Do you want to increase your revenue into your online craft business?

I can only assume that’s a big yes!

When growing a handmade business, there are 5 “aisles” you need to stay in (get it, a craft store has aisles 😊).

They are increasing revenue, reducing costs, growth, turning customers into fans, and diversifying your income sources.

Aisle #1 is all about increasing your income so let’s jump into that now and cover four smart strategies you should have in place.

Find your MVP

What does MVP mean when growing your craft business? It means your most viable product.

This is a product that you can easily put together and already have the supplies on hand (if you’re like me maybe you even already have it half started). It’s a product you can get out the door ASAP without having to invest in a ton of your resources.

You can start selling your MVP right away to quickly start getting more revenue NOW.

Your MVP most likely won’t be your “mastercraft” but it will be another source of revenue into your biz and is just as important.

An example in my business is when I was pivoting to just focusing on my sheep crafts (mostly throw pillows and felted rugs), but I still had a lot of my old DIY craft boxes left. I wanted to clean house and quickly bring in some income so I sold them at 50% off.

They flew out the door! That was my MVP at the time because I already had the supplies and I could quickly put the boxes together. I only had to spend one resource to get them out the door: my time.

Create Juicy Product Descriptions and Post Great Photos

It’s nice to have a product to sell but the biggest thing I hear beginners say is they don’t have an audience of customers yet.

This isn’t true! You do have an audience on your social media accounts!

Think of all your friends and family on Facebook, the people in the different Facebook groups you’ve joined, and your followers on Instagram.

These people can be your customers and here’s how you can help your followers to help you: have great product photos and descriptions.

When you’re selling online, you need to remember that people can’t touch, feel, or fully see your products first hand. It’s your job to help them experience that.

In your product descriptions, you want to make sure you’re doing a great job at explaining all the features of your creations and highlight the benefits of it. It’s also helpful to paint a picture of the problem your product solves.

Here is one of my descriptions for my sheepskin chair pad:

“One-of-a-kind, handmade Icelandic sheepskin Skinfelt Chair Pad for your boho chic home.

This is a long white sheepskin with elegant sheepskin boarder and block printed with (gold) ink in the traditional ancient art of Skinnfell.

Use this chair pad on your office or craft chair seat, or as an elegant decoration in your home or office.

8″ x 18″ (larger if you count the fringe). Fits most chair seats.

Handmade at Copia Cove Icelandic Sheep in Butte, Montana.

Dry cleanable.”

Now, great descriptions aren’t worth anything unless accompanied by good quality photos!

Remember, you will want to have multiple photos that show off your product at different angles. You also want to have a picture that shows the scale of your creation.

A huge tip to help people envision themselves with your product is to have pictures of your product with a real person.

Increase Your Average Customer Order

Once you have customers coming in and buying your products, you will be able to see what your average customer order is.

It’s much easier to service the customers you already have than to bring in new ones so a way to increase your revenue is to increase your average customer order. What I mean is, get them to spend more money while they’re shopping on your site.

A tip here is to offer an “add on” that compliments the product they’re buying at checkout. On your website, you can automatically set it up so your customers get suggestions of what else to buy. Your add on will normally be a lower priced item.

For example, I have a student that sells hand sewn board games. Let’s say that she sells a chess game for $20. At checkout, she can say, “Thanks so much for buying this game! Here is a $5 bag to hold your game in that other people have also purchased.”

Having that small add on easily increases your income without spending more money on advertising.

Have a Smart Shipping Strategy

This last point is SO important because the number one reason why people leave checkout without purchasing is surprise shipping costs.

If the cost of shipping seems too high to them or puts their order total too high, they are more likely to abandon their cart.

I have two ways you can get around this!

The first thing you can do is offer free shipping. You can either offer free shipping for any purchase or you can have a minimum purchase requirement.

To cover paying for the shipping, you’ll work that cost into your product pricing.

The second option is to cover half of the cost of shipping and have the customer pay the other half. It appears to the customer that they’re getting a great deal.

For example, let’s say you have earrings that you sell for $5 and shipping is $5. To the customer, that shipping cost would appear too high.

What you can do instead is increase the price of the earrings to $7.50 and charge $2.50 for shipping. The customer is still paying the same price but it feels balanced out.

Implementing these four strategies into your business will help increase your overall revenue.