Handmade bow and clothing business

[Mrsahmed80]

Hi my name is Iqra and I make handmade items for babies such as clothing and hair accessories. I’m fairly new and only made Instagram roughly 8 months ago. Are there people out there that buy handmade? I know before I started making items I never did buy them thinking they were overpriced but now that I’ve come to make my own I now realise the costs..


I wanted to build a following and to do this I had sent out freebies (bow box to a number of winners) I want to start doing mini raffles so the winner gets a suprise bow box for as little as £1 and all they have to do pay postage.. this is for my bows only, however I can do the same for clothing but start it at £2.50 a number..

I’m unsure in what to do to gain a customer base, pictures of the bows don’t do them justice also the items of clothes are beautiful..

What would you lovely people suggest?

How can I see the pennies comming in.. I have over 6k followers on my clothing page and 2k on my accessories page

Please help..

[delilahbucket]

Freebies and social media likes do not equal sales. You cannot run a raffle in this manner without a gambling licence. You have entered into product categories that are already massively oversubscribed with cheap imports from China, so what makes your products different and better? You would be far better selling via somewhere like Etsy where the site gets the footfall. Make sure you are compliant with the Consumer Contract Regulations 2013 as this is one major thing that stops me from buying.
There are lots of people who buy handmade. I have run a handmade business for over seven years and it is very successful. You just have to be able to sell what people want and at a reasonable price that still allows you to earn more than minimum wage and if you can't then you are wasting your time and money. I don't understand how some sellers get out of bed for £2 an hour

[RockinHippy]

I agree with Delilah above.

You'd be far better with the likes of Etsy, or Folksy etc & join the relevant Facebook groups to help you understand how to promote your business better, the Etsy group for example is very friendly & helpful. People looking for handmade go to these sites, not instagram etc, they tend to be used more as a promotional arm, than for actual sales. I've even done well with some handcrafted items on eBay


"I’m unsure in what to do to gain a customer base, pictures of the bows don’t do them justice also the items of clothes are beautiful.."

TBH, this statement is of concern, you don't seem to be producing anything particularly unusual, so you have a massive amount of competition, some of that being cheap imports too. Online sales rely on photographs that at very least do your products justice. Poor photos & poor wording will lose you sales. Drop the handmade in favour of handcrafted for example & improve your photos, or get professional help from a photographer.