Tips For Online Craft Business

As our online craft business winds down I have been asked to reflect upon what I have learned from it.

Consider setting up an LLC to protect your personal assets from liability. You may also need business insurance.

Decide how big you are willing to get and whether you want to just retail, wholesale, or use distributors for the product you decide to sell. You will need to set up your pricing structure around this. If you plan to distribute to large companies, consider joining a women's business organization or other another minority organization you may belong to as this will assist you in selling to bigger companies.

If you are not afraid of your computer, learn to set up and operate your own website to save big money in the long run on maintenence costs. Also use the internet to advertise cheaply as much as possible, lean search engine optimization (as opposed to marketing which includes pay per click and costs big $$ in a hurry!), as well as using press releases to promote yourself for free; it provided the best results for us.

One thing it might not be bad to pay a pro for if you do not have a digital camera or artistic eye:
excellent professional photos of your products for the website, flyers, press releases, etc. Ensure that your company and products look the part.

Things that surprised me about our online business:

Complicated credit card processing; after beind dissatisfied with two different companies we then found PayPal to be the best fit, easiest to set up and one of the cheapest and most trustworthy. It has an integrated system, makes it easy to print packing slips, ship orders and transfer money to your bank account. Lots of customer assistance and tips there as well.

Potentially a heavy physical demand: especially if you have children, you will want to take time to set up your infrastructure to take it easy as possible on your body and your vehicle. Craft shows, lifting heavy tubs of product, traveling to obtain supplies, driving to UPS or the post office are all time consuming and hard on the body and car. Plan out to get everything delivered to your home or picked up as much as possible.

Check your bottom line: ensure you are getting paid fairly for the work you are doing. Many entrepreneurs do not pay themselves enough. You will have to really love what you do if you are not making more than $5 per hour!!!