When you have a handmade business, it’s quite common that your sales aren’t quite where you need them yet, or they may have leveled out a bit at some point, and you may start wondering:
“How can I create more revenue streams for my handmade shop?”
The most obvious answer you are going to hear is to create and sell new products, but that’s not always the best answer.
Perhaps you don’t have time to design or add new products, or the manpower to produce them, but you still want to grow your sales and grow your business.
In today’s article we’re going to explore 9 ways to increase your shop’s revenue using your existing product line.
So, ready? Let’s dive in.
Increasing revenue streams doesn’t always mean creating new products — there are many ways to increase revenue using your existing product as well! This is especially true if you have some products that already sell well but feel you have capped how many you can sell on the platforms or via the venues you are currently using.
The first is to create a shop on your own website.
If you are selling your handmade products on an online marketplace like Etsy or Amazon Handmade, a great way to increase your revenue stream is to create your own website.
Not only does a new website give you an opportunity to sell more of your handmade products, but it opens up all sorts of opportunities to target current customers with special offers, grow your email list, run specials for new customers . . . the possibilities are really endless!
I’m a HUGE proponent of this option, so I strongly encourage you to read my article about 9 Reasons Why You Need Your Own Website.
Now conversely, if you have been selling from your own website, you could explore the possibility of also selling your handmade products on an online marketplace such as Etsy or Amazon Handmade.
These marketplaces give you the opportunity to get your products in front of an already-established audience that has come to the site in search of handmade goods.
If you do this you want to be sure to choose your online marketplace carefully. Each one has a different specialty that may or may not be a good fit for your handmade business, so choosing the one that is the best match for your products will pay off down the road.
I have an article about this as well that talks about 25 places you can sell your handmade products online so if you think this option may be one you want to consider you will want to read that next.
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Another great option to increase your revenue streams is to sell your work to other shops, which is called selling wholesale.
This could mean that you find physical shops in your area that want to buy your products to sell in their store.
Or, something more and more people do now is to connect to retail shops online and sell to them wholesale via websites like Faire or Trada.io. The advantage of wholesaling using these sites is obviously geography and reach: there is a limit to shops in your town that you can approach to sell your products, but through an online site like Faire you can reach sellers all over the globe.
I have an article that lists wholesale handmade marketplaces, so you can learn more about them there.
Next let’s talk about a different approach to increasing your revenue stream, called licensing. Licensing is how you – the creator – give someone permission to use your work on their products.
In addition to giving legal permission to another person or business to use your creations, it defines how they may use your work.
Let’s say you’re an illustrator: you could license your art or your designs for other creatives or other shops to use on their products.
If you are a painter, you could create patterns or designs to license to companies or individuals to put on things like clothing, fabrics, or dishes.
As your brand becomes known, more and more places will want to use it on their products.
By licensing your designs you create a separate revenue stream over and above what you are getting from selling your own products.
Another great way to increase revenue is pursuing private label sales, which is something that a lot of handmade business owners don’t hear much about.
Selling private label means selling your products unbranded, to someone who will brand and resell them under their brand name.
This can be a great way to increase your revenue stream: there is no marketing required on your end – the retailer promotes your product, brings in customers, and makes the sales.
Once again I have an article that dives more deeply into using private labels for handmade or craft businesses that you can read if you want to learn more.
Next let’s talk about using live events to increase your revenue. Live events are things like craft shows, festivals, Christmas markets – any market where you can show up and sell your products. Now like the other options we’ve discussed, this doesn’t have to be the entirety of your business model. It could be that you have some really nice summer festivals around where you are, or you have some really good Christmas markets near you that are great opportunities for you to sell more products or that you’re willing to travel but just seasonally.
So you can do some of these to generate revenue over and above what you’re bringing in from your website or your online marketplace.
Another great option is teaching your craft. Teaching is a great option that allows you to practice your craft while bringing in a nice side income.
This could be online, like paid online courses and workshops, or it could be in-person courses and workshops as well, or a mix of both.
Locally, many arts and craft stores offer classes and need experts to teach them – although of course that does depend on where you live.
Online is another option, just be sure you look for established online workshop websites like Skillshare if you want to do this as only a part of your business. Trying to set up your own website or craft teaching business – so starting your own teaching business would be essentially starting yet another business and would create a rabbit hole of work that would be overwhelming! It’s not a BAD idea, but it does require a lot of work so if you want to use teaching as an “easy” income stream, use platforms that already have audiences built in like Skillshare.
Content creation could be another revenue stream. This means using blogs, YouTube videos, or things like Patreon.
If you have a blog, you can earn money from ads or sponsored content, but you’ve got to have a lot of people reading your blog for it to be worth it which can take time to build up.
You can also make money by running ads on your YouTube videos, but again you have to build up a strong following first.
Patreon is another way to earn money. On Patreon, people pay you a monthly fee to access the content you create, which generally has information, behind the scenes or skills they are keen to learn. It can be a very lovely way to make an income while building a community.
The final thing I want to mention is offering services.
When you start selling handmade products you tend to think of yourself as a physical business selling physical products — but you could actually be selling services as well, and that’s a different revenue stream.
So if you are a graphic artist, you could offer your services designing logos for other businesses or branding for their packages.
Or if you sell a lot of party decor, you could expand to offer services to set up parties – like decorate someone’s house and yard for their event or prepping a kid’s party.
Some crafters and artists even run events at local shops or breweries where groups of people can sign up to learn and have fun creating together – so you can see the possibilities are endless!
Click to read more ideas of how to make money while you build your handmade and craft business!
Thanks for reading and until next time, aurevoir!
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