Not a lot of people can craft in amazing designs that other people are willing to spend money on, but if you happen to be someone who can, you can make good money by simply selling your creations. All you need is your crafting skill, a simple website to sell on, and some patience and dedication as well.
Here I’ll show you a few websites that will allow you to make money with your crafts online and what you need to know as you get started. I’ll also share with you other ways you can make money being creative besides hand-crafted items.
But without further ado, let’s begin!
Now Where Do I Start?
You’re probably already familiar with it, but the one website I recommend to start selling crafts from home is Etsy, and there are good reasons why. For instance, Etsy boasts well over 30 million customers, and over $3 billion in crafts was spent on Etsy. Not only that, but Etsy makes it easy and straightforward to get your little crafting business looking professional, and if you ever need help, they offer great customer support.
Now you may be wondering: how does selling on Etsy work? Well, Etsy allows you to sell almost any kind of creation that you can craft yourself, whether it be clothing, party supplies, paintings, or even home furnishings. Not only can you sell your own handcrafted stuff, but you can also sell vintage items (that are over 20 years old) and even craft supplies. Basically, you will need to start an online store on Etsy’s website and it is there where you can start selling your handiwork.
It’s very simple to get started. All you need to do is register for an Etsy account, put your items on sale, and pay a very small listing fee. The things you choose to sell will remain listed on Etsy either for four months or until they are sold. Keep in mind that, every time you do sell something on Etsy, you will need to pay a transaction fee as well as payment processing.
So if you’re ready to see why around 2 million sellers use Etsy to make money online, head over to Etsy.com to learn more!
Any Other Sites I Could Use?
Of course there are! With the Internet, you’re certainly not limited to Etsy if you feel it’s not right for you for any reason. I have three other sites that will work just as well.
ArtFire
This site, very similar to Etsy, gives you the ability to start your own store on the platform and sell almost anything that you’re able to create, including vintage items and craft supplies. Unlike Etsy, the only essential difference with ArtFire is that they do not charge you any fees if a sale is made. Instead, they charge you for running your online shop with them, and if you go with their cheapest plan for $4 a month, you’ll also be paying listing fees.
Now there are more expensive plans that you could purchase to avoid the listing fees and expand the amount of inventory that you can sell. While ArtFire isn’t that popular, it is still used frequently and is even endorsed by Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts. So rest assured that you can still make fairly good profit with your creations by using ArtFire.
iCraft Gifts
What makes iCraft Gifts different is that you can only sell handmade items, which means no vintages and no professionally made items whatsoever. That means you need to make sure that every single thing you sell is genuinely crafted by you or else it cannot be sold on this site.
If you sell with iCraft Gifts, the only fee you will be paying is the monthly store fee. There are absolutely no listing fees or transaction fees. Like ArtFire, if you choose a higher store plan, you can sell more of your inventory. So give iCraft Gifts a go and see how money can be made with purely handmade!
Amazon Handmade
That’s right: Amazon, the world’s biggest online retailer, has their own area for craft sellers. They follow the same philosophy that iCraft Gifts does: only handmade items and no vintage or professional items. In fact, when you apply to become a seller on Amazon Handmade, you need to prove that you will be selling only hand-crafted stuff and nothing else!
Unlike the other two sites I mentioned, it’s completely free to start a store on Amazon Handmade. The only fee you pay is when you make a sale, which is a fairly small 15% commission (of at least $1) to Amazon. You won’t have to pay any monthly maintenance fee until the end of 2019. Once you become a seller, you can use Amazon FBA as a tool to help save you time and energy as you’re selling. I have mentioned FBA in my article about making money with Amazon.
The best part about selling your crafts here is that you’re dealing with one of the world’s biggest websites, and therefore you’re set up for success! Just go through the simple and free application and you’re all set to sell on Amazon Handmade!
Any Other Creative Way to Sell?
So maybe you’d rather not go through the trouble of crafting so many items for your inventory, but you do want to make money crafting something a little easier. Well, fortunately, it’s possible! Instead of selling hand-crafted physical items, you can sell your own crafted designs that will eventually be used on items like mugs, caps, and T-shirts.
If that sounds good to you, the best place I recommend for you to do that is on CafePress. It’s free to sign up and start selling designs on this site. In order to make money on CafePress, you obviously need to be good with designing artwork through a computer. After you upload your artwork, CafePress can determine which items will best fit your work and automatically put your design on sale. Every time your design sells, unfortunately, you will earn only 5-10% of the sale. But that should be reasonable since there’s no cost at all to sign up and sell on CafePress! At least you’re making some money off your simple artwork, right?
And in case you’re interested, what if you could earn money by taking pictures instead of designing them? Well, the truth is: there are a few sites where you can do just that. I’ll be going over how and where to start in a future article!
Final Words
Being creative can certainly make you fairly good money, but what if you could earn a lot more for your hard work? Instead of crafting items or designs, you’d be creating content for a blog like this one or for a YouTube video. If you’re up for it, feel free to learn about how to start a blog or you can refer to Google’s documentation on how to start a YouTube channel. Not only can you make really good money with this kind of creativity, but they can serve as sources of passive income for years to come!
Anyway, I hope this article gave you some good ideas on how you can turn your passion for creativity into a source of online income. So with that said, get crafting and get paid!