The lessons learnt from my craft business
When you have a business you will learn a lot over time through mistakes. At the same time you will discover better ways of operating which will lead to better success. I am going to share with you some of my lessons learnt since starting my craft business.
Price point lessons learnt
Pricing is always a difficult subject and can be an absolute mine field for new crafters. Personally I believe that selling your crafts is never going to make you a millionaire especially as I feel that it is at times unrealistic to charge the equivalent hourly rate for creating your items. For example my hand knitted tree cushion can take me three solid days of knitting however I know that customers are not going to be willing to pay that price for a cushion.
You need to be realistic in what prices customers are likely to pay for a cushion and charge accordingly. The key to managing this in your business is to ensure that some of your products that are time intensive are sold alongside quick makes that have a higher profit margin.
One area that many people struggle with is pricing to cover for postage, packaging and fees, I have written a blog post on how I calculate these costs for my business. You can access it here: https://claireyatfairycrafters.com/price-for-postage-and-packaging/
The other area to be aware of is that items sold in different outlets may have differences in price. For example the items that I sell on www.etsy.com have a higher price than the same items sold in my bricks and mortar shop. This is due to the price on Etsy including postage and fees.
Tastes lessons learnt
Tastes are a big lesson to learn when it comes to running a craft business. I myself and several other crafters that I have spoken have created a new item and think that it is amazing or have a favourite version of an item they have made.
When selling your handmade items you will quickly come to realise that the items you like are not necessarily what will sell. You can guarantee a colour that you are not too keen on once made up will fly off the shelves whereas a colour that you are fond off may not end up being sold.
Limit new ideas
I have to be quite strict with myself to ensure that my business is still profitable. As I like to try new crafts and I am constantly coming up with new ideas I have to limit myself. Therefore I set myself a goal of £100 of profit from a new idea before I will allow myself to invest in the equipment or materials to try a new idea. This makes me be a lot more realistic with my craft ideas and whether they will indeed prove to be profitable.
As a crafter it is easy to be drawn in to new new crafts and ideas however when you are operating as a craft business you need to be careful that any money that you are making is not then wasted on even more craft supplies.
In Conclusion
As a new business there will always be lessons learnt over time, the key is to take stock of what you have learnt. Analyse what went wrong, why and what you could do next time to not experience the same issues in the future.
We all learn from experience and no one is perfect so we all make mistakes. The crucial thing is that you learnt and don’t repeat the same mistakes again.
If you are not sure what direction to take with your business going forward you may want to read my blog post on how I grew my business https://claireyatfairycrafters.com/growing-my-craft-business-how-i-did-it/
