Why Having Your Own Website Is Best For Selling Your Crafts Online

There are a number of options available to you if you're interested in selling your crafts online, and I'd recommend researching them as thoroughly as possible and making comparisons of services offered, costs involved and so on, so that you make the best, most informed decision possible. However, your ultimate target should be selling your crafts from your own online store or website, and here's why: First and foremost, you have total control over everything - from how your products are displayed to how and where you market your website or e-store. The latter is particularly important if you have niche products and not general products. For example, if you specialize in baby related products, you'll want to be seen and found on baby related sites and in baby related directories (or at least baby related categories in various directories) so that your marketing efforts are targeted directly towards your specific audience. You get to keep all the revenue from your sales - no commissions or fees to pay, except of course for your annual website hosting. If your products are good and you market them well, you should be able to recoup those costs within a few short months so that your site or store is paying for itself and generating you a nice regular stream of income. Another benefit is that you could offer to host individual pages on your website for other crafters wanting to sell their crafts online. You could generate a revenue for yourself from this in a number of ways - you could charge a flat fee per month, or a percentage of the sales of their products, or you could place paid advertising (like Google AdSense) on their pages. They will benefit from the fact that you've already marketed and are driving targeted traffic to your site and their sales pages. Apart from this idea, another way to expand the products you offer is to buy from wholesalers or to consider drop-shipping. And, of course, you can monetize your site in a number of other ways when it's your own, for example by selling advertising space, or by selling other related products and services that you know will be of interest to your customers. One of the problems with starting off having your sales page on someone else's site is that when you're ready to go on your own, you have to start from scratch again. If you've had your virtual store up for some time and things are going well, you're going to lose all that traffic when you move it to your own website, so if you can, start off by yourself and maximize your future potential right from the beginning. With your own website, you even get to interact with your customers. You can create surveys or polls to get feedback about what they like and what they don't, you can test pricing strategies, or generate new product ideas by finding out what they're looking for that they struggle to find. You can offer discounts, and you can set up an e-zine so that your regular customers get automatically updated when you introduce new products or run special offers. And - importantly - you get to ensure that your customer service is top-notch. You can make yourself available directly to your customers to resolve any issues they may have, and through this you can build a really loyal following of customers who not only generate repeat business for you, but who advertise for you by word of mouth, which is by far the most powerful - and free - advertising there is. I'll end off by re-iterating that it's so very important to do your due diligence when researching how and where to sell your crafts online. You really can build a thriving, profitable online business when you have the right tools and information available. Best of success to you! For more free craft business info and resources, visit Craft Business Home.com [http://www.craftbusinesshome.com/morearticles] - the free guide on how to turn your craft into a profitable home business. Take the first step towards selling your crafts online today! Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Ben_Montaigue/30781 Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/329361