Launching an online business doesn’t have to involve a large investment or advanced technical skills.
Numerous successful entrepreneurs started by creating simple products at home and selling them online. Many have transformed their hobbies into flourishing businesses.
Selling homemade products allows you to manage your expenses, ensure quality, and maximize profit margins.
There is an increasing number of customers who favor handmade goods over mass-produced alternatives, often willing to pay a premium for authentic, crafted items.
We have researched successful homemade product ventures and pinpointed the items that consistently yield high returns. These are products you can begin crafting today with basic skills and materials, and they have the potential to evolve into substantial income sources.
Why Should You Create and Sell Homemade Products Online?
If you’re looking to earn money online, selling homemade items is an excellent option. It enables you to showcase your unique creations and turn your passion into a profitable enterprise.
The global market for handmade products has been on a steady rise, and a recent report forecasts it will exceed $1 trillion by 2027. This indicates a robust demand for artisanal goods.
Additionally, there are numerous advantages to pursuing this type of business.
As an artisan and small business owner, you have the freedom to create your own schedule and work on your terms. You can start with small projects and gradually expand, making this business model easier to manage.
Launching an online store for your handmade creations is an excellent way to minimize expenses. You don’t need a significant investment to begin, and you can operate your business from home. This approach allows you to save on costs like rent for a physical storefront and the expenses associated with producing items in bulk.
In summary, selling homemade products is a sustainable business opportunity in a growing market, allowing you to transform your passion into a source of income.
Why You Can Trust CanadaCreate?
At CanadaCreate, we are dedicated to discovering and sharing the best ideas with you. We have thoroughly researched the realm of selling homemade goods.
Our team has examined each idea in detail, evaluating the benefits and potential challenges. We do this to help you identify a path that suits you well.
Starting a business can be challenging, and we recognize that. With years of experience in online selling, we understand what contributes to your success. Our guidance is rooted in real-world experience, not mere speculation.
We recommend homemade products because we believe they can significantly contribute to your business growth. For more information, please refer to our editorial process.
Now, let’s explore our curated list of fantastic items you can sell online. You can also use the links below to jump directly to your preferred recommendation:
- 1. Handmade Jewelry
- 2. Canvas Art
- 3. Personalized T-Shirts
- 4. Digital Ebooks
- 5. Custom Pillowcases
- 6. Stock Photography
- 7. Online Learning Courses
- 8. Stationery Items
- 9. Reusable Tote Bags
- 10. Knitted Crafts
- 11. Subscription Boxes
- 12. Original Music
- A Guide to Selling Homemade Products Online
- Pro Tip: Utilize Seahawk’s WordPress Website Design Services to Build Your Online Store
- Common Questions About Selling Homemade Products Online
1. Handmade Jewelry
Creating and selling handcrafted jewelry such as necklaces, earrings, anklets, bracelets, and nose rings can be a lucrative venture. It provides an opportunity to express your creativity through unique designs and allows you to tailor custom pieces to meet your customers’ individual tastes.
Through our research on online marketplaces, we found numerous businesses successfully selling handmade jewelry and achieving impressive profits. These findings reinforced our belief in the lucrative potential of this niche and the opportunities it offers.
Expert Advice: Are you ready to start your own handmade jewelry business? Follow our comprehensive guide on setting up an Etsy-like store using WordPress to get your shop up and running quickly and effortlessly.
You can create beautiful jewelry pieces from the comfort of your home with a relatively low initial investment compared to traditional retail. This approach allows you to offer competitive prices and attract more customers.
2. Canvas Paintings
Canvas paintings represent another excellent homemade product to sell online. If you’re an artist, producing original artwork can help you enter the home decor market and generate quick income.
This approach enables you to showcase your artwork to a global audience without the constraints of a physical gallery, making your art accessible to customers around the clock. Simply set up a basic WooCommerce store to display your creations.
By selling your canvas paintings online, you can expand your market reach, cultivate a loyal customer base, and transform your passion into a thriving business.
3. Custom T-Shirts
Create and sell custom t-shirts from home by using platforms like Spreadshirt, where you can easily upload your unique designs for shirts, hoodies, mugs, or keychains.
Our experience with Spreadshirt demonstrates its user-friendly interface for designing and selling custom products, producing high-quality results even for beginners.
When a customer places an order, the platform manages printing, shipping, and customer service for the shirt, allowing you to earn a commission without any initial investment. This lets you express your creativity while generating income.
Bonus Tip:To increase your earnings, consider promoting your t-shirts on social media. For detailed guidance, check out our comprehensive social media cheat sheet.
For more details, refer to our tutorial on how to easily set up a t-shirt shop using WordPress.
4. Ebooks
If you enjoy writing, consider publishing and selling ebooks to generate extra income. These can include novels, short stories, tutorials, guides, or any topics you are passionate about.
Selling ebooks offers a scalable business opportunity since you only need to create one copy that can be sold to countless customers. This model allows you to reach a global audience, provide instant access to readers, and easily update or revise your ebooks as necessary.
As an author, you have full control over the pricing, distribution, and marketing of your work. To launch your ebook store, consider using Easy Digital Downloads, the top plugin for selling digital products.
We have successfully utilized EDD to sell plugins across various websites, and our experience has been overwhelmingly positive. Its scalability and extensive features make it an indispensable tool for our eCommerce ventures.
For more information, check out our beginner’s guide on how to create and sell ebooks from start to finish.
5. Pillowcases
Pillowcases are a fantastic handmade item to sell online. You can make them distinctive by incorporating various embroidery techniques and offering different sizes to appeal to a broader audience.
Handcrafted items like pillowcases generally yield higher profit margins compared to mass-produced products. You can set prices that reflect the time, effort, and materials used in their creation. Additionally, you can let customers choose colors, patterns, and sizes that match their individual tastes.
Bonus: To differentiate yourself in a competitive market, consider offering seasonal, limited-edition designs or holiday-themed pillowcases with promotional discounts. This strategy can create urgency and encourage customer loyalty. For more details, refer to our beginner’s guide on planning a holiday sale for your WooCommerce store.
If you have a passion for crafting and embroidering unique patterns, this can be a rewarding opportunity to transform your hobby into a profitable venture.
6. Stock Photos
If you are a photographer, you can monetize your images by selling them as stock photos, providing a source of passive income. There is a steady demand for high-quality images for various applications, including websites, marketing materials, blogs, and social media.
You can upload your photos to public domain platforms like Unsplash, allowing you to sell them multiple times without extra effort. This not only generates income but also enhances your portfolio, potentially leading to commissioned projects or collaborations.
To start selling your photos online, all you need is a camera and some basic photo editing skills. This approach eliminates the need for a physical store or extensive inventory, making it a budget-friendly option.
For more information, check out our guide on how to sell photos online.
7. Online Courses
Consider creating and selling online courses from the comfort of your home. If you have expertise in playing the guitar, for example, you can produce instructional videos to teach others. After recording your lessons, you can sell them repeatedly, generating passive income with little ongoing effort.
To launch this venture, we recommend MemberPress, the leading membership plugin available. It is the simplest way to sell courses online.
For additional details about the plugin, please refer to our comprehensive MemberPress review.
We personally use this tool to provide our free video courses at CanadaCreate and find MemberPress to be extremely user-friendly and scalable, making it an excellent choice for starting a small business. For more guidance, check out our tutorial on how to create and sell online courses using WordPress.
8. Handmade Stationery Products
If you enjoy sewing and DIY projects, consider making and selling handmade stationery items such as pencil cases, bookmarks, notebooks, clipboards, pen holders, stickers, and more.
This approach allows you to offer unique products, promote eco-friendly materials, and start your business with a low investment. It’s a fantastic way to earn money from your hobbies, especially given the increasing demand for handmade stationery items.
Selling these handmade products allows you to reach a niche market, express your creativity, and engage with customers who value unique and personalized items.
Expert Advice:After launching your online store, consider utilizing email marketing to keep your customers updated on new stationery products, exclusive deals, and upcoming events. This strategy will help you maintain direct communication with your audience. For additional insights, check out our guide on building an email list in WordPress.
9. Tote Bags
Tote bags are an excellent handmade product to sell online. They provide a stylish alternative to plastic bags and have gained popularity for their eco-friendly nature.
These versatile bags can be used for shopping, carrying personal belongings, or as fashionable accessories, appealing to a diverse range of tastes and lifestyles. You can craft these bags using various fabrics and patterns to create distinctive designs.
This venture not only helps you earn extra income but also promotes environmental sustainability.
10. Knitted Items
If you enjoy knitting, you can create and sell socks, sweaters, scarves, mittens, and beanies. This market experiences high demand during the winter months, providing an excellent opportunity to turn your hobby into a source of income.
Create unique designs, craft personalized items, and offer exclusive pieces that your customers will love.
Additionally, consider making smaller products like mittens and socks by repurposing old sweaters, fostering a sustainable and eco-friendly business model.
Pro Tip:Utilize platforms like Instagram and Facebook to set up a shop directly on your profile, allowing your followers to easily browse and purchase your knitted creations. You can also host live demonstrations, tutorials, or share behind-the-scenes content to engage your audience and increase sales.
To begin, check out our beginner’s guide to social commerce using WordPress.
11. Subscription Boxes
If you have a variety of handmade products to offer, consider launching a subscription box. This allows you to send a curated selection of items to your customers each month.
For example, you could create a beauty subscription box filled with lip balms, body scrubs, bath bombs, soaps, and perfumes. This model generates recurring revenue, as customers are more inclined to subscribe for regular deliveries rather than making one-time purchases.
To get started, you’ll need the WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin. We have extensively tested this tool and found it to be highly effective for managing subscription-based offerings.
Its seamless integration with WooCommerce makes it an excellent choice for setting up recurring payments and ensuring a positive customer experience. For detailed guidance, check out our tutorial on creating a subscription box in WordPress.
12. Music
Music is an incredibly popular digital product to sell online. If you’re a musician, you can easily sell your own songs and melodies on the internet.
One of the main benefits of selling digital music is its scalability. You only need to create the product once, and you can sell it repeatedly. This allows you to generate significant income without the costs associated with physical production and distribution.
To sell your music online, we strongly recommend Easy Digital Downloads. This recommendation comes from extensive testing and our own experience in selling digital products.
The platform is user-friendly and dependable, making it an ideal choice. For more information, see our tutorial on how to sell music online in WordPress.
How to Start Selling Homemade Goods Online
Once you have selected a homemade product to sell, it’s time to create your online store. Start by choosing a website builder, and we recommend WordPress for its user-friendly interface and affordability. It’s trusted by over 43% of websites on the internet.
Our partner brands, including WPForms, MonsterInsights, and OptinMonster, successfully utilize WordPress to create and sell a variety of products.
After selecting a website builder, the next step is to purchase a hosting plan and a domain name. Hosting is where all your website’s data is stored, while the domain is your site’s address on the internet, such as www.sellhomemadeitems.com.
To ensure you receive quality services, it’s wise to choose one of the WordPress-recommended hosting providers, such as Bluehost.
Additionally, Bluehost is currently offering a significant discount for CanadaCreate readers, along with a free domain name and SSL certificate. Click the button below to take advantage of this offer.
You can also read our comprehensive Bluehost review for further information.
Once you have secured a web hosting plan, the next step is to install WordPress to set up your online store.
Start by selecting a visually appealing theme for your website that aligns with your niche. Check out our list of the most popular WordPress themes for inspiration.
Next, choose an eCommerce plugin to facilitate online sales of your products. The best choice depends on what you’re selling. For physical items like jewelry, paintings, or tote bags, WooCommerce is highly recommended.
If you plan to sell digital products such as music or ebooks, consider using Easy Digital Downloads.
You can easily add products to your online store using the user-friendly features offered by your chosen eCommerce plugin.
Additionally, you’ll need to set up payment gateways, create product categories, start a newsletter, and much more.
For detailed guidance, check out our comprehensive guide on starting an online store or our complete WordPress eCommerce setup guide.
Bonus Tip: Utilize Seahawk’s WordPress Website Design Services to create your online store effortlessly.
If building your own website doesn’t appeal to you, that’s perfectly fine. It can be a lengthy process, and you might prefer to begin selling your homemade products right away.
That’s why we recommend Seahawk Media’s WordPress Website Design Services. Their experienced team specializes in creating WordPress websites and can quickly launch your ideal online store.
You will have a dedicated project manager who will collaborate with you to bring your vision to life and provide multiple revisions to ensure your complete satisfaction with the website design.
Additionally, the team will fully set up your WooCommerce store, generate AI-written content, and even create a blog for you. They can enhance your site’s SEO, ensure fast loading times, and implement analytics to track key metrics such as conversions and cart abandonment.
Moreover, they offer competitive pricing, making it a fantastic option for small businesses.
Common Questions About Selling Homemade Products Online
In this section, we will address some of the most common questions regarding the sale of homemade products online.
What is the best online platform for selling handmade items?
While platforms like Etsy and Amazon Handmade are popular for selling handmade goods, they may not be the best fit for everyone. These platforms charge high fees for listing and selling each item, which can cut into your profits.
We believe that the best platform for selling handmade items is your own website. This way, you can retain more of your profits without sharing a significant portion with third-party marketplaces. For beginners, WordPress offers a user-friendly and cost-effective solution for creating your online store.
However, once your DIY business gains traction online, it can also be beneficial to market and sell your handmade products on social media platforms.
What is the most popular DIY item to sell?
Jewelry, candles, and artwork rank among the top-selling homemade products online. Additionally, there is a substantial demand for custom tote bags and personalized t-shirts. Other unique DIY items you can consider selling include ebooks, online courses, and even music.
Is it profitable to sell crafts online?
Selling crafts online can indeed be very lucrative. However, it is essential to select your products carefully and manage your expenses effectively to maximize your profits.
A great way to achieve this is by using an affordable platform like WordPress for your online store. This beginner-friendly website builder allows you to list your products without sacrificing a portion of your profits.
How can I competitively price my handmade products?
Determining the right price can be challenging. Begin by evaluating the cost of materials, the time invested, and the demand in the market. Look into similar products to establish a competitive price range.
Remember to include any fees from selling platforms or payment processors in your pricing strategy. This ensures that all expenses are covered and that you can make a profit. For additional advice, check out our guide on pricing eCommerce products effectively.
What are the best strategies for marketing my handmade products online?
Social media is an incredibly effective tool for marketing your products. We suggest sharing behind-the-scenes content, customer testimonials, and product reviews to connect with your audience.
Utilizing search engine optimization (SEO) and email marketing can help you maintain communication with potential customers.
What is the best way to manage shipping and delivery for my handmade products?
Partnering with reliable shipping companies is essential for ensuring timely deliveries. Clearly communicate estimated delivery times on your website to set proper expectations. Consider using tools that offer tracking and automated shipping calculations integrated with your eCommerce platform.
This article provides insights into various homemade products you can create and sell online for additional income. Don’t forget to check out our comprehensive eCommerce launch checklist for WordPress and our recommendations for the best eCommerce plugins to kickstart your online store.
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