Crafters are always looking for new opportunities to sell their crafts and the Internet offers them an amazing opportunity to sell their beautiful unique handmade items to a worldwide customer base looking for handcrafted gifts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

So how does the average crafter go about selling their handcrafted items? well if they are tech savvy and are willing to take the time they can build their own web site. You can register your own dot com or dot net name for under $10.00 per year. Web hosting is inexpensive and there are many free ways of advertising, but using this method it can take months, even years before you start getting enough traffic to your site to start selling your crafts.

The crafter can hire a webmaster to build a web site for them, and use pay per click search engines to get instant traffic to their site, but this can cost thousands of dollars per month.

The easiest way for a crafter to start selling online is to open a craft shop at an online mall, but be aware, the online mall will not bring you instant success. You still have to make an effort to promote your online business. Some crafters have a tendency to treat the craft business as a hobby, so you will have to make a choice. Do you want a hobby or a business? If you choose a business then you have to work at making it successful. Treat your online store as you would treat a brick and mortar store. If you opened a brick and mortar store in a mall would you stock it, walk away and forget about it? Your online store needs to be tended, you need to add new products on a regular basis, your descriptions detailed and lots of crystal clear pictures.

What the online craft mall will do for you is give you a professional looking site where you will be up and running and ready to start selling instantly, you will also have traffic from around the world coming to your store and checking out your handmade products. Your online shop gives you a place where you can start sending your existing customers to view your new products. When you meet new prospective customers at your craft shows etc., you can tell them they now can buy from you year round at your online shop.

About the Author
Catherine Stabler is the owner of the GLC Arts and Crafts Mall (http://www.goldleafcrafters.com), which brings together crafters, artists, artisans and designers with interested buyers worldwide via the Internet.