Wouldn’t it be great to have people pay you well for your time, effort, and creativity?
Crafts making requires a lot of work and the profit should be commensurate or even more. This is why we have put together this post on the crafts with the highest profit margin to make it easier for you to know the best niches to earn the most money.
With crafts with the highest profit margin, you can recover your cost of production and time by just selling a few items. These crafts that make money are listed below.
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Highest paying crafts of 2021
- Jewelry
Many people spend money on jewelry. This makes the jewelry business a multi-billion dollar industry and a highly profitable one. Though it is a competitive industry, your uniqueness can make you stand out.
The price range of materials used for jewelry production varies widely, but customers know the value of genuine crystals, gems, stones, and others. So, even when you spend a high amount creating exceptional jewelry, you will gain profits that cover your cost of production and more.
You can order the materials used for jewelry production in bulk and diversify the kinds of jewelry you make. The diversification makes it more profitable. Also, you can get jewelry boxes, bags, and cards at a wholesale rate at very low prices.
The time spent on jewelry production differs, but the more time you spend creating a solid piece without compromising quality, the more profit you will make. It takes time to create fine jewelry, but as long as you give the customers the features they desire, they will pay you for it.
The overall cost for jewelry production is relatively low, and the tools you buy depend on the type of jewelry you want to make. For jewelry like wires, beads, and chains, you only require adhesives, cutters, and pliers.
You can earn high from producing cheap pieces of jewelry like clay jewelry, friendship bracelets, wire rings, etc.
Clay jewelry is easy and cheap to produce, and most people fancy friendship bracelets. However, if you are a beginner, you can start with a basic ring. Here is a video on how to make one.
- Candles
Candles are always in high demand, this makes it one of the most profitable crafts markets. Also, they are produced with relatively inexpensive materials, and when completed in large batches, they have a great profit margin.
Most people use colored and scented candles for celebrations like birthdays and holidays, and many religious gatherings also have a frequent need for candles. Regardless of the type, size, and color, candle making has always been an excellent go-to for beginners.
Candles must have lovely scents and good packaging. Increase your chance of earning big in the market by being creative and perfectly describing your ingredients on the label. This is how to make scented candles:
Candle making is a craft that sells most with wholesale supplies. Selling varieties of candles will open you up to a broader audience. However, many people have still prospered by sticking to a particular type.
Also, you can create sweet-smelling candles that appeal to people with sensitive noses. For instance, some people are sensitive to eucalyptus and cinnamon so you can use less intrusive fragrances like orange, mango, rose, etc., for their candles.
- T-shirts
T-shirt production sells high when made for a targeted audience. For instance, you can reach a target market by producing T-shirts with designed quotes, graphics or sport-themes.
To produce T-shirts for profits, you can either buy high-quality T-shirts in bulk, reprint them according to demand and sell them at premium prices, or make personalized T-shirts for people.
The software used for printing T-shirts and the production time can be recovered after selling a few pieces of T-shirts. However, the most expensive aspect of T-shirt production is the cost of getting the blank T-shirt itself.
If you have a good dealer that supplies you with low priced quality blank T-shirts, then your general cost of production is lowered. Nevertheless, you can recover the costs of getting a blank T-shirt, software for printing, and your time for designing the T-shirts after selling many T-shirts with unique designs.
Learn how to customize a t-shirt in the video below:
- Art
Another amongst crafts with the highest profit margin is creative and artistic painting. As a painter, you can create unique abstract or realism-based styles to make significant profit margins in your work. If the public loves your painting, they will pay you hugely for it.
The first steps to take if you want to earn money as a painter is building your portfolio and placing your work before people. This is usually the most challenging part of the business for most painters, because most painters struggle with the issue of self-confidence.
Most painters do not have confidence in themselves, especially when they are new to the market. They believe other painters have got the best work, and theirs is just too feeble to be appreciated
However, as a painter or artist in general, you can sell almost the same price or close to the same price as the professional and long-standing painters in the market. You only need to believe in yourself and give in your best to your work.
Besides painting or drawing with low-cost materials, you can also make money as a digital artist. Here, you create greeting cards, wallpapers, fabrics, invitations, and surface patterns that can be placed on stationeries.
The time needed to create an art piece depends on the artist’s skill level and what they are making. If you quickly produce art pieces that customers see to be valuable, you will earn higher profits.
The cost for starting up an art business depends on the amount that you will be charged if you want to sell on craft markets like Etsy, and the price for advertising. Also, software like Adobe Illustrator charge some fees from digital artists.
For the tools, their cost can be kept at a minimum.
Art crafts with the highest profit margin include fabric art like embroidery and needlepoint art, weaving, and resin art.
- Photography
Just like arts, you can make money if your photography skills appeal to a broad audience. Also, you can charge differently for taking pictures of unique items like sporting items.
You can also increase your earnings with photography by adding beautiful editing styles, which do not necessarily increase your overall cost of production but add value to your work.
The cost of production for photography is minimal as you will only pay for printing the photos and frames. If you will be selling these items digitally, then you may not have any material cost.
Though the cost of getting some materials for photography (like the photo printer paper which is about $13.99 for 60 pieces on Amazon) may be low, the labor cost of setting up the photograph, uploading and editing the pictures can be expensive. However, you can quickly recover this cost from the profit of each picture sold.
A few things make the cost of starting a photography business high. These include; buying lenses, rocks, lighting, backdrops, traveling cases, and darkroom development which needs tools, chemicals and spaces. You may also need to buy digital file storage and editing software for the photography business.
- Sewing
Sewing is one of the crafts with the highest profit margin as there are numerous items to sew and sell in the market. However, you may need some time to find the most profitable one for you.
Some sewing crafts with the highest profit margins include clutches, scarves, tote bags, aprons, scrunches, etc. They are all trendy and in high demand.
You can increase your sales and profit by using appealing and trendy materials to create your sewing projects. You can always get these materials in bulk from your local supplier, which will lower the cost.
To lower your production time, use easy to repeat patterns to create your project. However, you should know that the most suitable materials for your buyers are the ones easy to wash and care for. Always use them for producing your projects. Avoid materials that need special care.
- Soaps
Producing homemade soaps doesn’t mean making something average. If you have a great and creative idea, you can invent a unique type of soap and introduce it to your target market.
So, if you produce quality soaps, you can sell them at a high price – people don’t mind paying for quality.
The cost of producing soap is not so high. If you buy your ingredients for producing soaps in bulk, you will spend less than $1 to make one bar of soap. However, since soaps usually require packaging, that would add to the material cost. Again, the price will be lower if you buy the packaging in bulk too. Producing in batches with measured ingredients will give you more bars of soap with little labor time. This makes it even more profitable since you don’t have to produce each soap individually.
Therefore, if you can sell your soaps for higher than $5 per piece, that will give you a high profit margin. If you want to sell at prices more elevated than that, you must add things to your soap to justify the cost.
Also, the amount you sell your soaps doesn’t just depend on the quality of the soap; your branding also matters. If you put in more money branding, people will pay you high for the soap.
Samples of high paying soap include bath bombs, beauty products like but body scrubs, and regular soaps for day-to-day cleaning.
- Home décor crafts
Home décor craft is an excellent industry with a high profit margin. There are numerous products and styles that can be produced from home decor crafts, and you can even specialize.
One of the easiest things to make and sell is the farmhouse sign. This hand-painted home sign is one of the crafts with the highest profit margin. It is easy to make and sell and is also always in high demand.
You must not be an expert to make money with farmhouse designs. Even with the wavering hands and imperfection of a beginner, you can add styles to your creation, thereby increasing the demand for them. You only need some basic materials like wood, wood glue, wood stain, paints, vinyl stencil, etc. to create this long-lasting piece that customers will spend lots of money to buy. Check out other wood crafts that sell.
Creating something unique out of plain material is priceless. Though this has most to do with home décor, you can also dabble into the bridal industry, exercise community, babies, and the other places where people always need personalized touches.You can also produce personalized menu items, including burners, bottles, signs, coffee mugs, etc.
What can increase or decrease the profit margin of a product?
Many people complain of not having high profit margins even when they sell in-demand products. This can be because of reasons like:
- Buying product materials in little quantity instead of wholesale and not taking advantage of coupons and sales
- Not creating a pattern of production. When you have not created a design and system for production, you spend more time making each item from scratch. This will reduce your productivity and increase your labor costs.
- Selling only a few products which cannot cover your cost nor bring reasonable profit.
- Selling your products at meager prices, thereby making it difficult to cover for your supplies and time.
Why you may have little or no sales with your crafts
Even with the above duly considered, some people still find it challenging to sell their products. We can link the reason for little or no sales to the following:
- Selling products in an over-saturated niche. If the competition is too high for the product you’re selling and your competitors are selling it at a lower price than you can, don’t sell it. Unless you have a unique thing to add to your product, customers will always want to buy from your competitors because they get it cheaper there.
- Selling time-based or seasonal products. If you sell products that have an expiration date, there is a high chance that you will lose out when you cannot sell within the restricted time. For instance, if you sell products for a political season or holidays like Christmas, and you’re unable to exhaust them before the time expires, your products will die out since life is based on popularity.
- Selling overpriced products. If your cost for production and labor costs doesn’t allow you to sell your products at a price that is competitive with others, don’t bother selling them. Customers will be put off at your pricing since they know where to get it cheaper.
- Selling low quality, poorly designed or presented products. Your aim should be to produce the best products in the way only you can. If professionalism sounds absurd to you, then there is no need to go into crafts because people compare between products before buying, and they will go to the best looking ones.
Marketing strategies for handcrafted products
Handcrafted products take time and energy to make, and you deserve to sell out ALL of those pieces. However, there is a little more to do to get them out of your warehouse, it is called “marketing”.
Below are some strategies to help you sell your products faster:
- Tell your local community about it
The logic is simple, if you don’t tell people about your product, they won’t know, not to talk of buying. Even when you intend to do all your business online, telling people word for word what you do and asking them to patronise you will still bring you more sales. Who doesn’t like that?
- Ask for referrals
The first people to look up to for referrals are your friends, family, and neighbors that have tried your products. Even when they don’t know you, they’ll refer you to people based on sentiments, and that is a good thing. Your customers will also work well, but you must ask them to refer you. Nothing is more convincing to potential customers than the words of a satisfied customer.
- Give coupons
Who doesn’t love freebies? Once in a while, offer some discounts to customers who value your product and attach a deadline, customers will have a sense of urgency and rush in to make purchases.
- Social media
Facebook and Instagram are great places to market your product. With good pictures and captivating words, you are good to go. They also offer paid advertising services that cost between $1 and $5. These paid ads can bring you thousands of dollars from your sales.
- Think Pinterest
Think of Pinterest as a search engine, not just a social media platform. People go there to look for products and inspiration. Decorate your boards with beautiful pictures of your products and add a price tag. You can also use the pinterest ad, it will help you reach more customers.
- Use an email list
Email lists are great for updating your customers about your new products and when you restock. You can start with the free version of Mailchimp until you have more than 2,000 subscribers.
Conclusion
Many crafts have high profit margins. However, the profit margin gotten from each depends on your skill level, uniqueness, and marketing strategy. Even the craft with the highest profit margin can seem unprofitable if your marketing strategy is non-existent.
So craft great products, market them well and earn the highest profit margin.
