For many people it makes the most sense starting a craft business locally. Selling physically to customers is easier and quicker in many situations. Let’s give you a few examples of when finding customers around you might be easier for a start-up.
However, remember that if the craft you make allows it, you should definitely expand your business into the online workspace as well. If you can sell off-line to real customers you can almost surely increase your profits by selling online as well.
Consider your situation to know if you can start selling to people around you. Have you been crafting for sometime now? Do you have a craft or art that you are good at?
If you get favourable responses from family and friends about a specific talent of yours, some are likely to have said you can sell this or something in the same vein. If this scenario sounds familiar, you are in a strong place to make your first couple of sales. You are also strongly place to get known by word of mouth publicity. All you need is confidence and perhaps a change in your outlook.
You need confidence to believe that you can create a piece of art or craft that is desirable, coveted and wanted by people, so much so that they are ready to pay for it. Once you can muster enough belief in your work to place it before a critical audience, you are ready to start a business.
The change in outlook is simply about taking a new look at yourself and your skill. You have always loved making your art or craft. But you have never thought you can make money from it. Maybe because of the fact that still only a few years back selling and making money from art and crafts was a very different game.
There is a huge surge in peoples interest in art and craft. The handicrafts have seen a huge revival. The online marketplace has opened the selling platform for all kinds of artists on al levels.
People are buying locally and from independent artists even more than they are from large brands. The spectrum of demand and taste has shifted placing you smack in the middle of it. So if you have ever thought you could not sell your craft, it is time to reshuffle that viewpoint. Just that simple change in your outlook will help you make your first sale. Tell your family and friends who are already appreciative of your work that you are starting a business. You can even solicit some help of the close ones.
I have seen some crafters begin on a very small scale, with less than $200 in investment. And yet they have grown and make a successful home based income.
I know someone who bakes. She gets enough orders for cakes, muffins, biscuits and what-not from friends and family and friends of friends. A lot of people know her well locally now. Enough so that she has enough work for the size of the business she wants to run.
Another known artist is a designer and dressmaker who works from a home-based setup. She has become popular locally and also with people from out of town, who come to get custom jobs done from her. Her niche is working with embroideries.
As you can imagine, both these kinds of business are probably better suited to starting locally rather than online. Your situation could be similar.
