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You could sell your creations on Etsy. It would help to label them such that people can find your wares if one were searching for something made by hand, for in

You could sell your creations on Etsy. It would help to label them such that people can find your wares if one were searching for something made by hand, for instance. You can also create an external marketing site/portal that directs people to your Etsy shop. My mother was a successful fused glass artist. Her works sold for hundreds to thousands of dollars, but in the end, she made close to minimum wage per hour, as you described. Art, or anything made by hand, doesn't scale well.

fnordian_slip 4y ago
The external marketing site is probably the key, as well as making the items small enough that the profit margins don't get eaten by shipping and the cost of high quality wood. I've started an Instagram account where I post some of my work, but I've found out that I'm really bad at social media for marketing purposes. I'm currently debating whether it's worth it to become better at marketing or SEO in order to promote my stuff, but even though it is a no-brainer from a business standpoint, it is the opposite of what I want to do. I originally started this plan to have a workday where I don't look at the screen for 8 hours, and now I've gotten myself in a situation where I look at a screen in my free time to learn how to promote my business. You're right, art just doesn't scale well. Maybe it's best if I continue to just do it for fun and gift it to friends and family. Not everything needs to be a business.
- hhw3h 4y ago
  What's interesting about the online art world is that there are a number of platforms like Etsy that ostensibly take the sales and marketing off your plate, that said, all your points are true. They are often a race to the bottom where you feel a strong pressure to compete on pricing. What I've seen work instead is to charge much higher rates of $1,000 or more. Think to yourself, hypothetically speaking, if I were to charge $1,000 or more for my art or my woodworking etc. what kind of items would justify that price point and then just focus on those. Then when it comes to marketing and selling, pursue a relationship based selling approach rather than an ecommerce transactional approach. Once you start getting social proof of happy customers you can often take the same work that was selling for $1,000 and sell it for $3,000 to $5,000 or even more. That's the key to making a sustainable income with art or handcrafted work these days.
- damascus 4y ago
  As someone with a similar side hustle: If you are going to drive your own traffic don't drive it to a platform thats going to take 20%+ of your gross product cost. Drive traffic to your own shopify or squarespace site that has really good ecomm built in. Get a shipstation account and you're pretty set. IMO.

fnordian_slip 4y ago

The external marketing site is probably the key, as well as making the items small enough that the profit margins don't get eaten by shipping and the cost of high quality wood. I've started an Instagram account where I post some of my work, but I've found out that I'm really bad at social media for marketing purposes. I'm currently debating whether it's worth it to become better at marketing or SEO in order to promote my stuff, but even though it is a no-brainer from a business standpoint, it is the opposite of what I want to do. I originally started this plan to have a workday where I don't look at the screen for 8 hours, and now I've gotten myself in a situation where I look at a screen in my free time to learn how to promote my business. You're right, art just doesn't scale well. Maybe it's best if I continue to just do it for fun and gift it to friends and family. Not everything needs to be a business.

hhw3h 4y ago
What's interesting about the online art world is that there are a number of platforms like Etsy that ostensibly take the sales and marketing off your plate, that said, all your points are true. They are often a race to the bottom where you feel a strong pressure to compete on pricing. What I've seen work instead is to charge much higher rates of $1,000 or more. Think to yourself, hypothetically speaking, if I were to charge $1,000 or more for my art or my woodworking etc. what kind of items would justify that price point and then just focus on those. Then when it comes to marketing and selling, pursue a relationship based selling approach rather than an ecommerce transactional approach. Once you start getting social proof of happy customers you can often take the same work that was selling for $1,000 and sell it for $3,000 to $5,000 or even more. That's the key to making a sustainable income with art or handcrafted work these days.
damascus 4y ago
As someone with a similar side hustle: If you are going to drive your own traffic don't drive it to a platform thats going to take 20%+ of your gross product cost. Drive traffic to your own shopify or squarespace site that has really good ecomm built in. Get a shipstation account and you're pretty set. IMO.