Selling Crafts Online at e-Parties

This is an exciting new way of selling crafts online. The internet has globalised all sorts of businesses, and home parties are no exception. You can now have hostesses and guests from anywhere that you can ship your crafts to!

Obviously if you plan on selling crafts online you need to have a website where people can shop for your crafts.

For e-parties, unless you are able to make duplicates of all your products, your website will also need to track your inventory, and remove items as they are bought, so guests don't buy the same one of a kind item.

Advertise your online parties on your website, and also let guests at your normal home parties know that they have the option of hosting online. People often have lots of email friends from university, their old home town, etc who wouldn’t be able to come to a local home party.

In order for a hostess to book an online party she needs to let you have her name and email address and decide on the timeframe she wants to hold the party in, e.g. from 1-7 April (selling crafts online at e-parties requires a larger timeframe than ordinary home parties do, in order to give everyone a chance to get online to do their shopping).

You then email the invitation to the e-hostess to send to her guests, making sure you include a link to your website. Obviously the invitation needs to give the times/dates of the party, and don’t forget to tell the guests to enter the name of their e-hostess when they check out so you know who to apply the commission to. Alternatively you can give guests a code to use.

Guests then shop on your site in the timeframe given. Once the online party is over, you work out the commission for the e-hostess just as you usually would, and either send her a gift voucher or just send her an email telling her the amount she is entitled to. If she is entitled to a gift, then send that together with her purchases, as well as a thank you note.

Note: selling crafts online usually involves a shipping charge - make it clear upfront that this amount is not included in the sales total that counts towards the commission.

Finally, send each order straight to the customer, together with your business card and details of how they can host their own online party. You might also like to include a discount voucher to encourage them to shop with you again.

Advantages of selling crafts online at e-parties

• Online parties are a great way to increase your website's customer base. One of the challenges of selling crafts online is getting people to your website in the first place. Your hostess will invite people that otherwise wouldn’t have known about you, and because they received the invitation from someone they know and (hopefully) trust they’ll be more likely to purchase something.
• E-parties hardly take up any of your time other than to send out the orders.
• You don’t have to worry about setting up a display.
• If you are able to duplicate items, once you’ve photographed the first one you can just make to order.
• You can offer guests the option of subscribing to your newsletter, if you have one. This gives you plenty of chances to remind them in the future about your crafts and that they can host an online party of their own.

Disadvantages of selling craft online at e-parties

• You do lose the ‘try before you buy’ advantage of an ordinary home party. However, most of the guests wouldn’t have been able to attend your local home parties anyway, so their business is a bonus!
• You do need a website with a shopping cart facility and inventory control, which can be time consuming to set up. However, once it’s up and running it’s usually not too difficult to maintain, and hopefully the extra business you get will make it worth your while.

If you haven't yet got a website, read this general advice for selling crafts online.

Of course if you already have a suitable website for selling crafts online, doing e-parties can only benefit your business. Let me know how you get on!