How to Sell Handmade Products on Amazon India (Working Methods)

On September 27, 2016, CNBC published an article titled “More shoppers are starting their online search on Amazon”. According to that article, Amazon is the first place of online search for 55% of the consumers.

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In the past decade, Amazon has come out as one of the most popular online shopping apps with 300 million active users. Yes, that is twice the Russian population. Being a global brand, Amazon has successfully reached almost all smartphones.

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Just like Amazon, handmade products have also made a special place in the hearts of people. Millennials see handcrafts with an eye for respect and value the hard work behind them. Moreover, the ability of handmade materials to offer unique products, people's choice to support small businesses, and online marketplaces, such as Amazon, Etsy, and Fynd Platform act as the driving force to the handmade market.

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So if you are looking to sell handmade products on Amazon, this article will help you. Moreover, the article will also help you to understand the handmade market in detail. You will also learn the way to sell handmade products through various other online marketplaces.

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What is Amazon?

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To sell your products on a site, you need to understand that site. While Amazon is something you might regularly see on your phone, it is significant to know what exactly the platform is and what it offers. Here are a few things to know and understand about Amazon.

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• Amazon is one of the leading e-commerce giants that has its root in a small garage. Yes, you read it right! In 1994, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon began the company in his small garage.

• Initially, the company was predominantly an online bookselling platform. In a small span of 30 days, it successfully garnered revenue of 20,000 USD. At the time, Mr Bezos launched Amazon.com, the company had already sold books across all 50 US states and 45 different countries.

• While initially, the company was only about books, it now offers almost every product you can think of! You may consider Amazon as an online mall with shops of different brands showcasing their products. A customer visits the store, adds all the things they like to the cart, pays the bill, and leaves the store.

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With time, Amazon has only grown without looking back. Today, it has become a leading online retailer with customers around the globe. Just like Xerox has become a synonym to photocopy and Google has become a synonym for online search, Amazon has become a synonym for online shopping.

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So next time, if you hear your father ask you to Amazon a pressure cooker, just understand that he wants to purchase a pressure cooker online. Now, let us come back to selling handmade products. For this, you also need to know what handmade products are and understand the handmade product market of India.

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The Colourful Market Of India Handmade Products

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You live in a world where all objects are machine-made, and perfectly designed without any mistake. Yet, people have not forgotten the imperfections of Handmade products. They still crave products that are similar yet unique in their way. This imperfection of the handicraft market makes it a popular one. Handmade products show inconsistencies which make them unique and different from each other. People in India love to create and purchase these handmade products.

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There are various big handmade product markets in India. Some of them are:

1. Delhi

Being the capital city, Delhi is one of the biggest markets for handmade products. Various places, such as Dakstakar Bazaar ( in Andheri Modh, Chhatarpur), INA metro station, and Dilli Haat are the hub of beautiful handmade products from various Indian states.

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2. Gujarat

For people who love handicrafts and love to explore, Gujarat could be heaven. If you want leather bags and leather quilts, visit Hodka village. If you want traditional textiles, take a visit to Bhujodi village. If you want copper bells and colourful kitchenware, visit Nirona. If you go to Khavda village, 72 km north of Bhuj, you can find amazing clay pottery and Ajrakh prints.

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3. Mumbai

Who does not know about the Kamathipura area of Mumbai? Near to it is Chor Bazar which is a flea market. Locals and tourists visit the place for common and antique goods. The location is also popular for home decor and quirky artwork. It is a package of everything antique and unique.

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4. Kolkata

If you are looking for some unique handicrafts at reasonable prices, Kolkata is your destination. For a long time, West Bengal has given India an amazing collection of artistic textiles, pottery, goods, etc. You can visit Hogg’s market, popularly known as Hogg’s market. The place is particularly popular for terracotta ware. As a seller, you might also visit Dakshinapan Shopping centre to get handmade products at very economical rates.

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5. Jodhpur

The colourful, quirky, and intricate handicrafts of Jodhpur will make you awestruck. Although the city is full of such handmade beauties, you can visit Nai Sarak, Sojati gate market, Mochi Bazaar, and Ghanta Ghar are some popular sites. You will find a good collection of leather footwear, decor items, authentic spices, artisanal goods, and leheriya textiles.

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While these places are extremely popular, not everyone has the time and resources to explore them. So, what is the option?? Well, people look for online shops. You can sell handmade products on Amazon with proper knowledge of the homemade market.

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Understanding the Indian Homemade Market

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The Indian handmade product market is not complicated but involves many shareholders. More than Indians, Handmade products attract foreign markets. Here are a few things you need to know about the handmade product market in India.

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• Handicraft is among some of the most significant sectors of the Indian economy with more than seven million people employed under it. There is a list of products that India produces, including glassware, imitation jewellery, hand-printed textiles, woodware, zari goods, sculptures, agarbattis, pottery, embroidered goods, and art metal wares, and attars.

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Here is a report by the Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts on the percentage increase of handmade products exported in 2021-22 over 2020-21.

• India is among the largest countries that export handicrafts. According to the official site of the India Brand Equity Foundation, the total handicraft export from India in March 2024 was the US $174.26, an 8% increase from the previous month. Also, this was the value after excluding handmade carpets

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Moreover, the total value of export from India in 2021-22 was US $4.35 billion, an increase of 25.7% from the previous year. Here is a table to show the value of India’s handmade exports in previous years. The table is taken from a report of the Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts.

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• While India exports handicrafts to many countries, the US is the top importer with a 38% share of total export. Here is a chart depicting the per cent share of each country in Handicraft imports from India.

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• The Government of India also runs several initiatives to promote handmade products. Two of the popular initiatives are National Handicraft Development Programme and the Comprehensive Handicrafts Cluster Development Scheme.  

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So, these were some insights into the Indian handicraft market. You might notice that India exports a lot of handmade products. This means going digital might also give you foreign clients.  

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Steps to Sell Handmade Products on Amazon

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Amazon offers a separate and dedicated marketplace for handmade products, known as Amazon Handmade. Here is a step-by-step guide for you to sell handmade products through Amazon Handmade.

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1. Read the Instructions Carefully

The first step involves understanding the Amazon Handmade marketplace carefully. While the rules and regulations of Amazon Handmade are similar to the regular Amazon marketplace, some differences are there. Thus, it becomes extremely significant for sellers, including experienced online sellers, to read all the rules and regulations.

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Amazon provides a Handmade Resource guide. This guide offers every information you need to sell handmade products online, including search engine optimisation techniques.

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2. Choose an Attractive Title for Your Product

Most sellers does this mistake. They try to add keywords in their title to ensure that their product shows in the search result. However, this is not how things work on Amazon. According to the resource guide of Amazon, “When listing a product, keywords will help your products appear in search, so you don’t need to add them to your product title.”

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This means that you should focus on using keywords in the description and not the title. Try to keep the product title short, crisp, and attractive. The title should be so irresistible that your consumer wants to see your product after reading the title.

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3. Photos Should be of High Quality

Whenever a person shops online, they cannot touch or feel the product. They try to determine the quality and texture of products just through photos. This means that your photos should not only tell the shape or size of products but also the feel of them. Try to post only professional pictures. However, it is not significant to hire a photographer.

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You might look at the Artisan style guide by Amazon to learn some ways to click amazing pictures of your handmade products. Also remember, you aim to show every detail of your product that could attract buyers. So, try to click and upload photos from all angles. If any product has a specific feature, capture it with a close-up picture.

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4. Detailed Description

After uploading the photos, you will need to add a description of all products. In the description, add all the characters, attributes, or features that make your product special. In this section, try to explain everything about your product, such as the customisations available, materials used to make your product, occasions to use your material, etc.

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These descriptions might affect your sales to a great extent. Also, make sure you do not forget to embed keywords in your description. Otherwise, you might fail to show up in the search list. For instance, if you are selling handmade shawls, you can add keywords, such as shawls, winter shawls, shawls for girls, etc.

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5. Determine the Price of Your Products

One of the most challenging tasks while shifting your business online is to determine the prices of your product. You cannot simply add the cost of ingredients used to make your product and charge accordingly.

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You have to see other aspects, such as the time and effort put to make the product. Other than that, you also deserve to get paid for your expertise. So, add the cost of all these factors and then calculate your pricing. You should also consider the market and your competitors' price of your product.  

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6. Marketing is Important

Amazon is a big marketplace getting heavy traffic regularly which gives a surety that your product will garner some interest. However, this does not mean that you ignore the importance of marketing in selling a product.

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Marketing your product will help you increase your sales and revenue. Amazon offers three key advertising campaigns to its sellers. They are:

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• Sponsored Products: In this campaign, your product will get a place in the search result based on the broad keywords present in your product description.

• Headline Search: In this campaign, the ad for your product will get a place above the search result. Also, it can take you to any Amazon Handmade page.

• Product Display Ads: Irrespective of your keywords, your ad can get a place wherever you want them. With this campaign, you can target your competitor’s page. You can also consider showing your ads on the page of a complementary product ( like advertising a purse on a matching dress).

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While these are marketing techniques that Amazon does, you should also do marketing from your side. You might go for email marketing, word of mouth, or social media influencer marketing to make your product popular among the masses.

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7. Use FBA by Amazon

Once your brand begins getting recognition, sales, and revenue, you might consider using FBA by Amazon. The Fulfilment by Amazon ( FBA) program makes your work easier and helps you grow. For businesses enrolled under this program, Amazon lets them send their products to the warehouses of Amazon. There the employees of Amazon handle the packing, picking, and shipping of the products, reducing your burden.

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They also tackle customer services. This gives you more time to create products and focus on your business growth. However, you need to pay a good amount to get this program. This guide will help you sell handmade products on Amazon easily.

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Why sell Handmade Products on Amazon?

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Netai, a successful entrepreneur, began gardening to solve his knee problem. He didn't know that it would also solve his financial issues. Always dreamt of becoming a doctor, Netai failed to study beyond high school because of the financial crisis. He began taking small jobs, such as selling newspapers to earn. He also once opened a grocery shop but has to close it soon. At that time, he also had a knee problem for which doctors suggested he should do gardening for maximum movement.

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While gardening, he soon discovered his love for plants and began selling plants online through Amazon. After a few months, his business flew and he never looked back. There are several ways an online platform, such as Amazon can help your business. Some of them are:

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1. Good Reputation Means More Sales

There is no doubt in the fact that Amazon is one of the most popular online sites to shop. Every month millions of people visit Amazon to shop for products. In the year 2019, Amazon made an increase in revenue by $280.5. The site also garnered 150 prime members globally.

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These data clearly show that Amazon is among the number 1 choice of people to shop online. If you enlist your products on Amazon, your brand will automatically get trust and reliability among consumers. This is because most shoppers try to shop from a known marketplace rather than a place they have never shopped before.

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Amazon has always positioned itself as an excellent brand that offers great services. This attracts shoppers to purchase from their site only. This means, that listing your product on Amazon will give you a good reputation, thus good revenue.

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2. New Customers

Amazon is a great help for people looking to make a customer base. Most people while shopping from Amazon focus on the product rather than the brand. So if your product is worthy, the consumer will buy it.

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This will help consumers discover your shop. If you will provide them with good customer service and buying experience, you will get repeat customers.

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3. Global Reach

With sites in 13 countries and delivering products to 100 countries, Amazon is among the most trusted and biggest buying and selling online platforms. So, if your consumers want your product so bad that they are willing to pay high shipping charges, you can deliver your products to 100 countries in the world. While other platforms could give you a global reach, Amazon is comparatively easier than them.

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Moreover, it does ask you to make a new shop for each language. Your one shop will work in all countries. Amazon also provides various services to help you figure out every aspect of global expansion. It includes localised customer support, international order fulfilment, etc. All these things reduce your burden.

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4. Reduces Marketing Cost

When you open a new shop, the biggest challenge is bringing customers for the first time to your store. You need to do a lot of advertisements for it. However, with millions of people visiting Amazon regularly, you do not need to worry about bringing consumers to your store.

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Depending upon the crowd in your niche you might begin selling from the first day only without putting much effort into an advertisement. Moreover, Amazon has its search engine which means if your content is SEO optimised, shoppers will easily discover them in the search results.

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However, this does not mean that you do not need an advertisement at all. You might use the advertisement offered by Amazon ( as discussed in the previous section under the subheading ‘marketing is important).

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5. No Stock

With Amazon, you do not need to handle your inventory. You can bulk ship your product to any of the 175 fulfillments of Amazon around the world. Amazon will take care of your inventory. It will pack it and ship it to the desired location. This enables you to focus on other management aspects of your business. So, is it all flowers? Well, no! With flowers come thrones. Similarly, with amazing benefits comes cons. The subsequent section deals with it.

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Why not Sell Handmade Products through Amazon

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While selling on Amazon makes your business reach a great audience base, it also has several disadvantages. Some of them are

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1. High Competition

Well Well Well!!! You are not the only one who knows the pros of Amazon. Every business owner knows the number of consumers Amazon attracts daily. This means everyone wants to have an established store on Amazon. This results in heavy competition.

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If you are selling similar products as other merchants, you have to compete with them for a higher buy box score. When the same product from multiple sellers is on sale, Amazon decides the best fit seller. According to this decision, Amazon adds the items to the shopping cart whenever a customer clicks on the Add to cart option.

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This means the seller with the highest buy box score will get the sales . In this era of mobile shopping, the significance of the buy box score increases because people do not scroll down to see many sellers. While there is no fixed way to score high because Amazon keeps changing the criteria of the Buy box score, there are some factors that you can work on to improve your scores.

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They are order fulfilment on time, customer service, FBA, up-to-date availability, competitive prices, and stellar prices. Besides these, you can also sync your inventory through the order management system.

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It will help you stay up-to-date and will increase your buy box score. In short, you can say that you cannot crack the exact code to score well in a Buy box but by fulfilling more orders, increasing response to the consumers, keeping the inventory updates, reducing the number of cancelled orders, and managing orders you can get a good buy box score.

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2. Selling fees

The benefits that Amazon provides are not for free. It charges a heavy commission on every item sold through its platform. So, you should know the charges before you begin selling it. Here is a list of costs that you will need to pay for various services offered by Amazon.

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Charge During Registration

While registering your business with Amazon, you need to pay some amount depending on the plan you choose. There are two selling plans:

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• Professional: $39.99 per month with no fee per item sold.
• Individual: $0.99 fee on each item sold

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If you have just begun your business and expect sales of less than 40 items in a month, you should go for an individual plan. After an increase in sales, you can choose a professional plan.

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Referral Fee

No matter which plans you choose, you will need to pay a referral fee to Amazon on every sold item. This fee depends on the category of the product. It could range between 8% to 96%. You can check these categories and fees on it through this link.

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FBA Fee

If you want to avail the Fulfilment by Amazon facility, you will need to pay various other charges. First, you need to pay the fulfilment fee with every order. Secondly, you need to pay for the storage cost. The storage cost depends on the cubic foot that your inventory will cover.

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You have to pay $0.48 per cubic foot from January to September. The cost increased to $0.75 per cubic foot for October, November, and December. So, these are some of the fees you will need to pay to get the facilities and reach of Amazon.

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3. Order Management

If your store is present on various marketplaces, you will face the challenge to manage or sync inventory in all places. This becomes more challenging with Amazon as it does not sync with the shopping cart system.

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The process of Amazon order goes like this:

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• An Amazon seller gets an order.
• The merchant downloads it from Amazon by EOD ( end of the day).
• Then that merchant ships that order.
• After shipping, they update the status of the product on the Amazon

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This leads to several disadvantages. Amazon will update the inventory only after the order is fulfilled. So, you might be selling an already sold product for a whole day. Also, you need to manage orders from your store and also from Amazon. So if you are a merchant with products on multiple channels it becomes challenging for you to keep stocks up to date and manage orders at the same time.

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Thus, When selling on Amazon comes with these cons, you might want to quit online selling. But you can miss an opportunity to reach every Indian household and go global. So, what is the solution? The solution is to sell online through your site.

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Perks of a Site

Here is a list of benefits of selling products through your site offers.

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• Selling on your site gives you all the control over your business. If you want a red and black theme for your store, go for it, if you want to give discount coupons or vouchers, go for it. In simple words, you can run your business the way you want without any restrictions from Amazon.

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• While selling on your site will also have competitors, it would be comparatively less than Amazon. This is because on Amazon consumers will directly compare your products with another product. Also, your buy box score will affect your score. With your site, if your consumers visit your store they will probably make a purchase.

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• While Amazon provides various advertising options, nothing works better than word of mouth. However, if a consumer has purchased something from Amazon and a person asked them where they have brought that particular product, they will probably say ‘from amazon’. This means your brand will not reach people.

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While if someone has purchased something from your site, they will take your brand name and might also share your site link, giving direct promotion to your site. If you are still not ready to make your site, you might look for online platforms, such as Fynd Platform that offer the benefits of Amazon without bringing its cons.

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How to Sell Handmade Products Online

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Here is a step-by-step guide to help you sell your handmade products through any online platform.

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Find Your Finest Product

Most handmade sellers make a lot of handmade items. For instance, if you are good at art, you might be selling mobile covers, textiles, shoes, etc. But while shifting online you need to know which product will offer you the most sales and which product is your strength.

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After considering various factors, come up with a niche. This way, people consider you to be the expert in that field, ensuring trust. This also reduces your burden so you can focus on the production of one product. Once your business blooms you can begin making and selling various other products.

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Here is a list of some of the most demanded handmade products in the market.

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1. Home decor: candles, dream catchers, paintings, murals, coasters, rugs.
2. Personalised gifts: gift baskets, photo boxes, invitation cards
3. Stationery: notebooks, stickers, bookmarks, journals
4. Pottery
5. Eco-friendly products
6. Phone accessories
7. Traditional handicrafts
8. Embroidery: curtains, pillow cases, clothes
9. Apparel: sweaters, enamel pins, hats, tote bags
10. Food: sweets, jams, spices, pickles
11. Beauty products: shampoo, bath bombs, soaps, perfume, lip balm
12. Paper crafts: paper flowers, cards, scrapbooks
13. Jewellery and accessories: necklaces, bracelets, scrunchies, resin jewellery
14. Digital products: stock photos, printable art, templates, plugins.
15. Pet products: clothes, pet foods, pet toys, dog collars.

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You can choose any niche or make a unique one. After this step, you need to decide the pricing of the products and click detailed pictures on each product. These steps involve the same tricks as uploading pictures and pricing strategy for Amazon.

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Register with an Online Platform

After clicking high-quality pictures and deciding strategy, your next step involves looking for an online platform. While there are several online platforms, such as Fynd Platform, you need to find the one that caters to your needs. Once you register yourself with an online platform, upload the photos and begin selling your products.

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Other than this, you need to focus on marketing when selling through your site. You might choose to make a social media site for your business to promote it. You can also begin email marketing to keep your audience connected. Now, you know ways to sell handmade products on Amazon or any other online site.

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Places to Sell Handmade Products

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Here is a list of places where you might approach to sell your handmade products

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Fynd Platform

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One of the most popular online marketplaces is the Fynd platform. You can easily register your business with it and begin selling in no time. A lot of small businesses have made their business reach places through this platform.

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A major benefit of the Fynd platform is that the registration system is too easy. You do not need to know about tech and all yet you can come up with an online store.

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The India Craft House

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The site has many online sellers who sell handmade products showing the cultures and rich heritage of India. However, a key disadvantage of this site could be competition with other handmade product sellers.

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Kreate

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This platform is for creators or sellers. This means you can register with it if you are creating handmade products or sourcing them from someone and only selling it here. The site discards the need for a middleman between local artisans and buyers. So, these are some of the sites where you can sell your handmade products.

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Conclusion

Selling on Amazon comes with pros and cons. While you get customers, you might also have to pay without any sales. You might try your luck with Amazon initially and if you fail to make a good sale, you can shift to your website through online platforms, such as the Fynd platform to ensure sales, revenue, and fewer expenses.