Selling Your Crochet Tips

Read these 4 Selling Your Crochet Tips tips to make your life smarter, better, faster and wiser. Each tip is approved by our Editors and created by expert writers so great we call them Gurus. LifeTips is the place to go when you need to know about Crochet tips and hundreds of other topics.

Selling Your Crochet Tips has been rated 4.5 out of 5 based on 84 ratings and 58 user reviews.

Other Websites That Sell Handmade

There are more Etsy-like services popping up. Two that seem to be easy to work with and are gaining momentum are Zibbet and Made It Myself. Since they are relatively new services, both are offering free listings. Zibbet (www.zibbet.com) also does not take a cut when you sell a product, and they offer two types of accounts, a free one with 25 listings allowed and a premium one, which is $7 a month right now (to rise to $15/month). Made It Myself (www.madeitmyself.com) is still offering free listings as well, but they are going to be charging 3% on the sale price of your products. But, they also have a feature where you can check a box that indicates that the price of a listed item is negotiable. Check out their sites for more details!

   

How to Price Your Crochet Items

If you've decided to take the plunge and sell your crochet, one of the first things you want to think about is how to price your items. You don't want to price them too high so that buyers are scared off, but you shouldn't price them too low either (after all, you are trying to start a business and should be compensated for your skill and creativity). You should do some searching to see if others are selling similar items and how much they are charging, but a rough way to calculate how much to charge is to add up the costs of all of the supplies that you used to create the item and multiple by 3. This will give you a good starting point from which to adjust up or down depending on the market for your goods.

   

Copyright v. Licensing

Often, people ask "can I sell a crocheted item that I made from someone else's pattern?" There's no set answer to this, it depends on what the crochet pattern writer allows. Often, the pattern writer will have a copyright on the written pattern. A copyright protects the writer from someone reproducing the text, diagrams, and photographs that are used in the printed pattern, but it does not address rights over the finished crochet item. Licensing, on the other hand, addresses the finished product and reproductions. There are publications and designers that DO allow you to sell a finished product made from their patterns. Some designers will tell you upfront what is and is not permitted to be done with their patterns and/or the resulting items. If you don't see specific instructions on a pattern, contact the designer to ask for permission to sell items made from a pattern. Some designers might not grant such permission, but others will grant you a license to allow you to sell a limited number of items made with an individual pattern. Others might only allow use of their patterns to make items for charity. Just ask, it's the right thing to do when a designer has put in hard work and time to create something.

   

No Sales?!

Well, this is the challenge! There are so many crochet vendors online now, it's hard to stand out especially on big sites like Etsy. So, you need to figure out your own twist -- what makes your items different than someone else's? Figure out why someone would want to buy your item rather than another one. Once you can answer this question, then you need to get the word out about your special twist -- start blogging and use SEO-rich terms that will show up in Google searches and create your own website. In other words, start "branding" yourself. Also, perhaps start the old fashioned way, by participating in local crafts fairs or getting your items into small boutiques. It's hard, but anything worthwhile usually is. Just stick to it!

   
Not finding the advice and tips you need on this Crochet Tip Site? Request a Tip Now!


Guru Spotlight
Phyllis Serbes