The 5 main options for selling crafts and designs online

Do you want to start selling your wonderful handmade products or launch your design brand online, but feel overwhelmed with all the options for selling crafts and designs online? Or maybe you have started with an Etsy shop or your own website and find it much more difficult to get your site launched or to actually get any visitors or to make any money?

In this post, we explain the 5 main options for selling crafts and designs online so that you have a clear overview. Some of these you might already know of, but others might give you a shortcut to launching your creative products or services online much sooner than you expected!

Option 1: Sell online via social media

One of the easiest and cheapest ways to get started selling crafts and designs online is through social media.

You can now set up a shop directly in Instagram or Facebook, without even having a website!

Instagram is still a very popular social media tool but it doesn’t necessarily convert browsers easily into sellers.

If your audience is mostly your friends and family then Facebook is a good place to start. Let them know that you have started your business with images of your products but also with what’s happening behind the scenes. Be careful with overselling yourself on Facebook, because people don’t like that as it is mostly a private channel, but if you share news, your inspirations or upcoming events with family and friends they will love that. Don’t forget to include good images and a link to your website (if you have one) to start driving traffic to your own site.

Did you know that Pinterest is the best social media tool to get sales? Much better than Instagram!

Pinterest users are often in a buying mood because they are at a time of their lives when they are spending on home accessories and gifts. When people move or improve their house, when they get married, have their first child and want a gorgeous nursery, that’s often the time when they spend a lot of money on beautiful handmade and unique interior products. Pins are also ‘evergreen’ so visible much, much longer than your average Instagram picture, plus the average age and income of ‘Pinners’ is higher too.

Make sure you have a business Pinterest account rather than a personal account, and you will need to sell online through either Shopify or Big Commerce to be able to get so-called Buyable pins that allow direct purchases from your online shop.

I strongly suggest you add a great image of a product and include a clickable link. On Twitter and on Facebook you can directly include a link to your website (for Instagram you will need to use LinkTree). Don’t send your followers to your home page, always send them to the specific product page as people don’t want to waste their time having to look for the item they just fell in love with.

And make sure that you have your website address included in your social media biog!

Option 2: Online marketplaces for products & portfolio sites for creative services

Secondly, you can sell craft and design online at popular marketplaces such as Etsy, Not On The High Street, Folksy, and ASOS MarketPlace. Have a look at what organisations such as Crafts Council, Design Nation, Designers Makers can do for you, as they also promote their members online.

If you provide services, such as product design, illustration or photography and even craft commissions, then you need to look at specialist portfolio sites, such as ArtsThread, Behance or the Association of Illustrators.

We have done all the hard work for you (!) and created a fantastic list of the best places to sell craft and design online here. 

A big advantage of using popular online marketplaces and portfolio sites to promote and sell your creative products and designs is that they already have existing traffic – people who are looking for the kind of work you create.

But these sites can be extremely competitive, so make sure that you stand out with professional photography and targeted key words that focus on your talents and niche.  You will still need to do the bulk of the marketing and drive traffic to your own pages, as these marketplaces and online portfolio sites won’t do that for you.

Option 3: Online shops & boutiques

The third option for selling crafts and designs online is to use online boutiques and retailers, such as Made.com, Gifts.co.uk, Boohoo.com, Inthestyle.com, Brownsfashion.com

The difference between an online marketplace and an online retailer is that with an online marketplace you are responsible for adding the products to your own web pages, promoting them and selling them. You deal directly with your clients and get paid directly. Online retailers, on the other hand, do most of the promotion for you and deal with the clients. You often get paid a commission fee or the retail price minus a fee. Some buy stock and warehouse it for you, but it is most common that you get the orders and dispatch them to the clients yourself and get paid by the online retailer, rather than the client.

Online shops are especially good for creative businesses to work with if they are niche, have a decent marketing team and a big marketing budget, and have a good reputation and traffic, for example around weddings, ethical fashion or children’s products.

Don’t forget to check out what your existing bricks and mortar stockists do online either! Talk to your shops, boutiques and galleries to promote and sell your products online with them too. Send them high quality images to include on their website and for social media use.

Established galleries and retailers often get good traffic and it’s good for your profile to be seen in the right places online.

Option 4: Print-on-demand websites

This is an online option to sell creative designs online, in particular for pattern designers, illustrators, and photographers. You upload your designs and create products such as t-shirts or mobile phone covers, that then get produced on demand and sent directly to the consumer.

On demand printing can be a great way to get a variety of prototypes produced of your work and to create relatively cheaply a broader range of products that you can share. Also, as these businesses are mostly based in the USA and Canada it might be an easier way to sell in those countries.

However, the royalty that gets paid by print-on-demand companies is low, and we have heard of many instances of copyright infringement so be careful when uploading your designs.

You can find the most reputable print-on-demand websites for creative products on our selected list of the best places to sell your craft and design online here.  

Option 5: Your own website

And yes, of course, you can also have your own website to sell your creative products or services online!

This is often the starting point for many new creatives, although it might feel daunting.

The biggest advantage of having your own website (with e-commerce possibilities) is that you will be in total control. You can create the exact branding you want, and you can easily create your own online shop window and collect contact details.

We recommend Shopify, Big Cartel, and the London-based Supadupa to start selling your creative products online. For portfolio sites with beautiful images and simply designed layouts (perfect if you want to showcase what you can do rather than necessarily sell) we recommend Square Space.

It’s important to have one online place to show your work and tell your story. The big disadvantage of having your own site is that you will need to spend time driving enough traffic to your site, which can be a big job.

Did you find this simple overview of ‘the 5 main options for selling crafts and designs online’ useful? Please post any questions or additional suggestions in our comments box below.