Hello crochet family! We went out last weekend and spread Plushie Luv around and everyone had a great time at the Island Grove Blueberry Festival.We want to thank all of our amazing crochet Plushie fans that stopped by to see us at the festival. Blueberry had a special following at this event and he was a rock star handing out Plushie Luv and soft cuddles all day long.
This weekend, May 11th & 12th we will be at the Sunshine City Scare in St. Pete, Fl. This will be the second annual family friendly Horror Con and Boo Boo The Ghost is floating with excitement! So if you missed us last weekend, be sure to make it out to see us this weekend. The emotional support gang and Boo Boo the Ghost will be greeting fans and giving out Plushie Luv to all who stop in to see us! See our event schedule for upcoming event details.
Last week I paused to honor our Mother’s and promised you part 2 of the series “Casual to Cash in 6 Weeks” and I will deliver on that promise. Starting a small business is tough and takes patience and research. I hope to help you get started with this six-part series where I will give you tips, tell you some of what we encountered when we started our handmade crochet business and do some of the research for you, because your hands should be full stitching up yards of inventory to get your handmade crochet business started right.
Today I want to give you a few options for setting up shop online.While selling your crochet items at shows and festivals require a large amount of inventory, this is not the case when you sell your items online.You can begin listing your products on handmade marketplaces and on your online store as soon as you have enough merchandise to take professional looking product pictures of your items for your listings. While the majority of our income comes from shows and festivals, we like to maintain a strong online presence because this gives us the opportunity to reach a much larger audience and adds to not only our profit margin, but also to how far we can reach to pass on this beautiful handmade craft, which is part of the reason we began this journey and started our own handmade crochet business.
When you set up shop online it’s always best to take into consideration who your target audience is and where they will be shopping online. There are many options, Etsy included, but that isn't the only online marketplace where you can sell handmade crochet items. Here is a list of the options I have researched for you in no particular order.
These options all have their own marketplace, which means they will help drive traffic to your listings. A marketplace is a good place to list your items and some of these options even offer a free online store that is easy to set up and will automatically list your handmade crochet items from your store, onto the marketplace.
Etsy
First on my randomly numbered list is Etsy. When I started looking into Etsy’s figures, I found out why it is on top of everyone’s list. Esty is a global marketplace that caters to handmade sellers and handmade crochet items are a hot item on this platform. The seller fees may drive a few sellers away, but with around 96 million buyers and 9 million sellers, it doesn't seem to be hurting business at all. The numbers do not lie and they are impressive. 2.748 billion in revenue in 2023, 500 million visitors to Etsy each month, 97.3 million active buyers, and most impressive to me is that 81% of the purchases made on Etsy are done by repeat customers.
Pros
- Global marketplace with 96 million active buyers per
- Features Etsy ads that help rank your items closer to the top of the list when someone searches for handmade crochet items and the closer to top of the list, the better your chances of making a sale.
- Etsy offers secure payments for both you and the buyer
- Buyers have several options for payments, including Klarna that allows buyers to pay in 4 installments and helps with higher end purchasing. This feature would help drive sales for any larger crochet items that you may want to list and charge more for, because larger crochet items are so labor intensive.
- Easy to set up and have your first listings live in around 20 minutes.
Cons
- Listing fees are .20c per listing and this can get pricey if you have many listings
- Etsy now charges a one-time setup fee for new shops of $15
- With 9 million active sellers on the platform, there is a ton of competition
Overall, Etsy is a powerhouse and tough to beat in the handmade platform category. I invite you to visit our shop on Etsy,LittleLuvinStitches and see for yourself what it has done for our business and check out our Plushie Luv in a Box while you are there! If you are new to crocheting and want to find out if it’s for you, this subscription box contains everything you need to get started on your crochet journey and the possibility of owning your own handmade crochet business.
Bonanza
Next on the list is Bonanza. It is not as popular as Etsy but is still a strong alternative. With 2.2 million visitors last year it has the potential to make a great home for your handmade crochet business.
Pros:
- No upfront listing fees
- Less competitive. With a 13.00 to 1 ratio of buyers to sellers your crochet items have a much greater chance of being seen, therefore purchased on Bonanza
- Customer Service is said to be top notch
Cons:
- $10 onboarding fee
- 3.5% commission on final sales
- .25c transaction fee for every sale made on the marketplace
Storenvy
Another option you may consider when deciding where to sell your handmade crochet items is Storenvy. I did the research for you and this is what I found out. They offer a free plan and the option to set up an online store of your own as well as list your crochet items in the marketplace for more exposure. They never charge a fee when the sale goes directly through your store, but you will pay a commission fee when the sale is driven through the marketplace. With the free plan you can list up to a 1000 items in the marketplace, but for $4.99 a month, you can set up your own store, which they make remarkably easy and professional looking with the work already done for you. With the paid plan, you can utilize marketing materials like coupons and discounts,social media posts and a ton of other features that make the paid plan worth checking out.
Pros:
- No listing fees
- Free and paid plan
- For $4.99 a month membership fee, you can set up your own user-friendly online shop with a custom domain and yes .com domains are an option as long as the one you want is available.
Cons:
- 15% commission fee for all sales that are driven through the marketplace
- Less traffic to get your handmade items seen and purchased
- Said to have less buyer and seller protection than some of the other options
ICraft
Next on the list of great places to sell your crochet items online is ICraft. While again, the marketplace is not quite the giant Etsy is, with less sellers you have less competition. ICraft also offers marketing materials and advertising that will help you drive traffic to your handmade crochet items. This marketplace boasts that its focus is entirely handmade, which is a plus for the crochet business. The fees may scare some people off, especially when just starting out, but with no listing fees and no commission fees charged from sales, they are still an option to consider. You pay a one time $25 registration fee and $5.00 a month membership fee.
Pros:
- Less competition than Etsy, therefore giving you a better chance to get your items seen by visitors to the site.
- Every vendor is given the opportunity to start a blog that gets posted to the community board.This is a great way to start a new blog and get it seen.
- They offer advertisement and marketing materials that will also help drive sales to your shop.
- No listing fees or commission form sales.
Cons:
- $25 registration fee upfront may be pricey for the new business owner
- $5 a month membership fee
- The marketplace itself loads slower than Etsy and this may deter some buyers.
GLC CraftMall
If you are looking for a marketplace that lets you sell your crochet crafts with no interference, GLC Craft Mall is for you. You can get started for $4.50 a month for up to 300 listings and after that they won’t charge you the 5% processing fee until you make a sale. You will get your own online store that is optimized to be mobile friendly and no interference from GLC. That makes this a crafty alternative to Etsy and the other handmade marketplaces I’ve researched for you.
Pros:
- Easy to set up mobile friendly store
- No interference, run your business your way, all the time.
- The marketplace is for handmade items only, and what’s more handmade than crochet?
Cons
- $4.50 monthly maintenance fee
- 5% transaction fee
- No interference also means no help to drive traffic and sales to your shop.you will be responsible for your own success.
Michael’s MakerPlace
This relatively new marketplace has a big name backing it, Michaels Arts and Crafts, and I have high hopes for this one. In addition to the market place where you can sell your crochet crafts, there is also the option of offering classes and how to guide which is a great way to support your craft and reach out to others to teach them this wonderful art. In addition you can post links to various products that sell at Michael’s and you will receive a commission when someone uses your link to purchase those items. They do offer a free plan with a 4% referral fee and 3 % transaction fee, plus .20 for payment processing for each sale you make on the marketplace. However for $9.98 a month you pay only a 2% referral fee and everything else remains the same cost. This may be a good option because with such a big name backing it, its popularity could soar and you can be a part of that.
Pros:
- Well established arts and crafts chain backing this marketplace giving it an early advantage.
- No upfront fees required
- Option for teaching your crochet craft and offering how to guide with affiliate links that could make you some extra cash.
Cons:
- 4% referral fee and3 % transaction fee along with a .20 payment processing fee can get quite expensive
- Fairly new marketplace means less traffic than other marketplace options.
Amazon Handmade
Amazon Handmade is last on this randomly ordered list, but certainly not least on anyone's list. This marketplace is larger than Etsy and will bring your handmade crochet business to global traffic and potential buyers. It charges no listing fees, no registration fees, nothing upfront, but a hefty 15% when you make a sale.. The commission may be worth it to have your crochet crafts on such a vastly populated marketplace with billions of potential buyers scanning its pages every day.
Pros:
- No listing fees
- No registration fees
- 3.1 billion visitors a month means your crochet item will get plenty of views and views lead to sales.
- Top notch customer support for you and your buyers!
Cons:
- 15% Transaction fee from every sale.
- Competition may be fierce but with 3.1 billion monthly visitors there is enough traffic for everyone.
There are so many options for listing your crochet items online and I have only covered a few, but I hope my research gave you some insight into what is out there and a basic understanding of the cost, the visibility, and the potential that marketplaces can offer your small business. E-commerce is not just big business, in fact larger companies make up a very small portion of the businesses selling online. Small business owners have taken over online entrepreneurship one little corner of the marketplace at a time. Handmade crafts are more popular than ever and will never go out of style because people will never stop searching for a gift that tells a story. That’s what crochet is. A little story stitched together with love by the artisan who made it. Each piece of yarn has a history from the maker and the love put into each handmade crocheted item is exactly what people can’t get enough of. A teddy bear you buy at a popular department store is a nice gift, but an amigurumi plushie that someone hand crocheted is a piece of art someone lovingly created, and that is an amazing gift. Marketplaces like Etsy, Amazon and Bonanza along with hundreds of others, make it possible for someone who does not have the artistic flare or time to learn the art of crochet, the ability to give something unique and as special as what we create. Success is found when you love what you do and do what you love!
Check out our website, littleluvinstitches.net and our Etsy shop LittleLuvinStitches to see what our small business has to offer. We love what we do and want you to enjoy the art of crochet as much as we do. If you have never crochet before, Plushie Luv In a Box is a mystery plushie box that comes with its own video tutorial and live support to get you started on your own crochet journey. Given the time to develop your crochet skills, your first lesson could be the start that led you to become the owner of your own crochet business one day!
By signing up for our newsletter, I will send you the link and password to a video tutorial where I will teach you six basic stitches to give you a head start on your crochet journey. The best way to learn is to jump right in! See you there!
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