cost of materials
+
Cost of time to make (NO LESS than minimum wage, thank you!)
+
Cost of time to study/improve (factor some of that in)
+
Cost of administrative time (tax planning, price planning, record keeping)
+
Cost of marketing time (taking photos, putting stuff up online, attending trade shows)
+
Cost of marketing materials (price tags, trade show booth, website creation & maintenance, etc)
+
Cost of 'benefits': holiday pay, sick pay, medical insurance, etc
+
Whatever I've forgotten from this list.

You're going to need to cover ALL of this, solely from what you make from your products. Price accordingly.

[Kanalah]

Thanks Maggie ::blush::

I think Maggie really made a lot of good points.

I do quilts instead of crochet/knitting, but I think I end up getting something like $5 an hour. Quilts are pretty saturated on Etsy and a lot of people underprice thier work. There's always the problem of "gramdma does this to stay sane, so we don't need to charge a lot of money"
If you sell online you'll want to make sure you have good photos and descriptions. I've also noticed that (at least on Etsy) customer service is a big deal. A lot of the sellers aren't familiar with retail in general and don't do a lot of those little customer service things that us retail people understand. Like emailing with a tracking number and letting the customer know that you've shipped thier items.

My mother crochets in her spare time, she makes baby sweaters and blankets. She charges $15-25 for a sweater and $20 for a baby blanket. I think she's undercharging, but since she crochets while on the clock at her job. (Phone tech support) She feels she's already getting paid for it.

Of course any other questions you have, feel free to PM me.

[protege]

You're going to need to cover ALL of this, solely from what you make from your products. Price accordingly.

I was going to mention that too The idea, is to make your hobby pay for itself. What you can do, is figure out how much it costs to make one item, add a bit for labor, and then a bit more for 'profit.' Once you come up with that number, you can start finding ways to spread the costs out over multiple units--buying in bulk, for example. That's how the major manufacturers do it.

[taxguykarl]

Keep good records. FWIW, I can't recall any crafters who were getting rich off this. Just don't keep posting losses (4 years in a row, tops) or the IRS will be on your back. Keep in mind that even a modest profit will keep the tax collector at bay.