Selling Crafts on the Internet

There are many wonderful crafters and artists who submit to Crafty Tips. The busiest category (and the one with the most listings) showcases the works of Jewelry Makers from all over the world. As you can imagine, I’ve seen a variety of photography styles and techniques. Some do a wonderful job of showing each piece to its full beauty, some are almost there and sometimes the photo is lovely but still fails to explain the piece.

One of the problems is that many pieces are hard to imagine in action. In action? Yep. Think about the action of jewelry - earrings and pendents hang and dangle and necklaces and bracelets drape. Pins are often designed with a specific top and bottom. While some jewelry is designed to wear a variety of ways; many jewelry artisans fail to make it clear how they envisioned or designed the item to be worn.

When selling jewelry online, you can never forget that your customers can not touch the piece and most will not take the time to email you to ask, “So, how do you wear this piece anyway?”

Off all the pieces of jewelry I look at when reviewing jewelry websites, artisans often make mistakes when selling pendents…

I recently happened upon one jewelry maker’s blog where she was discussing a recent email she received from another crafter. The email helpfully suggested her current backgrounds for her jewelry pictures were detracting from her pieces. It was nice to see that the blog owner took this constructive criticism and was rethinking all of her photos as well as creating a conversation among her blog visitors.

From all of the websites that I’ve seen that sell jewelry, it doesn’t take fancy stands or expensive props to make jewelry pictures attractive. There are many ways to show the drape and beauty of jewelry without having fake body parts (can often be creepy), showing someone wearing the finished item (can often be yucky, particularly when earrings are involved) or taking a picture on wrinkled sheets or some other unattractive background. In case you haven’t seen it before, do check out my earlier post on this topic On Wrinkled Sheets - A Photography No No for Crafters.

I thought I might offer some suggestions of backgrounds that other crafters have made work quite well. Hopefully, someone will take them and run with them and create some of their own cheap jewelry stands for photography.

Professionals have no fear of me ever taking over their industry. My skills just don’t stack up. There’s just too many settings and features for me to fully understand. I do OK but I’ll never be known for my work.

Many who sell their wares on the Internet have the same problem that I do, their photography skills stink. After all, they are not selling their photographs; they are selling their handmade items.

But, what really surprised me was when a site the was submitted to Crafty Tips Arts & Crafts Directory had photographs that looked even worse than my worst efforts. I couldn’t accept the site because it was not selling handmade items but I thought I would talk about their photos and leave their name out of the conversation to protect the guilty.

I’ve talked before about a variety of ways to get free advertising and backlinks. If you are a repeat visitor to this blog, you probably already know about Crafty Tips, my arts and crafts directory.

But, did you know that there’s a special category to showcase other websites that offer free or paid advertising to crafters? A recent submission reminded me that perhaps, as the last category on the main menu, many folks may not see this section. Other Advertising Options for Crafters is a place where websites that offer free and paid advertising can list their websites. Crafty Tips visitors should be sure to check out the sites listed there as they are all designed to help promote your website or online shop just like Crafty Tips does.

Additionally, I’ve recently launched Art Filled Days to advertise a number of Free Advertising Options for Crafters that are available on my crafting websites. I currently own this blog and Crafty Tips, as well as, The Crafty Tipster and Reusable Art. All four sites offer crafters free advertising opportunities. Those advertising opportunities are all discussed on Art Filled Days.

Why not visit Art Filled Days or one of the other three sites to learn how you can advertise you craft website or online shop for free?

Hi All, I’m back after a bit of a long Labor Day Weekend. I should be back on track for my Wednesday and Sunday postings now.

Shared Blogging

I’ve noticed a new trend in blogging - shared or collective blogging. Groups of artisans are getting together and sharing their ideas and inspiration in the form of a blog. The objective is to share their creative process along with joint promotion and marketing.

I happened across one such blog, it’s called Modern Savage. The blog’s about page explains that a modern savage is one who creates out of need where creating is an act of survival.