You love making crafts and selling crafts, but the cost of the materials and selling expenses can easily eat up your profits. There is another way to create an additional revenue stream from your crafts that you may never have considered – selling your unique craft patterns.

Selling Crafts Can Be Costly

If you have already been making crafts and selling them, you already know that it can be a costly endeavor. Let’s look at what some of those costs are.

1. Materials Inventory. To receive the lowest price on the materials you purchase to create your craft, you will want to make purchases in the largest quantities possible. This gives you a lower price per unit. Unfortunately, it also means you have a significant amount of funds tied up in your products before you even begin to production, much less sales.
2. Craft Shows. Craft shows and flea markets are two of the most common selling venues for crafters. They ensure a significant amount of customer traffic walking by your table or booth. Nothing sells better than seeing your workmanship in person. Unfortunately, tables and booths at these venues do not come free. Fees can range from $50 to $1,000, depending on the popularity and size of the show. In addition, you will need to provide your own tables and display items, a tent, if it is an outdoor setting. Rental or purchase of these items adds to the costs involved in just the initial setup. Transporting your crafts and lodging and meals for out-of-town locations, raising the costs even higher. Calculate carefully the total amount of sales you will need to generate to cover your costs and realize a profit.
3. Selling Crafts Online. Etsy has become the most popular site for selling crafts online. Store setup is fairly simple. But even with this virtual shop, you have expenses. High quality photos with proper lighting are a must to show your crafts as quality work, worth the price you place on them. The competition is huge; you need to stand out. Etsy, of course, makes its revenue off the crafters who are using the site through fees that cut into your profit margin. In addition, there is always the possibility of bad transactions where a customer doesn’t pay or cancels payment after shipment.

The Benefits of Selling Craft Patterns

You certainly can’t charge the same amounts for the pattern and instructions for creating your craft items as you can for the completed craft itself. You need to instead focus on volume sales. There are several reasons why selling your craft patterns can be a profitable income stream.

• Make it once. Unlike your crafts, your pattern and instructions only need to be created once for each craft item. Your time investment is a one-time thing.
• Digital technology. Using today’s digital technology, craft patterns and instructions can be saved in a digital file that doesn’t use any materials and minimal computer space.
• Sell and deliver online. These digital craft patterns and instructions can be easily sold online and delivered via a file download through e-commerce sites like PayLoadz. They handle the payment transactions and the secure delivery to your customer. No risk, no hassle.

Add to your craft income with a residual income stream that keeps on giving. Create your digital craft patterns and start selling them online.