I have been running a small craft business for a couple of years now.
I make several handmade items that are one of a kind and wanted to branch out into online sales.
The big question was, “where do I begin?”. I started looking into other sales sites like Ebay and Etsy, these would work, I thought, but, then I was paying fees and cutting into my already small profits. Then, I looked into making a page on my social media site that would highlight my business and show pictures of what I had available. The problem with that was that there was no way for a person to pay me and give their shipping information. I had to call each person and get their payment information. Many people today are hesitant to give credit card information on the phone and I can’t say as I blame them. After much trial and error I decided to hire a college student to design and update my website on a monthly basis. They incorporated a PayPal link so that my customers could pay safely and I would get the information right away. This was a much more cost effective way to do things as large companies that provide these services can be very costly. Additionally, since I have my own site I don’t get lost in the sea of other artisans like on those other sales sites. If someone comes to my site, they are only seeing my own designs. Even though I am paying a fee for the upkeep and the initial site design was a bit pricey, I feel that it was well worth every penny.