5 Of The Best Places For Selling Your Crafts Online
For many of us crafters, selling our finished crafts and making a living off of them is sort of the dream goal. But how do you actually do that?
While it may not feel like it, there are options to accomplish this. The most common and well known one being at a craft fair. This is a valid option and does work. But the downside is that craft fairs require a large inventory, and a lot of work to yield satisfactory results.
Also, depending on where you live, you might not have a lot of options for selling your handmade goods at craft fairs.
This is where the internet has really expanded options. You’re no longer bound by the what’s happening in your area to sell your items. Even if you happen to live in an area where you do have options locally, selling online can really help expand your business. For today’s post, I’ve compiled a list of the 5 best places to sell your finished crafts online.
If you’re a pattern designer, check out my post on 5 Of The Best Places To Sell Crochet Patterns.
**This post contains affiliate links, if you choose to buy something from this page, I may receive a small commission at no cost to you. These help support the blog, and as always all thoughts & and opinions are my own.**
5 of the best places to sell your finished crafts online
All of these sites work no matter what crafts you’re selling, and are not yarn item specific. Some of them are country specific, but I’ve tried to limit those.
For this list, I’ve sorted it alphabetically. Check out the bottom for my comparison between them and which one’s are better.
Aftcra.com
This marketplace specializes in handmade items made in the United States. While Aftrca sells items all around the world, in order to qualify as a seller, your items do have to be made in the US to be sold on the platform.
Aftcra Particulars:
The great thing about Aftcra is that it is completely free to set up. They don’t charge any listing fees either. The only thing you pay is a 7% commission when one of your items sells.
Amazon Handmade
I know, Amazon is not exactly the first place you’d think of for selling your crafts. The online shopping behemoth also has a slightly lesser known but still very popular handmade side that launched in 2015. With 2.4 BILLION views per month 😳, this has the advantage of getting your products in those search results
Amazon Handmade Particulars:
Unfortunately, Amazon can be very picky about who gets to benefit from their massive monthly views. This is probably one of the more difficult platforms to get accepted into and you do have to go through an application process.
To get started, you will first need to apply for an Amazon Seller account before applying to the program. If you’re accepted into the Amazon Handmade program, the $39 sellers fee is waived and the 15% commission is all that is taken from your earnings.
Amazon does not charge any listing fees and they take a 15% commission on any items sold.
More about Amazon Handmade’s pricing & fees HERE.
Etsy.com
Etsy is sort of the default site that you think of when you think of selling items online. With 34 million views per month, it’s a great place to start & fairly easy to get started.
Etsy Particulars:
Etsy charges a $0.20 listing fee for every listing (although if you use my referral link you can get 40 free listings). For every item sold they take a 6.5% (up 1.5% from April 2022) commission, as well as a payment processing fee. This fee varies by your country of residence. In the United States it is 3% of the sale price + $0.25.
In total the commission & fees are 9.5% of the items price + $0.45
More about Etsy’s fees and payment info HERE.
Faire
Faire.com
Good for more experienced sellers.
Faire is great if you are looking to expand into wholesale orders and get your products into physical stores.
It’s free to sign up and list your items with no limit to the number of items you can list.
Faire Particulars:
Faire charges a 15% commission on all orders if your items were discovered through their marketplace. If you have pre-existing retail clients and reffered someone to your Faire store directly, you do not pay any commission.
More about Faire’s fees HERE.
Folksy.com
This could be described as the British equivalent to Etsy. Unfortunately, at the moment Folksy does not allow sellers who do not reside in the U.K.
Folksy Particulars:
If you do live in the UK, this seems like a great option. Unlike the other options, it is subscription based with their Basic Account giving you 3 free listings and after that costing £0.15 +VAT per item. For £5 per month, the Folksy Plus account gives you unlimited free listings.
Regardless of the plan you choose, you are still charged commission on your items sold. The commission percentage is 6% + VAT.
Which one’s best?
Etsy is the most well-known + trusted platform to start with, I would start here.
Then you can expand in a few different directions depending on who you want to serve.
If you want to continue the direct to consumer route, you could then apply for Amazon Handmade (which is a process).
If you are looking to expand into selling in stores (which is the direction I went), you could apply to Faire. In time, you could expand into more (or all) of the markets. But to be successful, it’s best to focus on one before expanding.
Let me know what platforms you sell your crafts on and leave your store name in the comments!
This post first appeared on yarn-bending.com
