Where do you market your handmade business? People are often surprised to hear this, but I’ve used 9 different sales channels to sell my handmade goods!
If this sounds overwhelming to you, it’s actually not, as I have a handy little secret that helps me manage it all.
Now, keep in mind, I didn’t start with all 9 sales channels right away. I first started where my customers were, which was Facebook. As I grew more comfortable with that and my business was growing, I continued to expand more and more selling avenues.
This is also what I recommend to you. Start where your customers are and where you feel comfortable. As you get the hang of things, continue to add to your number of sales channels to increase your profit.
Read on to find out what the 9 main sales channels are and how to manage all of them THE EASY WAY!
What’s a Sales Channel?
Before we jump into talking about all the sales channels I recommend, let’s start with the basics: what is a sales channel?
A sales channel is simply an avenue for selling your products. Potential customers can search for, and purchase products from you – whether in person or online.
There’s an endless amount of sales channels to choose from including social media, search engines, ecommerce platforms, affiliates, and point of sale.
The actual number of sales channels available to you can be completely overwhelming, but I’m going to help you see the most important channels that I recommend you start with and my little secret to managing them all.
#1: POS
It’s not what you are thinking! POS stands for point of sale which means in-person selling or selling at events. I sell many of my sheep crafts at different craft fairs and events and love it!
Pro Tip: When you are selling at craft fairs, make sure you have a way to collect payment via credit card. You will want to make sure your phone has access to wifi or at least your cellular data.
#2: Email List
If you are growing your handmade business online, you should be also growing your email list. Selling through your email list is a great way to add to your income!
What I recommend you do is send out a weekly email with links to your products for sale.
#3: Facebook Pages
Within Facebook, you actually have three different options you can use for selling your handmade crafts.
If you’re just starting out, selling right from your personal page is a good option. However, please note that Facebook does frown upon this so as your business gets bigger, I suggest you switch to a Facebook business page.
Facebook business pages are free and you can invite people to “like” your page. On this page, you can list all of your products for sale. Business pages aren’t my favorite place to market because of how the algorithm works (Facebook won’t always show your content), but I do feel it’s beneficial to have for people to find your business online.
The third place is you can sell is within Facebook groups. There are different craft groups out there that are meant just for selling and buying handmade goods. You may also run across some groups that are more for community building, but they’ll have a weekly thread where you can post what you have for sale.
#4: Facebook Messenger
Using Facebook Messenger as a sales channel is great because you can directly invoice your customer there. You can directly send them a paypal link and they can pay you. Very simply!
#5: Instagram
It took me a while to get Instagram to work for my business, but now that I have the hang of it, I know it’s a great organic marketing tool to bring in more sales.
What I recommend doing is posting quality pictures of your products on your feed, and you can direct people to send you a direct message if they are interested in it.
In your DMs, you can then send them an invoice, just like you would on Facebook Messenger.
#6: Pinterest
I love Pinterest! It can be a great way to reach a wider audience.
You must first have a business account and from there you can enable “Rich Pins.”
“Rich Pins” are basically smart pins that pull information from your product listing (like price and title) and let people know that your product is for sale. Fun fact, “Rich Pins” will also show up in a higher resolution on Pinterest, so it draws the attention of more people.
#7: Search Engines
Search engines like Bing or Google can be used as a good sales channel for your business when you are ready to start paying for ads. You can set up ads to show your product at the top of search results and you only pay if people click on your product.
Please note, you will still have to pay for the “click” even if that person doesn’t buy.
#8: 3rd Party E-commerce Websites
3rd party e-commerce websites are places like Ebay, Etsy, and Amazon. They can be great tools for your business but they SHOULD NOT be your only way of marketing your business.
You still NEED to have your own website. 3rd party websites can help get eyes on your products, however, at the same time they are also showing your customers all the other options available. They can lead your customers away from your products just as quickly as they showed them yours.
#9: Your Own E-commerce Website
Having your own e-commerce website as a sales channel is my biggest recommendation for building your online handmade businesses and I believe is essential to the success of it.
Some e-commerce website platforms are WordPress, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and my favorite Shopify.
Shopify has so many benefits, but to name a few you can build your own brand, have your inventory in one place, have customer support always available, get access to the latest integrations, and most importantly…have TONS of sales channels integrations.
Which leads me to how I manage my multiple sales channels.
My Secret to Managing Multiple Sales Channels = Shopify
You’re missing out on sales (and wasting a lot of time) if you’re not strategically choosing the right sales channels.
I strongly believe that you MUST be marketing your business in multiple places in order to have a profitable AND sustainable craft or handmade business. To do this, you absolutely need Shopify.
With Shopify, you can integrate with your Facebook business page, Instagram, Pinterest, Google shopping, Ebay, and Amazon.
You can add a “buy button” to use on your emails, and you can use Shopify to help people directly checkout via Facebook Messenger so they don’t have to open a new link. Studies have shown that if you can reduce the number of redirects needed when checking out, then your sales will increase.
Another thing I love is that Shopify has a cool card reader that connects with your smartphone that allows you to take credit card payment when you’re selling in person. That in turn connects directly to your online inventory in real time so you can still have people buying your products online.
I could go on and on about the benefits of using Shopify, but you should see for yourself! You can get a free 14 day trial here. Also, I have a Shopify Quick Setup Mini-Training that will get you started!
