If you’ve got a talent and are able to create your own goods to sell online, you’ll likely have an exceptionally high profit margin on these goods. The sky is the limit on the types of products you can sell online and the marketplaces are ready and waiting for you to offer your goods. You’ll find everything from jewelry and clothing to hand made scrapbooks. If you’ve not looked around on eBay lately, you should do so as you’ll be amazed at what people create and sell there.
While the profit margins are exceptional with hand made goods, the overall sales picture generally isn’t so rosy simply because of capacity issues. While you may see an 80% profit margin on a product you make and sell for $50, you may only be able to make 2 or 3 a week of that item. If you’ve got a product with a high resale value along with that high profit margin that you can produce mass quantities of in a relatively short period of time, you may indeed have a product that can support you over the long term.
There are several reasons why products made by their sellers are so popular and why they give you an instant boost over competitors that may be selling a similar product, but one that was made on an assembly line in China.
1. Quality
Without a doubt, the educated consumer wants and expects a product that is equal to its price tag. When someone is making their own product, they have complete control over the quality of the product. Make absolutely certain that your hand made products are of high quality before you start selling them.
2. Originality
If you’ve made a product that has a unique twist on a popular product that has been mass produced, you could really hit it big. People are always looking for products that are popular, yet unique.
3. Niche Based
Perhaps you’ve made something that’s not 100% unique, but something that is a very hard to find item that is used by people in a specific niche. My dad’s been a matchcover collector for years. Finding pages to mount the matchcovers to has become troublesome in recent years. Until someone came along that made pages with plastic inserts that fit the matchcovers perfectly. The person is the only one selling these pages, so he’s catering to a relatively small group of people, (12,000 at last count) but he’s got the market cornered.
4. Immediate Customer Base
Maybe you’ve made a product that caters to a group you belong to. Maybe you make woven alter cloths for churches in your area. You’ve got a built in customer base if you belong to a local church. Word will spread amongst the congregation quickly.
There are plenty of ways to make money from products that you make on your own. The chances of you doing well with one of these products is greatly enhanced if they fall into one of the categories above. Not only will you enjoy what you are doing, but you could very well be making a nice living doing it as well.
