The ecommerce concept has been around for decades, with many businesses adopting the idea of selling their products and services via marketplaces. In fact, the internet and advancing technology at large have transformed how businesses run and operate, with online shops topping the trend in the business field compared to physical shops. With access to the internet and a smart device, an entrepreneur can list and market their products and services seamlessly while end customers place their orders via online marketplaces and make purchases smoothly.

This guide gives you valuable insights on crafting a business, how to build such a marketplace, and the benefits of this business venture, among many other insights you need to know.

Online marketplace for crafters: a quick overview

An online marketplace for crafters is a platform where you can sell your unique and attractive creations to the target audience.

As long as you have a passion and hobby for making creative designs, decorative crafts, or any other form of crafts, you can start earning money by selling these crafts via online marketplaces.

Examples of crafts you can make and then sell via online marketplaces include ceramic/clay plant pots, tufted rugs and mats, tote bags, disco ball art, woven and knotted home décor, handmade beauty products, notecards, candles, gift tags, magnets, and key chains, among many others, The ideas are many, it all depends on what you are passionate about.

Benefits of online marketplace for crafters

A fully-fledged online marketplace for crafters has many benefits for marketplace owners, buyers, and sellers. Here are the benefits or advantages:

Benefits for sellers

• Large customer base

Through an online marketplace for crafters, it becomes easy for sellers to access and reach a wider market and customer base. By showcasing craft products via such a marketplace, interested or potential customers can easily access and purchase the products in a seamless manner. What’s more, the customer base isn’t limited to a specific region. Such a marketplace connects even a global audience, thus improving sales generally.

• Convenience

An online marketplace for crafters offers a safe and convenient space or platform for crafters to list and showcase their crafts. It can be hard to advertise such crafts to individual customers and turn them into potential customers. However, with such a marketplace, it is easy, seamless, and convenient to list and showcase your crafts in an effective manner, thus benefiting sellers big time.

• Feedback and reviews

Again, crafts sellers benefit a lot from an online marketplace for crafters, thanks to the feedback and review section from past clients.

Through feedback and reviews, craft sellers get a chance to learn what customers need and prefer, thus helping them gain valuable insights on how to tailor the crafts business to align with user preferences.

What’s more, positive reviews and feedback available on the platform convince other potential customers to trust and try your products. They act as an advertisement strategy to onboard more customers who want to purchase your crafts.

Benefits for buyers

Buyers or customers, too, benefit a lot from an online marketplace for crafters in the following ways:

• Access to unique products

In most cases, buyers might not find unique products from mainstream stores. This makes it hard to explore more options for the products they need. However, with an online marketplace for crafters, there are many listings of unique, appealing, captivating, and well-crafted crafts to choose from.

• Access to customized and personalized products

Sometimes, all a client needs is a special product customized or personalized in a specific manner. It can be a craft product with specific wordings or images. Again, this is hard to find in a local or even mainstream store. However, it is easy to access and enjoy such services from an online marketplace for crafters.

• Creating a solid relationship with the bigger community

By supporting and promoting crafters in diverse ways, buyers of crafts offer extensive support to such talents, thus creating a well-connected community with a spirit of togetherness.

Benefits for marketplace owners

Marketplace owners, too, benefit from an online marketplace for crafters in the following ways:

• Commission or fee percentage

The owner of an online marketplace for crafters gets a specific percentage of communion or fee from the transactions processed via the platform. This gives such owners a perfect stream to generate extra income.

• Better profits

A well-established online marketplace for crafters with proper strategies will attract more sellers and more buyers. This means the growing number of such marketplace users will generate more profits for the owner, thus giving an owner a chance to grow and expand their business.

• Online reputation

With proper measures and processes, an online marketplace for craft owners can build a positive brand reputation in the market. This sets them apart from the rest when it comes to offering the best crafts across the globe, thus enhancing business growth significantly.

Must-have features of online marketplace for crafters

Before we explore how to build an online marketplace for crafters, let’s explore the features of a fully-fledged online marketplace for crafters.

In a nutshell, an effective online marketplace for crafters should offer a user-friendly and secure platform for all users – buyers, and sellers, to promote unique crafts from different talents and offer secure payment methods or transactions. We have summarized the key features below:

• Communication &messaging

Buyers and sellers need effective communication to complete specific functionalities or processes within the platform. For instance, when a customer needs customized crafts, bargains prices has special requests, or has direct questions. Therefore, a well-planned online marketplace for crafters must have communication and messaging functionality for easy communication.

• Product listings

An online marketplace for crafters has different sellers with different crafts. Therefore, include a feature that enables every seller to list their products with the required details such as process, product descriptions, images, and any other vital details. This makes work for customers easier.

• Seller profiles & reviews

Include a section with each seller showcasing their profile. The profile should describe the brand identity of a specific seller, feedback & previous from past customers, and general crafts they are offering. This creates a sense of professionalism and credibility, thus enhancing trust among buyers.

• Shipping & logistics

Shipping and logistics are among the must-have features of an online marketplace for crafters. This feature helps execute shipping processes, track customer details, automate shipping labels, and specify shipping carriers.

• Search & filtering

Such a marketplace has many products. Therefore, search and listing features make it easy for buyers to browse and locate specific products with ease instead of going through thousands of products before finding a specific craft.

• Marketing & promotion

Sellers need to grow and expand their craft business by reaching and serving a wider customer base. Therefore, integrate tools and features that will enable sellers to advertise and make their products known to the target user audience. Social media sharing, featured listing, and marketing campaigns are among the best marketing and promotion strategies for an online marketplace for crafters.

• Secure transactions

Buyers and sellers often search for a platform that guarantees the security and privacy of their financial transactions and data. Therefore, include trusted and reliable payment gateways and methods within the online marketplace for crafters to promote seamless and secure transactions.

• Customer support

There might be arising issues o concerns either from buyers or sellers that need immediate action to resolve them, and this is where customer support comes in. Therefore, include a customer support feature to offer extensive support or any other services related to the marketplace dealings.

How to build an online marketplace for crafters: step-by-step process

Creating an online marketplace for crafters narrows down from defining your vision to launching and finally advertising and promoting the platform. Below are some quick steps to follow:

• Define your concept

Before you start building an online marketplace for crafters, you must have your unique idea and concept you want to achieve.

Know the type of crafts you want to sell, define the target customer base and the unique strategies that will help you stay competitive in the market.

Compare what other platforms selling similar products are doing and come up with a strategy that will enable you to penetrate the market faster and seamlessly.

• Do market research

With your idea defined, it’s time to do extensive market research on craft business. Think of what the customers need, evaluate the missing gaps in the market, and plan how to fill these gaps by creating a fully-fledged online marketplace for crafters.

• Create a business model

Think of how you will generate revenue from your marketplace for crafters. Don’t forget to factor in eCommerce pricing strategies, keeping in mind your competitors too. With this said, you can consider subscription plans, listing expenses, transaction costs, or a combination of all these.

• Define the platform features

Depending on your original business concept and business model, you need to figure out the features necessary for your platform. We’ve discussed above some of the must-have features for a compelling online marketplace for crafters. For instance, a secure payment or transaction system, user profiles, reviews & ratings, communication tools, product listings, and user profiles, among many others.

• Choose your tech stack

You can choose to use marketplace software, use a prebuilt platform, or create your marketplace for crafters from scratch. It all depends on the technical skills available, timelines, and budget.

• Create a marketplace for crafters

You can now create your online marketplace for crafters based on your business concept and the features you’ve highlighted.

If you aren’t in the tech field, consider hiring a marketplace development team from Aalpha Information Systems, for professional services at better costs.

• Testing

Before launching, you need to ensure that the platform operates and functions as expected. Test all the platform’s functionalities, including the payment system, the buying & selling processes, ease of communication, and all other features.

• Attract sellers

Before you launch your marketplace for crafters, you need sellers to start selling on the platform. Depending on the crafts you need to sell, reach out to potential sellers and offer them incentives to join your marketplace.

• Launching

Finally, with several sellers on the platform and ensuring all the features and functionalities are perfect, you can now launch the marketplace. Allow some small group of users to test the platform’s effectiveness and collect feedback.

Adjust where necessary based on the feedback received, then open the marketplace to all users to start operating fully.

• Marketing

You now want to make your marketplace for crafters known to a wider audience. Put in place marketing and advertising strategies such as partnerships, paid ads, social media marketing, and content marketing, among many other strategies. The goal is to reach the target customer base seamlessly.

• Feedback collection & platform improvement

As the users continue to interact and use your platform, allow them to leave feedback based on their experiences. Use this feedback to adjust and improve the marketplace to become better.

• Grow and scale

This is the final step in creating an online marketplace for crafters. Think about how to keep scaling and growing your business with the growing user base. For instance, you can start personalization & recommendations based on available data sets, build community features, or expand new craft categories or markets.

Note: When building an online marketplace for crafters, you must ensure the safety and convenience of both sellers and buyers. That is why the process requires continuous adjustments and improvements based on feedback collected.

Therefore, invest your time in planning and integrating vital features that will pay off once you launch your marketplace for crafters.

What is the cost of building an online marketplace for crafters?

The cost of building an online marketplace for crafters is dependent on several factors, including the following:

• Marketplace complexity

A complex marketplace with extensive features will cost more. For instance, development expenses, including design, data setup, backend, and frontend development costs, differ significantly based on the craft niche you want to specialize in.

• Integrated features

Again, depending on the number of features you want to integrate into your marketplace, the costs can be less or more. These features depend on the type of crafts niche you are specializing in. Product listings, secure payments or transactions, user registration, shopping cart, order management, and search & filter functionality are examples of core features to integrate into a marketplace for crafters.

• Marketing and advertising

Before you attract sellers and buyers to your marketplace, you must incur promotion and marketing expenses, and this influences the overall costs of building an online marketplace for crafters. SEO optimization, content creation, social media campaigns, and online advertising are examples of marketing and promotion strategies for a crafts marketplace.

• Hosting and security

You will need a domain name for your crafts marketplace, SSL certificates for data protection, hosting services, and general security of the marketplace. All these require extra costs, which influence the general costs of building a crafts marketplace.

• Regular maintenance and support

Finally, take into account costs related to maintenance and support services of the marketplace. Customer support, server maintenance, and regular updates are examples of extra services, and these attract extra costs.

So, depending on the factors highlighted above, the cost of building an online platform for craters can range from $5,000 – $150,000 or even more.

Best business ideas for an online marketplace for crafts

So, you want to build an online marketplace for crafts but don’t have a viable business idea? Below are some considerations you can choose from:

• International crafts discovery marketplace

The key concept here is to build a marketplace that showcases handmade crafts from artisans across the globe, celebrating craftsmanship in relation to diverse cultures worldwide.

With such a platform, you can generate revenue through subscription plans, artisan membership fees, and sales commissions.

With many users embracing diverse cultures and crafts, this concept will help you reach out to international marketplace users, thus attracting a large user base.

Your target audience here should be creative and innovative business people with a global audience and vision of supporting craftsmen across the globe.

• Customizable craft marketplace

This marketplace idea creates a platform where buyers can request personalized or customized products from craftsmen.

You can monetize such a marketplace by putting a fee for premium services (communication between crafters and customers) and a customized order fee.

This concept is viable because personalization is among the trending practices in the ecommerce sector. Many ecommerce owners strive to offer customized and personalized services as a way of beating the market competition and satisfying user preferences.

• Handmade goods marketplace

Another crafts marketplace you can try and explore is the handmade products marketplace. It is all about offering a platform showcasing handmade crafts like bespoke jewelry, artisan pottery, and customized leatherwork.

You can generate revenue through advertising for craft supply businesses, craters subscription fees, commission from sales, and listing fees.

This is a viable business concept since many users need unique products that aren’t available in main stores or shops.

• Artisanal digital products platform

This concept is all about creating a crafter’s marketplace to show or display digital crafts by skilled craftsmen. Examples include graphic designs, patterns, and printables.

You can generate revenue through hosting webinars & tutorials, membership fees to access content, and commission from sales.

Digital products don’t need a lot of overhead. Besides, many customers are already embracing digital products, and this makes this business concept a viable business idea.

Your target audience should be tech experts who are passionate about navigating the digital landscape and creating magical crafts.

• Online craft fairs and exhibitions

This concept is all out, creating a marketplace for crafters where craftsmen can display and sell their crafts virtually.

You can generate revenue through sponsorship deals from craft businesses, sales attendee ticket fees, and artisan’s booth fees.

This is a viable business concept because virtual events reach a wider market reach without geographical limitations.

Your target audience here are craftsmen who are passionate and talented when it comes to creating captivating virtual crafts similar to physical crafts affairs and engagements within a community.

Examples of online marketplace for selling crafts

As you plan to build a good online marketplace for crafters, below are some of the platforms offering sellers to showcase their crafts and buyers to purchase their best crafts.

• Etsy

This is one of the leading marketplaces that showcases customized and handmade crafts. The goal is to keep the human touch and cultural practices alive through handmade crafts designed by sellers.

Users can create an account on Etsy for free but pay a fee of $0.20 for listing products. The marketplace also generates revenue by deducting 6.5% of every payment made by the customer or buyer.

• eBay

eBay allows sellers to sell diverse art, crafts, and second products. It is an online marketplace for crafters where every user must pay different costs to use and access the functionalities of the platform.

Sellers, for instance, pay international fees, final value, and insertion fees to explore the different features and functionalities of the eBay marketplace.

However, once you pay the costs, your product is displayed to millions of users across the globe. Above all, you are protected against abrupt shipping issues and malicious buyers.

• Amazon Handmade

This is a platform made exclusively for verified craftsmen who want to explore and take their crafting passion and vision to the next level.

Through Amazon handmade, craftsmen can sell their crafts on Amazon and reach millions of active users across the globe.

There is a regular or basic Amazon handmade account and an approved professional selling account at $39.99 monthly.

• Cratejoy

With Cratejoy, small craftsmen can sell their crafts through subscription boxes.

The charges are $24.99 per month or $59 per month to access premium services.

• Big Cartel

This is another crafts marketplace where small or upcoming crafters showcase their crafts.

With Big Cartel, it is easy to create a simple website specifically for selling your crafts, thus giving your business a professional outlook.

The platform has a free plan, but sellers who want to reach an expanded customer base can pay for subscription plans to access premium features.

• indieCart

This is an online marketplace for craftsmen who specialize in handmade pottery, facemasks, and jewelry items. Its user-friendliness and affordability make the platform stand out.

With a monthly fee of $7.50, you can access the platform and list your crafts without having to worry about hidden costs.

• iCraft

Finally, we have the iCraft marketplace, a platform that allows users to sell handmade crafts to millions of customers across the globe.

This platform is limited to artists who produce handmade crafts only; hence no room for redistributed and mass-produced products.

The platform attracts a fee of $25 for one-time payments with a monthly subscription fee between $10 and $15.

Conclusion

An online marketplace for crafters is a reliable platform connecting passionate and talented craftsmen with customers who fancy unique crafts and related products across the globe.

With the many options available to explore, you can begin your journey of creating a crafts marketplace today and start earning extra income while serving a global audience.

The key to building a successful online marketplace for crafters is identifying the niche, understanding your target audience, doing competitor analysis, and then building a rich-in-feature crafts marketplace that is user-friendly and easy to use.

Want build online marketplace for crafters? Contact our eCommerce development company, we are here to help you.