Does My Small Handmade Product Business Need a Website?

You make stunning baby clothing, gift baskets or custom decals to sell; do you need a website, or can you sell just through Facebook? Running a small business is exciting. It is also time consuming and is often stressful. From knowing how much to charge for your handmade products, through to deciding what to make, taking orders, organising shipping and whether you want to sell wholesale or not, there is so much to think about.

We'll take a look at the pros and cons of selling through a website and selling via Facebook, plus share some tips on how to price your products.

Selling Via Facebook: Pros and Cons

Using Facebook to advertise and sell your products through is a common strategy for Mums running a business from home. It's free, you can grow an audience of followers and can use the messaging system to take orders for your handmade products.

However, there are a few problems with selling through Facebook that you're likely to come across:

• Facebook controls who they show your content too. While you may have 500 page followers, a post may only be seen by 20 or less of those people.
• Facebook owns your business page, not you. You have limited control as to what you can post onto it and Facebook can remove your posts too.
• It's hard for customers to find your products. There's no easy way to search through Facebook to find specific items to buy.
• Orders need to be taken manually by you. Customers can't place and order automatically like they could on a website.
• It takes up so much time to post regularly, engage with your followers and manually accept orders from customers.
• To be seen, you're going to need to pay for Facebook advertising.

It does have some pros though, which are not to be sneezed at. It is free, it's used by millions of people worldwide and you can run a small business though it, but with limitations. However, to:

• make your business more profitable
• reach a wider variety of customers
• control what you show others
• automate the buying and selling process
• accept payments with credit cards or LayBuy
• give you back time to spend with your family

you need a website for your business!

Why Should I Get a Website?

To sell more, reach more customers, and grow your business, you need a website. Here are eight reasons why you, as a Mum in business, need a website:

1. You are in control of it
2. Your customers expect you to have a website and to be able to use it to buy your products
3. It's easy to build a website and add products to it
4. You can offer a range of payment options, which customers really want - LayBuy, PayPal, PoliPay, internet banking
5. Your competitors have websites
6. Your website is open 24/7 and you don't have to be online to make a sale
7. Your handmade products will be found in Google search results
8. It's cheaper and more profitable than Facebook advertising

Pricing Handmade Products to Sell

When pricing your handmade products, you need to take into consideration the cost of materials, the cost of your time, expenses such as electricity and product storage, plus the amount of tax you will pay. A general guide of thumb is to add all of these things and then double them to get your purchase price. There is a great article on the Business Networking NZ website which discusses in detail how to set your wholesale prices that is well worth reading!

Hundreds of Mums like you have used our free website builder to create their own website. We'd love to offer you a 30 day trial to get you started. As we're based in NZ, our support team are available when you need us and we also have a free Facebook Website World support group too.

Don't forget that networking with other mums in business is also important. Come and join the free Facebook networking group Business Networking NZ for some help in growing your business!