What Are Your Goals?

[Chris in VT]

I have been on this forum for a while now and have seen members wanting to sell their work by posting their website, or Etsy shop etc.

I know selling on Etsy can be tough. Naturally when there are 300,000 sellers on that site alone you can get lost real easy. I read somewhere that on Ebay, only the top 2% make any real money and I'm sure it's true on Etsy also. Etsy is fast becoming the main place to steal ideas and designs too. That's one reason people get a lot of hits but no sales.

Some of you know that I make my sole living from selling my crafts. Our business is the sole source of income in our home. And after expenses we make a nice middle class living.

I curious as to what your goals are. Do you want to make a living selling your work? Do you want to contribute a good portion to the household income? Are you doing it for just a few dollars so you can purchase more supplies? Or are you doing it for the fun of making something?

Where do you want to be in 5 years?

So like I said, what are your goals in the crafts business?

By the way, there's no wrong answer, just starting a conversation.

[TwistMySister]

Great topic!

Im 22, and at the moment I do Etsy and shows/markets/fashion events. Its been alot of work developing my brand and getting a name out there. But its happening slowly, I think! Ive only been seriously doing it since last year.

Well, my goals are to make a living off my crafts/sewing/fashion! So far it's been keeping me afloat, but no way will I ever be able to buy a house or holiday off it yet! I would LOVE to be in a brick/mortar shop in the heart of the city here in Perth within the next 5 years. It's a huge goal, but it's always been my dream to stock my own shop and bring my bird to the shop everyday, talk to people, just sit in my shop and be awesome (way more work than it sounds i know!)....

To get there, I'll have to work my butt off to get an inventory going and start consigning my clothing to existing shops here too. Make more clothing to take to shows, right now I do enough to give me back 10 times the show cost, but I need to just sew, sew, sew!

[amarok]

I'm trying to build a business but am still a little bit ambiguous of what I want to sell - do I want to start making my own clothes and selling them, or do I just want to embroider on things? Are my main target market the individual people who want something extraordinary done to their clothes, or should I try to sell to different businesses or sports teams etc and just embroider their logos on caps and shirts? I don't know yet, but I'm happily floating around in the sea of ignorance while going to a "real job" and school. So there is still time to figure things out. I'm not decided on anything yet - not even, if I'd just like to be a part of some larger organisation and not be my own boss. Tough things to decide on, and I feel like we all have the chance to ponder on these things our whole life.

[pineapplejuice]

I've only really gotten serious about crafting in the last 6 months or so and I've been somewhat prolific, especially in the last month.  I started out with ideas about making things for friends, family, etc., but it's quickly become "I want to make this thing, who can I give it to?"  Although I'm still pretty new at sewing and crochet, I seem to have some natural talent and I've gotten a lot of response from friends about how I should sell the things I make.  Of course, I suffer from self-defeating behavior so my initial reaction is "but look how I messed up in this place," or "who would want to buy this?"  The biggest issue, I think, is that I work very much off of patterns and so even though the things I make are unique in terms of color/fabric choice/etc., I don't know that I can sell something that I made off of a commercial pattern...can I?  It feels sort of uncreative to me.

But the idea of being able to sell some stuff to give me reason to make different things and to help pay for the hobby itself has been sounding pretty appealing.  I don't think I could make a career out of it by any means, but if I think about what I'd like to see in the future I think it would be working part time (I'm a social worker) and selling enough crafts to make working part time a non-issue financially.  I know I have a long way to go before then, and I have absolutely no idea how I would go about getting started with selling stuff.

[Mrpkitty]

I've listed a few items on Ebay, but was never very serious about it until recently.
Same story you've heard dozens of times.  Economy took a nose dive and my hours where cut back from 40 to 16 a week,  Ouch!

Now I have lots of time and tons of collected materials so  I might as well do something with it.  Right now I'm hand painting wooden boxes and pirate chests.  Listing them on Ebay again, but I'm really not sure what to say about them.
I'd like to quit my job by Oct., as it's working outdoors and it gets pretty miserable in the winter.
Can't post pics yet, but I do have some up on Flickr under the name "MrPKitty" if you'd like to see them.
pointers welcomed.

[dave023]

I have a plan to do that so that i can make money and some i will use it of give it to some people for their happiness.