I was first introduced to the the concept of “failing early and inexpensively” in an entrepreneurship course in college. It wasn’t really that long ago but it was when product development took a long time and people were writing business plans and hoping to get venture capital. Banks and credit card companies were handing out money so there was little reason to have an inexpensive mindset. The concepts of failing inexpensively stuck with me and I think they apply now more than ever. Here are those concepts along with a few others related to failure.

Fail Early – The idea of failing early is the concept of taking risks earlier in life when you not only have the time to recover from larger failures, but you also probably don’t have any major financial commitments. When you do not have too much to your name you do not have too much to lose and if you are not married or have kids then your failures probably will not affect anyone else.

That is what I was taught then. While the idea is still valid, I think age is less important now. There are so many more opportunities now to create your own products without major financial investments.  

Fail Inexpensively – This is the big one. Bootstrapping is the modern term for this. It is a good idea whether you have outside funding or you put forth your own capital. Failing does not have to mean losing your home or going into serious debt. Expensive failures prevent you from trying again very quickly and can emotionally impact you to the point of giving up on what you really want to do.

Fail Often – Success can sometimes take more than one try. I was taught that it usually takes 3. Obviously there are exceptions but that is true with anything. The idea of failing often is not to get good at failing and make an art of it, but rather realize that sometimes things do not work out and then go right to the next thing.

The faster you can get to the point of finding whether the first idea works or doesn’t, the faster you either go forward with it or move on to the next idea. You will eventually get in your stride and it doesn’t always have to take forever to get to that point.

Failure of action – Before you start selling something, 90% percent of your time could be spent learning and preparing. Learning can get out of control though. You do not have to be an expert or the most knowledgeable person in the world in something to actually start doing it. Learn some, then do some. Getting started will not only save time, but you will be learning while applying knowledge.

Failure of asking – Whether for fear of disapproval, rejection, or the worry of an idea being stolen, the failure to ask for outside input can lead to failure. Opinions from the right people can be very constructive and can help you make sure you are making what people will want and are headed in the right direction.

Failing earlier in the process – The trend these days is to just get stuff out there. Get your items or ideas to the point where you can get feedback from others as quickly as possible. When would you rather find out that something is not generally popular, one week in after you build your prototype or finish your sketch, or three months down the road when the finished piece is ready to ship? Finding out one week in isn’t a failure. Rough drafts and prototypes can easily be modified and changed.

Failing to let things be “good enough” – Are you a perfectionist? Perfectionism is a trait of artists and many people who make things by hand. Displaying finished pieces that are as perfect as you can possibly make them can make you known and get you a lot of orders. The problem with most perfectionists is the perfectionism doesn’t stop there.

The problem with trying to make everything perfect is it may take you forever to get your items out there. How perfect does your website really need to be? Should you retake those photos for the 5^th time before you have ever even put them online? Do the best you can right now. Get everything set up and running and then improve each element over time.

Failure of committing – There are a couple terms for this. A common one is “the shiny object” syndrome. Sometimes people get distracted and start chasing something new and interesting ideas before the first idea has time to really pan out. This is true for items you make, the marketplaces you sell on, the websites you start, and the SEO that you play with.

Each one of these can take weeks to months of not only effort, but just time to start working. Momentum builds over time and results will start to show up after a period of consistent effort. There are very few roads to instant gratification.

Failure to do something poorly – Face the fact that the first thing you make is probably not going to be very good. Everyone who has ever done something for the first time has been there, whether they talk about it or not. Even if it is good and “perfect” at the time, a few months later or maybe a year or so down the road you may be embarrassed you even put your name on something like that. Do the best you can at the time and realize that your best will naturally get better.

Failure as an option – Realize that not every idea will be a success and some failure is part of the process, but do not let complete failure be an option. Complete failure is giving up on a dream to create and sell what you make all together. You will eventually find the right combination of designs and marketing. If one thing does not work, make something else. You can always learn new techniques, find new places to sell, and try new marketing methods.

Failure to learn – Not knowing how to do something is not a valid excuse. The information is out there. These days education is readily available and you can not only learn just about anything you can imagine, but you can choose your format.

Don’t like reading? Find videos online or purchase dvd’s that walk you through a process. Don’t have time? Download audio books and listen to them in your car or while you workout. Don’t have any money or internet access? Go to the library. That’s what everyone used to do and they are still around. The concept of not doing something because you do not know how is less of a reason than ever.

Failure to continue learning – Learning does not have a beginning and end. It is a constant ongoing process that continues after school is over. I am not even talking about having to continue to learn to keep up with rapidly changing technology. You are selling handmade items, not software. Learning is not about keeping up. It can be about staying interested, broadening your horizons, and avoiding becoming stagnant.

Richard

Did you receive an education before you started or are you educated because of years of practice? You can find many examples of self taught photographers, artists, and people making and successfully selling their crafts and handmade items on the internet. Does having formal training really make a difference when you sell online?

Traditional education is very expensive – That is the primary downside to having a formal education. It is not necessarily the cost that is the issue but rather the debt. If you take on a large amount of debt for your education, the downside can be that it can force you to stick to a certain career or path for financial reasons. If you end up enjoying what you do then it was worth the cost of the education that allows you to do what you love, but this is not always the case.

In order to try out certain professions, a formal education is a prerequisite, but with areas related to art it is definitely possible to get your feet wet and see if you enjoy it before making a large financial commitment.

Less expensive education – Talented people are usually more than willing to guide up and coming people in the right direction. Learning directly from people who are proficient in a certain medium has always been an alternative to a formal education and finding talented people willing to teach is easier than ever.

The influence of being taught – There has always been arguments related to the impact of being taught something in a particular way. Can being taught how to do something in a certain way hamper your creativity? Possibly, but that is more of an issue with the student rather than the teacher. You always have the option of taking everything with a grain of salt and trying your own methods or techniques if you so desire.

In some cases, not knowing the “right” way to do something from the start can lead to unique methods and different styles that you may have not otherwise come up with. In other cases you may need to know the correct method in order to get started.

Controlled environment – Being taught, whether formally through an institute or through an apprenticeship can have mental benefits. Learning and developing your skills and talents in a nurturing, positive environment is a plus. Often times a self taught artist gets validation or ridicule by putting themselves and their items out there for the public to see. Unfortunately, negative reviews and comments can prevent people from continuing in something that they may have ultimately excelled at.

Education versus formal education – I am a huge fan of being as educated as possible. You should choose the best method for developing your talents and learning new skills. In some cases the only way to learn what you want to know is through a formal program. In other cases, learning from someone that has more experience can work. In many cases you just need to know the basics to get started and from there it just takes years of practice. You do not have to learn from the best artist in the world to get the basics.

If you enjoy teaching yourself and know how to research and find information you can definitely learn on your own schedule by researching online or purchasing courses or dvd’s outlining specific methods. These days there are so many resources available as well as methods for finding these resources that learning new skills is available to everyone.

What’s in a title? – What makes your handmade items art versus a craft or a hobby? If you do art as a hobby, that would generally make you a part time artist versus a hobbyist, right? Maybe an “artist” just treats things differently by having a more polished website, and maybe higher prices, but I do not think that has anything to do with quality.

From an online business perspective it is usually best to call your items by what others most commonly refer to them as. What you call or consider yourself is less important to the customer. Generally speaking, if you call yourself an artist and have an online gallery of artwork, your customers will consider you an artist.

Your items may be referred to as crafts, and that’s great. Label them as crafts, put them on craft websites, and sell to people searching for crafts. Even if you were formally trained as an artist, some of your items may be crafts.

Business aspect – Most of what this website is about is the business side of handmade items. From a business standpoint, you may make things you think will be popular, you may do custom projects, and you may make items for certain markets. Those approaches may deviate from the traditional way of creating art where the art is more of an expression and the monetary aspect may not be as much of a consideration.

Not all art is purchased as an investment – And it doesn’t have to be. Your customer’s main criteria may be for an item that matches their décor and fits within a certain budget. People usually make purchases based on what they like rather than what they think they can sell for a profit later. People also just like the idea of buying handmade items and purchasing directly from the artist or creator.

Multiple mediums – Self taught artists these days often explore different mediums and can even have multiple online stores that cater to different audiences in different niches. Success and making sales is validation and it is very common to be known for one thing in one place and for something totally different in another. In some cases people do not mention that they do multiple things and do not talk about it in their bio or link to their other sites.

Are self taught online artists looked down upon? – They could be, but usually people selling online are not selling on a place where this really matters. You do not have to rely on formal galleries if you want to sell your artwork online. There is a venue for just about every type of thing you could make and want to sell.

Do credentials matter online? I think examples matter more when it relates to handmade items. Buyers are usually more interested in what you have to offer rather than what your background is. They found you because they were searching for specific items.

I think credentials are less of a concern offline as well. Look at celebrity chefs, quite a few of them did not go to culinary school, yet they are considered experts in their field and manage to have successful tv shows, books, and restaurants. People respect their opinions because of their achievements and hands on experience. Their accomplishments speak for themselves.

You are probably not applying for a job – You do not need credentials to get you in the door. There is not much of anything preventing you from making something and trying to sell it online. In some cases you can even get established and make a name for yourself online, and that can lead to you being approached and offered a position with a company.

Selling online is not the traditional venue – The best and most popular places to sell online have very few limitations. You do not have to submit a form and hope you get admitted. You are pretty much in if you pay the listing fees or monthly hosting. Your customers decide if your items are worth what you are asking and you do not have to adapt your style to fit in. If you make things that are less mainstream you will may need to be good at marketing to find your particular audience, but they are probably out there if you can connect with them.

Has being self taught ever been an issue when you sold your handmade items online?

Richard

You have probably heard a million times about the importance of SEO, having good photos, and having great customer service, but there are other less obvious things happening behind the scenes that lead to people becoming top sellers. Here are a few characteristics of top sellers.

They are visible – One tactic of becoming a top seller in a niche is to have hundreds of items for sale. If you are competing against hundreds of other people selling very similar things then you will need quite a few items simply to be visible.

You can also go the other direction by making items that are unique and stand out. It then becomes less of a numbers game. Standing out can mean having items that are totally new and blow people’s minds, or it could just mean that the quality is higher than the thousands of similar items currently available.

Top sellers are known for something – Their name is synonymous with something in particular. This could very well be quality or even price. Are they the place to go for the best prices or the highest quality? Sometimes sellers are simply known to have the fastest shipping or even the best satisfaction guarantee. Either way, they are setting themselves apart even if they do sell similar items to everyone else.

Persistence – They have schedules and consistent routines. They were consistently making and creating new items before they were able to sell their first one and they continued this routine after they started making sales. They stuck with it and that ultimately led to them having hundreds of designs for sale.

They have been around a while – Sellers who have been around for a few years generally have quite a few designs for sale, they have a lot of links to their website, they have a customer base and following, and a lot of people simply know about them which means they have word of mouth advertising.  Success does build over time.

When you continue to develop new designs over time, eventually you have hundreds of designs available for sale. If each item is built to order or you have an inventory, photos and descriptions only need to be done once and they can stay on your site indefinitely. Even items that do not sell can drive traffic from search and people may purchase other items.  

Time also plays a role in how high your website can rank in search engines. Older websites are generally given higher rankings versus comparable newly registered sites.

Building up a following and a solid customer base takes time. When someone seems to come on the scene and have explosive success, they may not be starting completely from scratch. They may have built a following from selling on another venue or they could have been getting the word out prior to opening their store. This planning and preparation behind the scenes can often appear as luck.

Sellers who are very successful now have gone through the phases of learning, experimentation, and improving over time, just like everyone else. Their success was probably not instant. It can take years to become an “overnight success.” You hear musicians say this all the time and it is no different or less true for everyone making crafts, artwork, and handmade items.

They have found their target market – Where are your buyers hanging out? The top sellers have spent enough time and put forth enough effort to find where their customers are.

It can take quite a while to fully test each form of marketing to find out which one works best. Etsy may not be where the bulk of your customers are or it could be the only place where your customers make purchases. One marketplace can work significantly better than another.

Your items may sell better locally or in person. Being able to visually inspect your handmade items may be a critical aspect of being able to sell them.

If a lot of people are actively searching online for your type of items online you can do very well with a personal website that is optimized correctly.

They focus on what works and give it time – A lot of things work and the reason a tactic may not have worked for you is you may not have given it enough time.

Can having a Facebook page increase your sales? How about Google Adwords, Twitter, or even Pinterest? What about having a blog? All of these things can greatly attribute to your success but they are not instant.

Facebook pages and Blogs take a while to set up and even longer to build a large following. They both take effort and a lot of commitment and many people give up before getting any noticeable benefits. It can take months of work for these two avenues to start paying off.

Google Adwords is instant once you have everything figured out, but it takes a long time to not only find great keywords, but you also have to experiment with your ad copy. You have to test all your ads and see which convert the best. Once you have ads that convert you can increase your budget and scale up.

They know about marketing – You can find sellers who can attribute much of their traffic to just one form of marketing, but they know how to use it very well.

If you have the budget, you could get all your traffic from Adwords.

There are also people who built up their Facebook following prior to even starting their website. Craftstar just did that recently and while they are still working out the bugs with their site, they were able to have thousands of customers show up for their launch.

They sell to other sellers – Some of the most successful sellers sell supplies. Why is that? They are selling things that others can use and Need to purchase so they can make and sell items. When you sell something that helps others achieve their goals it is a win win situation. Would you sell more if someone could make money by purchasing your items? Of course.

It’s not all about quantity – Top sellers usually have the highest number of sales or the highest number of feedback but that may not be your top concern. Having a large number of sales is impressive but at the end of the day the net profit number is more important. You can definitely make a small profit on each item and sell thousands of them or you can sell fewer, much higher priced items. For more information please see my article on scalability.

They have multiple price-points – From a marketing standpoint this can be a significant benefit. It can be very difficult to target the exact demographic that is willing to purchase your items at a certain price. Most often you do general marketing and target people who are interested in the type of item. A certain percentage of those people will want the budget version and others will only be interested in the high end. If you do not have options for both, a good portion of your marketing or traffic will bring in the wrong customers simply from a price standpoint.

Some handmade items are known for being high end and others are not. Your site may rank very well for the term “fine art” for example. People searching for fine art probably know that it is usually on the higher end of the price scale and are prepared.

They work harder than everyone else – At least initially. It may take more than 40 hours a week and working nights and weekends to build something great. You may also need to be spending time learning new techniques or skills, such as marketing. This takes a lot of discipline and a lot of people just do not put in the time and effort.

It can take much more time to get something going than it does to run it when everything is set up. When you read about a successful seller and hear that they work reasonable hours and have free time, that is usually the result of all their initial hard work. It took many hours and probably some sacrifice to get up to that point. Their success may have been delayed or would not exist had they not had that commitment up front.

They have systems in place – Processes have to be refined over time to make growth possible. Most people selling handmade items are one person operations so systems must be in place so they can spend their time on what is most important. What started out initially as you making crafts or artwork everyday and enjoying every minute of it, could eventually lead to you becoming a full time packer and shipper if you do not have systems in place to speed up that process.

What not-so-obvious factors have contributed to your success in selling your handmade items?

Richard

It is important to stay organized. Whether you sell pre-made items, build everything to order, or do custom orders, there are certain records you should keep for every handmade item. Here are some things I recommend.

For pre-made or built upon receiving an order order type items, it is a good idea to print out the first page of the item description after you receive the order. This is the page the customer sees and shows a photo of the item, the color, and dimensions. Also print out the payment invoice that shows which item was ordered, the shipping cost, and the customer’s address. You can view this page through your items sold area on Ebay or directly through Paypal or your payment processor. Staple these two pages together.

For custom handmade orders you may have a hand drawn layout for the custom design that you send to your customer. Print this out for your records along with a copy of the paid deposit invoice. You will need to request a 50% deposit for each custom order. Staple the layout to the copy of the deposit invoice.

For custom orders you may also need to figure out a shipping quote. I always write everything down and include it with the item description and invoice printout. When it comes time to ship the item you will want to make sure you use the same sized envelope or box that you got the estimate for so you will not pay too much for shipping. It is also good to know what you originally quoted the customer for shipping.

When custom orders are ready to ship, print out a copy of the payment and staple it with the rest of your records. You will use the address on this page as the shipping address for your customer.

You can then enter in the customer’s address along with the weight and dimensions of the box and print out the shipping label. You can also print out a receipt for your records. This receipt shows what you actually paid to ship the item along with the tracking number.

I will usually have 3-5 pages for each handmade item order. I staple them all together and organize them in folders by year. Staying organized will help you make sure you ship the correct items to each customer and will make things much easier if you need to answer any questions after a sale or while you are building a custom order. When you have a few projects going at the same time organization is really necessary to stay on top of things. I sometimes also include the drop off receipt as well to have confirmation that I did drop off the package at the shipper just in case it does not get scanned into the system.

Good luck with selling your crafts

Richard

How should a handmade item be described? Can you look at it and be able to tell that it was made by hand? It depends on the design, but generally speaking, no. A hand made item should be of superior quality. It is a misconception that there should be obvious imperfections in something that is made by hand. Artisans care about what they make and tend to make their items as perfectly as possible.

The key features of a handmade item are quality workmanship, attention to detail, and high quality materials. It should be made to last and be far superior to a store bought item. A handmade item is made from scratch with raw materials. Decorating or modifying a mass produced item does not make it handmade.

Do not be fooled by low priced inferior items being advertised as handmade. The term is used very loosely these days. In a truly handmade item the quality and craftsmanship will be obvious.

Richard