Selling Online

I have sold a few things online.Got a little too much for me.So I just sell at my leisure,at flea markets.But I am Glad to read that your doing so Great.

I just do Crafts Shows and a Farmers Market. We advertise special orders welcomed and before I knew what was going on it turned into a full time business. Right now on average I move about 25 to 75 pieces a month. Less in the spring and a lot more in the fall. I have thought and talked to the Mrs. about a web site or something similar but don't have the time to attend to it. The Mrs. is computer illiterate so that would mean having to pay someone to take of it. After reading this it possibly could  be worth it . Something to think about. Very interested in what others have to saw also. I also do custom furniture completely by hand which is extremely time consuming. 

Wayne,

you said you also make furniture by hand, I would really be interested in seeing some pictures if you have any. I too have made some pices but just for our own house, and also used power tools, RJ

I keep saying I'm going to charge but it pretty much doesn't happen.

3 hours ago, rjweb said:

Wayne,

you said you also make furniture by hand, I would really be interested in seeing some pictures if you have any. I too have made some pices but just for our own house, and also used power tools, RJ

Here is a bed side table I made for a local lady. It matched one she had from her Mom that was 100 - 125 years old. Made from Cherry. No finish just a picture of the completed project less finish. It was stained to match and finished with several coats of shellac to keep it period correct. Hand cut dove tails, mortise and tenon joints. Legs were turned on my lathe.

I've been thinking of selling on line for a while. If you don't mind, I have a few questions. First, how do you figure shipping cost? And how do you ship items that don't fit well into a standard box.  I just sold the second amendment plaque I made. It measured approximately 14.25x 24. If I had to ship it, I don't know how I would pack it. 

That's beautiful a real craftsman, do you use all hand tools, thx for sharing, RJ

Wow I figured the shipping questions would come up.. I could write a book on shipping as it gets kind of tricky.. especially when you get into international shipping.. they have so many rules and regulations about things you can and cannot ship.. Some counties won't allow certain types of wood while another right next door country will .. and if you ship an item to a country that is against their rules.. you get a huge fine and possibly prison time.... they are no joke to mess with..  . Anyway... 

Most larger towns have shipping centers.. we have one called pakmail.. while their main business is people to bring their items into them to be packaged and shipped by them.. However they do sell packing supplies.. and they carry a lot of unique different styles of boxes etc.. I used to have the need for those things when I sold used car and tractor parts.. But with my woodworking.. to keep it simple I just stick to standard sizes etc.. I buy boxes in bulk and try to keep my items in a size that allows me to have to only stock up on about 4 different sized boxes..

I went the extra mile with shipping and spent a long time researching and looking into the most cost effective ways to ship.. Doing this helped me get an edge on the other scroll sawers prices..  so I could ship my items safely yet cheaper than most others shipping cost.. The average Etsy seller just uses those flat rate boxes and everything is standard priced.. though high priced because most everything if shipped my weight is cheaper.. The only time I've ever ran into a better deal on a flat rate box was when I was shipping 50# tractor wheel weights.. LOL.. Hey they said if it fits it ships.. By weight they wanted $60 each box. standard mail... but the flat rate box was only like $15 each.. and priority mail to boot, LOL Anyway.. most all items I sell can be shipped first class mail.. in some cases priority works out better priced because it comes with a standard shipping insurance..    

I'm finding that shipping is going to be a huge deal for me as I'm in an extremely remote area. Besides the Post Office, our closest shipping center is over an hour away. Along with that, a lot of things I've been able to sell are larger than the flat rate boxes. I'm still trying to figure out the best options available.

2 hours ago, rjweb said:

That's beautiful a real craftsman, do you use all hand tools, thx for sharing, RJ

RJ other then my lathe, yes all hand work. Thanks for the kind words too.

Thx Wayne, anyone building with hand tools has always made me envy of that beautiful work you are doing. I use to live in Pa on the east coast outside Philadelphia, thx RJ

Setting aside time to make a fair or craft show is almost out of the question for me. So it comes down to traffic flow on web sites,...which is ebay and esty. I try to be as fair all around as possible, but people send me msg about the cost of shipping. I suspect I lost sales due to shipping. With % of sales charge, I am going to try a risk and increase prices and drop the shipping charge.

Shipping is tough to figure out. At least for me. I just tell my customers that what I pay you pay. No handling or other charges. Once shipped I send them an invoice and get paid. A little risky but I have not been burned as of yet. I'm sure people list shipping costs online, just not sure how they came up with the cost. Is there some equation used for this? Most times it seems high to me.

46 minutes ago, WayneMahler said:

Shipping is tough to figure out. At least for me. I just tell my customers that what I pay you pay. No handling or other charges. Once shipped I send them an invoice and get paid. A little risky but I have not been burned as of yet. I'm sure people list shipping costs online, just not sure how they came up with the cost. Is there some equation used for this? Most times it seems high to me.

3 hours ago, MTCowpoke22 said:

I'm finding that shipping is going to be a huge deal for me as I'm in an extremely remote area. Besides the Post Office, our closest shipping center is over an hour away. Along with that, a lot of things I've been able to sell are larger than the flat rate boxes. I'm still trying to figure out the best options available.

I purchased a small shipping scale off eBay for around $10 several years ago.. makes things so much easier to weigh the items you make.. be sure to add the weight of the box and packing material. too.. Not sure if the USPS web site still has a PDF of cost sheets or not.. but used to be able to view a price sheet by weight and destination zones.. I'm so used to it now that I just know the cost of something by the weight / size.. For fixed price shipping I put in the cost to the highest priced zone from my origin of shipping. Now many web sites ( eBay and Etsy ) have integrated with USPS so you can just enter that weight into your shipping section of the listing and it will show the actual cost to where ever the destination may be of your customer. BUT.. be warned.. with wood products.. you can have the same item with the same species of wood and one item can weigh several ounces more just due to moisture content or how much oil ( if finishing with oils ) content it soaked up.. so it can burn you for some $$ if you'r not careful.. especially with international shipping where the next weight bracket might be $10 more and you're only over by an ounce LOL... sounds like I've been there done that right? LOL

If you do sell online it's so much easier to ship only to the USA ( if you live in the USA anyway LOL) BUT.. just know that you're missing out on a good chunk of business.. about 30% of my orders are international.. That's a good amount of money you're turning away because you don't want to mess with it.. Pays off to take time to learn the ins and outs of shipping not only to the USA but for the whole world..

Kevin 

4 hours ago, kmmcrafts said:

I purchased a small shipping scale off eBay for around $10 several years ago.. makes things so much easier to weigh the items you make.. be sure to add the weight of the box and packing material. too.. Not sure if the USPS web site still has a PDF of cost sheets or not.. but used to be able to view a price sheet by weight and destination zones.. I'm so used to it now that I just know the cost of something by the weight / size.. For fixed price shipping I put in the cost to the highest priced zone from my origin of shipping. Now many web sites ( eBay and Etsy ) have integrated with USPS so you can just enter that weight into your shipping section of the listing and it will show the actual cost to where ever the destination may be of your customer. BUT.. be warned.. with wood products.. you can have the same item with the same species of wood and one item can weigh several ounces more just due to moisture content or how much oil ( if finishing with oils ) content it soaked up.. so it can burn you for some $$ if you'r not careful.. especially with international shipping where the next weight bracket might be $10 more and you're only over by an ounce LOL... sounds like I've been there done that right? LOL

If you do sell online it's so much easier to ship only to the USA ( if you live in the USA anyway LOL) BUT.. just know that you're missing out on a good chunk of business.. about 30% of my orders are international.. That's a good amount of money you're turning away because you don't want to mess with it.. Pays off to take time to learn the ins and outs of shipping not only to the USA but for the whole world..

Kevin 

Thanks Kevin

Really appreciate the detailed replies and information. So much more to think about and talk to the Mrs. with. 

On 7/18/2017 at 1:07 AM, WayneMahler said:

Here is a bed side table I made for a local lady. It matched one she had from her Mom that was 100 - 125 years old. Made from Cherry. No finish just a picture of the completed project less finish. It was stained to match and finished with several coats of shellac to keep it period correct. Hand cut dove tails, mortise and tenon joints. Legs were turned on my lathe.

Great work Wayne,!

Not counting international  shipping I always thought free shipping was a good selling point. Just figure it in the price. 

When I ran my own web store I used Zen Cart - a free open source eCommerce software suite. There's also Magento and a half dozen more. They're all customizable - pick your layout, design pages, background images, product presentation, keywords, payment processors etc. They all also include shipping modules from all the major carriers like UPS, USPS and FEDEX. I could choose flat-rate shipping, or weight-based shipping. If I chose weight-based then I had a place to input the weight of each item, and a setting for tare weight (for the box and styrofoam padding), my ship-from zipcode and a box for the customer to put in their zip-code to calculate postage. For each item I could choose if I would ship it priority, express, 1st class, book-rate etc. I could put multiple options and let the customer decide how fast they wanted it.  I could also link that to Paypal or Stamps.com and print out postage through them. I was linking directly to the USPS website until they stopped giving online discounts. It meant weighing each item before listing, but it gave accurate results for the USPS. The UPS I never trusted because they kept playing games with gas surcharges or their definition of oversized.

And if you go with USPS you can buy the postage online and the carrier can pick up the package at your house (Provided you're in the city where they deliver to your location. If you're rural and far enough from your mailbox that they make you pick up packages at the post office, they won't come out to your house to pick up.)

Question I was looking at esty, they said .20 cents listing fee, is that for everything on your site, if you have 100 items it would be 20.00 and how offen do you need to pay this, thx, RJ

13 minutes ago, rjweb said:

Question I was looking at esty, they said .20 cents listing fee, is that for everything on your site, if you have 100 items it would be 20.00 and how offen do you need to pay this, thx, RJ

That is per listing.. and listing last 4 months or until sold.. also will be charged 3.5% ( I think ) of the sale price.. If you list a quantity of more than 1 on a item.. when that item sells they will automatically relist it and charge you another ,20 listing fee..