You’ve successfully created a custom enamel pin badge, congratulations! Now that you’ve designed the perfect badge and found the right manufacturer, it’s time for the next fun (and profitable) part of the process – selling your badges online. Selecting the right place to sell your new merchandise can help ensure that you engage more customers and sell more items. In this post, we look at four places to start selling your badges online today, including Etsy, Amazon Handmade or even creating your own ecommerce store.
Etsy: Feel Good and Reach Millions of Buyers
Etsy is a great place to sell enamel pin badges. It’s hugely popular, has a global reach and is focused on handcrafted, vintage and custom products, just like your newly designed and manufactured badge. It’s also a marketplace that you can feel good about! As the production of consumer goods becomes increasingly automated, Etsy has a mission to “keep commerce human” and foster a community that focuses on people, connection, sustainability and creativity. (You may have read about our own ethical manufacturing at Rocket Badge as a socially responsible company; as such, we also value Etsy’s mission and impact.)
Another great thing about Etsy is that it brings your potential customers into the conversation. Shoppers can ask questions about your products and also leave positive reviews. It’s a great way to directly engage with your buyers, which can be difficult in today’s fast-paced marketplace. Here’s an example from Fredrik Andersson, an illustrator and ceramicist that creates tongue-in-cheek bespoke vases, zines and badges. This cheeky 30mm soft enamel pin badge helps raise funds for an LGBTQ homeless shelter in London.
Not On the High Street: For Your Most Unique and Stylish Pin Badges
Another great place to sell your enamel pin badges online is Not On the High Street, which helps small creative businesses, or “partners”, sell their unique and stylish items, especially those products that are hard to find anywhere else. Not On the High Street works with more than 5,000 such partners to sell everything from homemade gifts to artisan baked goods to unforgettable experiences.
Designer Laura Crow sells her special items on Not On the High Street, including a line of illustrated stationary. Laura has a unique webpage for her store, which includes information on her designs and passions, a link to available gifts and product reviews. Laura can also post “need to know” information about how the item will be packaged and delivered to keep it safe and speedy for the buyer.
Amazon Handmade: Reap the Benefits of an Invite-Only Marketplace
Amazon Handmade is an online store within Amazon.co.uk to help creative people sell their handcrafted products. You’ll need to first apply to join the community before you can start selling (while Amazon Handmade waived its monthly account fee, you do need to factor in a 12% referral fee to use the site). This keeps the shop true to its mission to support artisans and unique products. Amazon Handmade presents a few other key benefits, too, including the massive global reach of its customer base and professional, reliable fulfillment by Amazon.
Create your Own Store and Find the Help you Need
Still not finding the right place to sell your enamel pin badge? Or perhaps you want maximum exposure and control? Why not create your own store alongside some of these established ecommerce channels? Today, there’s a lot of robust yet easy-to-use ecommerce site providers that you can choose from, including places like Shopify and Squarespace.
Shopify, for example, launched about a decade ago and has found its niche in offering tools and support to help sellers build their business. The site now has more than 1 million active users and helps 600,000 businesses sell their special products. In addition to providing a seamless place to sell your badge online, Shopify can also help market your badges, collect payments via a secure checkout and ship your items.
Shopify’s marketing kit, for example, provides targeted social media campaigns, promotional content and email marketing services.
Another good option is Squarespace, which is an all-in-one platform to run your enamel pin badge business. The Squarespace platform empowers creative people, including local artists, to tell their story and grow their business in an easy-to-manage online store. As with Shopify, Squarespace offers marketing tools to help you reach your customers and grow your business. This includes key help to grow your search and social media presence so that more people can find you and your products.
Our advice is to try selling your badges in multiple places, especially if you’re just getting started and trying to gain as much exposure as possible. For example, designer Laura Crow, who we’ve mentioned above, sells her gifts on Etsy, Not On the High Street and elsewhere. And don’t forget about the power of social media and word of mouth. In addition to finding the right place to sell your badges, tell your friends and family when you launch your store and post links to it on your personal or professional social media handles. How else do you plan to sell your badges online? We’d love to hear more about your exciting plans!
