Crafts To Make And Sell

Testing Your Craft Idea (Cont')

In this short series of articles I've been writing about how to come up with ideas for crafts to make and sell. I wasn't sure how many articles there would be, but I have decided that this will be the last of this series.

In my previous article I wrote about how to start testing your idea to see if it's a good one. In this article I want to focus in on cost and pricing from this same perspective of testing your craft idea.

Cost and pricing can sometimes be the part that peoples overlook. You would think that we would want to make sure we were making a profit, but sometimes we get attached to an idea, and just start moving forward figuring that it will work out in the end.

In reality, unless we are planning on doing some work for charity, or for a friend, we need to make sure that the numbers are going to work in order for us to move forward with our idea.

Let me share a personal story to help make the point. My wife and I have thought now and again that we would like our older children to have some little business where they could learn the value of hard work, and how to manage money.

We have had a few ideas, but nothing has really stuck. Recently we got an idea as we were hunting around for some bunk beds for our boys who are ages 7 and 12. We were looking for a used set to help keep the cost down, and have found it rather challenging to say the least.

We called on several that we found listed on the web, but by the time we got to most of them, they were gone. We eventually came to the point where we started talking about making a set. We thought, if it's this hard to find a good set, and some of the brand new ones are so expensive, then maybe we should just see how much the wood is to build one.

I did some preliminary investigation, and it looked good. But, I needed to get more detailed information on the cost. I knew that if the cost vs. price of a bunk bed was really close, then it wouldn't be worth our effort.

I already had a good idea of what the price for a new set was, because my wife had done so much checking (she's really good at checking prices and getting deals). So I made my way over to the home improvement store and added up the cost of the lumber.

The more we have investigated it, the more we believe that not only can we make a bunk bed economically, but making and selling the beds could be a great thing for the kids to pursue. While there has been more than just cost and sale price that have gone into the decision, these were critical considerations. If these weren't going to fall in line where they needed too, then the idea would have been tossed out.

This is the same approach you need to take with your craft idea. Work the numbers. Is there really a profit to be made, or is it going to be slim pickin's?

Can you imagine if we had said, Let's go buy a bunch of wood and start making beds, before we knew the cost and what they could be sold for? That would have been crazy! That type of decision making is a great way to loose money.

Yet, many people proceed with an idea just that way. They get an idea for a craft, and they decide to go ahead with it no matter what. They don't really stop to consider whether or not there is a real profit to be made. Sometimes it can be because we don't want to feel like we've failed because the idea won't work out.

In reality, having ideas, testing them, and keeping the good ones is the real measure of your success. No one's ideas are all going to work out. That's why we test them. That's also part of what makes a business fun; always coming up with new ideas and seeing what will work.

Sometimes people see that they can make some profit, so they just go ahead without considering in any real detail of how much profit there is. When you get an idea for a craft, you should already have decided how much money you want to be paying yourself. Are you going to pay yourself $5.00, $10.00, or $15.00 an hour? If you know that it takes an hour to manufacture your craft, and your costs are $5.00, are you going to be able to sell it for at least $15 - $20?

If you can't say Yes to that question, then move on to a new idea. Otherwise you won't be meeting your goals and you'll only become frustrated. And, if you keep making those kind of decisions it probably won't be long before you start loosing money and maybe even go out of business.

Get an honest and realistic picture of what your idea will cost you and what you can sell it for. Then you'll be able to make an informed, profitable and successful decision.

Crafts To Make And Sell Part 1
Crafts To Make And Sell Part 2