A craft business should be pretty easy to get started with. In short, pick something you are good at, take some pictures of it, put up the site, and start promoting.

So, now let's go into a little more detail.

First you have to come up with a few names for your business. Then go to New Web Domain to check and see what is available. Keep trying until you find one that works. Remember to keep it short so customers can easily remember it. (i.e. nataliescrafts.com, craftsbynatalie.com) or get more creative, but always make sure to keep it short.

Now that you have a domain name you need a site. You can get that by going to:

Now that you have your domain name and your site you are pretty much ready to get started.

By now you should have in mind what craft or crafts you want to be working on. (please note: if your craft is jewelry, we have another section called Jewelry Making in the Starting Your Own Business With the Internet section.)

Start building your site, use your imagination. If you want help with that, there are a lot of web designers. A good one to use would be Hurst Web Design. Don't forget to put pictures of your product on your site.

Promoting your crafts: There are several different places you can print up business card including your local Kinkos. So, you may want to get some business cards printed up. Also, look for the right places online to advertise and promote your product. See if you can find some other craft sites that would be willing to trade links with you.

What about teaching others how to do your crafts?

If you do not already have step by step instructions typed up, you will want to get that done. When doing this, remember not to take anything for granted. Write down every little thing you do to complete the project. Even if it seems like an obvious step to you it may not be obvious to others that are just learning how to do it.

You know what materials are needed to make the product and which ones work best for this particular project, so offer to sell them a starter kit with the instructions and craft materials.

If your craft is something that you need in bulk offer to buy back the finished product at a reasonable price. Make sure when you state the price you are willing to pay for the completed product it will be worth it for them and will also make you profit when you sell the product.

There are several places that do this, just make sure you are fair in determining how usable the product is and if something is wrong with it send the product back to the person that sent it to you with a detailed explanation of what is wrong with it.

Once you get your craft business off the ground and your site up and running don't heisitate to send us an email. We would love to list your site on our pages!