How to Turn Your Hobby into a Business
We’ve all had plenty of time on our hands over the last year and many of us have turned our attention to crafting. Without the distractions of going out, or travelling to see friends and family, there has been plenty of spare hours to spend learning a new skill. If you’ve developed a love for something, and are now beginning to wonder how you might turn it into a business, then read on for our tips on getting started.
Market Research
This is just finding out if people are actually interested in your product. If you have been making crochet blankets for your friends as gifts, it’s time to ask for some feedback. This isn’t always easy, both for them to give and you to hear. People generally want to be complementary and protect the feelings of their friends, so you might find it difficult to get honest answers. Explain why you’re looking for feedback, and then try to take whatever they say on the chin. Remember, your friends are likely to be far kinder to you than an Etsy reviewer!
Be prepared
Before you start a shop, or a Facebook page or anything else you will ultimately need as a small business, it’s important to be prepared. This means making sure you have all your materials and items ready to sell, whether that’s ordering printed copper for keychains https://universalengraving.com/product-pages/sheet-fed-dies/copper or knitting a hundred hats for cats, you should make sure you have some stock ready and available for sales. The last thing you want is to have orders flooding in and then be unable to fulfil them.
Take photographs
This is really important. The more enticing you can make the photos of your product, the more likely you are to sell. There are plenty of business tasks that seem important, but marketing really is vital. You’re likely to be in an incredibly competitive marketplace. Regardless of whether or not you want this business to replace your day job, you are still going into this venture in the spirit of wanting to sell. If you aren’t great at photos, then find a friend who is and ask them to show you. Practice really does make perfect and, if you have a smartphone, your camera quality is likely to already be very good and have editing capabilities already. If you don’t want to use your smartphone camera then look into camera rental.
Open your shop
Etsy is a great place to start, even if it is oversaturated. There are plenty of guides to starting your Etsy shop and it is a good idea to have one, but there are also other sites out there who do the same job as Etsy and where you might have more of a niche market https://www.e-badges.net/places-sell-crafts-online/ Don’t discount places like Ebay as well. Even though it’s known for second-hand goods rather than handmade items, there’s no reason your crafts won’t be discovered here.
Turning your hobby into a business is a slow process, and takes time. Be prepared to give up your evenings for crafting and your weekends for accounts. But, if you stick with it, you might find yourself with a successful business!