After having worked with several handmade business owners and helping them launch, grow and scale their businesses online, I have been able to arrive at these 8 reasons why MOST handmade businesses fail:

1. Treating the business like a hobby

This is the most lethal mistake that a lot of handmade business owners make. The product creation started as a hobby and then they want to see if they can monetise their hobby.

Monetisation of hobby and starting a business are different and it needs a shift in mindset. If you are okay if the product doesn’t sell , you want to monetise your hobby. But if you willing to go that extra mile to ensure that your handmade product sells, that means you are serious about starting your business. Are you ready to make that shift in your mindset???

2. Not having a business plan

What do YOU mean by having a successful handmade business online? Is it Insta followers, is it a certain revenue, or is it consistent 5 Star ratings?

If you don’t know what you should measure, how would you know if you are successful!

First decide what is your benchmark for success and what would you measure and how. Then break it down to smaller milestones and review and readjust the same after every milestone. 

3. Not knowing their market

Some handmade product creators are so much in love with their creations, that they ignore researching about the market. They think the market will buy whatever they create, just dive right in, invest a lot of resources and efforts only to realise later that this is not what the market is looking for!

Save your resources and effort by just spending a day researching about the market. Do you know what your market is EXACTLY looking for? Do you know what your competitors are offering? When you do your research and know what your market is looking for, your approach to business is much more guided. You approach it logically, rather than emotionally. Sometimes, a very small change like change in color, material, design, etc can make a product a raving success. There are soooooo many examples.

4. Not knowing their customers

Do you know, having a good product alone doesn’t ensure it’s success. What ensures it’s success is when it reaches the right customers, who were looking for the exact product. 

So many handmade business owners don’t know who their customers are, they don’t know how to reach out to them. Identifying your ideal customer and reaching out to them where they hang out is the key to success for any business. When you have targeted the right audience for your products, you don’t just make a sale, you have the potential to get a loyal customer who will buy from you repeatedly and will refer more such customers who will inturn generate sales!

But, for this to happen you MUST first know your customer.

5. No USP(Unique Selling Proposition)

When I ask my clients these 2 questions, most of them are not able articulate their answers- Why should your customer buy from you? Why should your customer pay the price that you are charging? So, if you are not able to convince yourself what sets you apart, how are you going to convince the same to your customers? Think about it!

There are various ways you can develop your USP or something that is unique about your brand- that could be your niche, your product features, your branding, etc anything that makes your business stand out in the crowd and make it memorable.

6. No social media strategy

Some handmade business owners treat their brand’s social media accounts like the treat their personal profiles- random images, no post consistency, no planning. This.. or either they are too salesy and pushy. 

Please stop, if you fall into any of the 2 categories. You need to have a proper social media content strategy and plan ahead to avoid posting random, sub par content in haste. Also, don’t always sell your products. This is a big NO-NO. This really puts your audience off more than you can imagine. The purpose of social media is to be social. So engage with your audience, post valuable content and watch your sales soaring like never before!

7. No followup

Even after following all of the above steps, some handmade business owners are not able to achieve results as much as they would like to see. Do you know why? The reason is NO FOLLOWUPS.

You work hard, get your products right and market them well. You start getting visitors to your website. But they don’t result in sales, a lot of things can happen- on your website or outside your website. Stats suggest

Only about 10% of website visitors convert in their first visit.

What happens to the rest of 90% of the visitors, do you let them go even after you worked so hard to bring them on your website? Do you just sit and wait hoping for them to come back to your website. Chances are that they won’t probably even remember you once they leave your website.

So it is YOUR responsibility to remind them of you and ensure that they land up on your website again and ensure that this time they finally make a purchase. You do that by constantly staying in touch and following up.

8. Stagnation and not learning new skills

This is the second most lethal mistake that a handmade business owner can make. 

When you are starting out, more often than not you have to put on multiple hats- maker, marketer, photographer, accountant, packer, etc. You get so sucked up into all these activities that you forget to look beyond, into the world that is fast moving ahead. Find a schedule to upskill yourself- that could be an hour everyday or a particular day in the week, where you dedicate to learn what’s happening around- your competitors, technology, trends etc. This is especially true when you run a business online. Things advance so fast, it gets difficult to pace up with everything suddenly. Also, researching the market is not a one time thing. One MUST keep oneself abreast of trends. 

The reason why so many handmade business owners face these issues is because of lack of guidance. By the time they get the experience and know the right approach, they are usually so impatient and underconfident, that they feel no solution is going to work for them. They feel probably their products were not good enough and they pull the plug. While most of the times, it is not the product, it is the way the business was shaped up and the lack of expertise.

How would you feel if I told you I have a proven step-by-step blueprint to start a successful handmade business online!

The blueprint has been derived from our expertise of launching several successful handmade businesses online. We have done the experiments with our own money and burnt our fingers, so that you don’t have to go through the process again. If you are interested in learning this framework, I want to invite you to join my academy– Handmade Business Owners Academy, where I teach you how to launch, grow and scale your handmade business online.