Could you make a career out of selling home made knicknacks online? Meet craftmaker Kate Broughton who gave up an unfulfilling job to sell on social media sites Etsy, Twitter and Facebook
These are
no slapdash home-made creations. The cards are part of a growing
business that Miss Broughton created from scratch. The knick-knacks she
creates, also including nail stickers, bird and bee prints, buttons and
badges, now earn her £20,000 a year – and that’s after expenses,
materials and tax.
“I’ve just
started a bird collection for Christmas. I illustrate the front of the
cards with robins and staple a handful of seeds inside which you can see
through the front of the cards,” she said.
Miss Broughton, 32, who worked in a Nottingham bookshop before turning
to full-time craftmaking in 2011, said her career change was “weirdly
unexpected” and came after posting photos of her products online.
It was only when she began selling her £2.50 cards and £3 nail stickers
using online marketplace Etsy that she realised her hobby could turn
into a lucrative business.
She had taken the bookselling job after
graduating in textile design from Nottingham, and began by selling cards
and nail transfer stickers at fairs during her spare time. “Once I
finished university, I had no idea what I wanted to do,” she said.
“I’d only made the nail stickers the night before I set up the Etsy
shop. As soon as I put them online, they went crazy,” she said.
Miss Broughton said she now tailors her products to their popularity
online and customers who write in with specific requests. “I had people
writing to me all the time asking to do cocktail designs.”
“The next thing I know, I was making cocktails on everything – cards, nails, prints.”
Miss Broughton advises other would-be craftmakers to set up a website
to find out which products sell. It costs her just £1 to set up the
webpage and a few pence per listing.
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| Miss Broughton advised craftmakers to set up a website to find out which products sell |
One year into selling online, she began getting offers from shops
across the world to stock her home-made goods. “My first sale was to a
shop in Canada who bought these animal brooches. I stopped making them
when I realised they took too long to make.”
Miss Broughton
moved into part-time work before quitting her job completely. “I used to
work in the evenings, but I was really struggling to keep up with
orders and realised I had not been able to think of new designs for a
while.”
She moved back to her Yorkshire hometown three years
ago. “When you leave university you think you have to go to London and
get a job,” she said.
“Then suddenly I was working for myself.”
Miss Broughton receives a handful of orders a day on average, but said
that every work day is different. “If something does well on the
Facebook or Twitter page, I often can’t predict it. It happened recently
with badges so I asked some friends to help me out.”
Miss
Broughton advised anyone with a penchant for crafts to set up a shop
online. “It’s zero risk, it costs a few pence to list items, and if
things don’t sell you try something different.”
She has no
current plans to employ extra help. “I like how it is at the moment, and
I like being in control – whether it’s the designs or the easy jobs
like packing and posting,” she said.
'Our shop cost us £1 and now we make £20,000’
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| Karli and Jacques working on their dinosaur jewellery from home |
Couple Jacques Keogh, 27, and Karli Dendy, 26, started selling dinosaur
crafts through Etsy after struggling to find design jobs since
graduating from Sussex University.
The pair, still based in
Brighton, have made and sold thousands of dinosaur-themed bracelets,
baubles, earrings and more through the shopping site.
“We’ve branched out a bit from our Triceratops designs, but find the dinosaur creations really popular,” Miss Dendy said.
The shop, which turns over £20,000 a year, now gets around 500 views a
day and achieves 15 sales a week. “I’ve given up work but Jacques still
works in a bar. We hope as the business grows that we can both go full
time,” Miss Dendy said.
Miss Dendy said the shop had bagged them
invites to take part in pop-up shops, craft fairs and 30 stockists in
Britain and worldwide.
“We know that some people want to buy in real
life, so we try to get our crafts into shops too.”
How to sell your home-made crafts online
You may be a genius at turning some glue and paper into a craft, but
online sellers should be business-minded, too.
Retail expert Clare
Rayner, author of The Retail Champion: 10 Steps to Retail Success, said:
“It’s vital to appreciate legalities like good regulation, if you
should be a limited company, and if you need product liability
insurance.
“If a customer clams they were injured by one of your products, you could lose everything you’ve built up.”
Get professional advice before investing your savings in the business,
in order to find out the costs of accounting structures and insurance
costs.
Another pitfall is undervaluing your products. Ms Rayner
said: “Consider your time in making crafts, how many years it took to
develop your skills, and the surplus of running a business.”
To
work out pricing, find out what similar goods are selling for and ensure
you are pocketing enough after costs to earn a fair wage.
