Till 2025, we have seen more and more self-developed brands selling crafts like jewelry, bath items, home-decor ornaments, and so on. While for everyone who has crafts to make and sell, you may do something diverting to get your profits. In this blog we discuss about where to sell your crafts and whether DIY and personalization are worthy.
Future for DIY/Personalization Crafts
Handmade crafts never die, frankly speaking. According to futuremarketinsights.com, the production of handicraft alternatives in 2035 will be worth USD 1,160.83 billion. The market is slated to showcase 10.5% CAGR from 2025 to 2035. While in the United States, whose DIY culture melts into life, the CAGR will reach to 7.4%, which means the future of the handicraft market is going on and on.
(Resource: thebrownbox.org)
Alongside this growth, with more DIY stores and craft shops popping up, more consumer choices are showing up, like custom services. Frankly, most big brands already offer free customization when you buy something, but with technology getting better, practical tools like laser engravers are making personalization much easier for everyone.
A while back, crafters who offered this service needed high skills and an artistic eye to help customers get their ideal design. But if you own a laser engraver now, your creative idea is all you need to focus on.
I can tell you straight up, choosing crafts as a side hustle in the Z-generation era definitely won't let you down. Now, if you plan to go full-time into manufacturing crafts, it's better to take a few essential courses—don't start a war unprepared. For example, you need to be clear about your target audience, the current hot craft categories, your sales channels, how to price and sell your items, and the legal rules for running a shop.
What Crafts Will People Buy?
First, be clear if your crafts are everyday small necessities, like phone stands, wooden kitchen utensils, tissue boxes, or if they are decorative pieces, like laser-cut lamps, photo frames, welcome door signs, and so on. Start your crafts business in your community, or try to send your crafts as gifts.
As studies show in goldenagebeads.com, people turn to buy crafts with features below:
1. Uniqueness
Unique designs always win buyers' views, believe it or not. Especially for home décor, people pay for your ideas, rather than the real products. Maybe that's one of the reason why some people are crazy about artists and their paintings.
2. Authenticity and Quality
If you want to sell crafts with your brand logo, be original. This is also one of the biggest problems for art creators, sometimes there might be resemblance during creating. Never cheat to your customers, if you create something with others' brilliant ideas, just mark or say it.
What if I do not have any ideas in my mind? Then just have a rest, hours, days even weeks, do not force yourself for crafting. As we said, nature is the NO. 1 artist, nowadays, creators get inspirations from natural creatures like trees, leaves, flowers or butterflies.
Related Reading: easy craft ideas to make and sell
3. Personalization
People would like to buy things that are only designed for themselves. As we mentioned above, famous brands nowadays provide buyers with personalization service, like Apple, they can engrave your personalized contents on your Apple Pencils, iPads, AirPods, and so on, let alone some luxury brands. While as you have engraving tools or laser engraving machines, personalization service can be done with ease.
4. Human-to-Human Touch
Not only from your crafts, but your communication with customers matters for this order. What if someone touches your crafts and visits around without purchasing? What if someone gives a bad comment to your crafts? These situations are common in crafting market. Just be sure you give what they really want and show your precious crafts sincerely. Also, if you have an online store, I know nowadays store owners have chat robots for communication, personal touch is the key to people's buying experience.
5. Eco-friendly Materials
Environment issues are the unavoidable things for all of us. While I have to say, eco-friendly processing is one of the pros for DIY crafting. Even if with a desktop laser engraver, the electricity is the biggest cost. Do crafts like wooden or stone coasters, they sell well in 2025.
Related Reading: Wood laser engraving
Especially uniqueness and personalization, due to DIY cultures in the United States, these two features become the keys for crafts.
What Crafts Sell Well: Trending Categories
If you're wondering what you should actually be making to see some decent sales, you need to check the market pulse. Combining those market insights with the power of a desktop laser marker gives you a few major winners.
Candle making, resin arts and shampoo making are three handmade products people usually talk about in 2025. And we can conclude from the three -- people are turning to like crafts that can really be used in life.
Next, you can't ignore Personalized Pet Accessories. People are absolutely obsessed with their pets. Items like wooden feeding bowl stands engraved with the pet's name, or custom metal ID tags, fly off the shelves. This is all about tapping into that powerful emotional connection people have with their "fur babies."
Finally, home décor always takes the seat in the crafting market. Small items like Christmas ornaments, photo frames and cup coasters sell fast. Some even sell chairs, tables, and drop lights.
Let me give you some real feedback here. A while back, I used my engraver to make a custom pet tag—it had their pet's actual stick figures etched onto it. You see, you're not selling a piece of wood or leather; you are selling a memory that lasts.
Seasonal Strategy
Pay attention to the significant festivals, Valentine's Day, Easter Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas... These are the blowing time for DIY and personalization culture. And some festivals like Boss's Day, World Animal's Day, etc. Make sure your ideas are enough to shine. Big events like Back-to-School seaon, wedding day, and birthday also allow you to sell your crafts.
Where Can I Sell My Crafts?
Now that you know what to make, where are you going to sell it? You've got options, basically split into offline and online.
Offline Sales
Offline is great for people who like to chat and whose crafts are better seen in person. You get to tell your story directly to the buyer, and you can even offer quick, on-the-spot engraving for instant gratification. This often leads to higher profits.
1.1. Craft Fair and Show
The best time and place to sell and show your ideas. For people in that day know exactly what they want to buy, thus your crafts are easy to sell, too. Also, with other stallholders around, you can learn more craft skills and ideas, and make friends with the same interests!
1.2. Popup Event
Just as its name, easy to set up and quick to end. This kind of event may last for a week, and people here may come to buy crafts with their favorite IPs, thus, it is better for you to do something related.
1.3. Farmer Market
Farmer market not only sells food and vegetables, but also local self-made arts. You know, even some artists sell paintings in the market.
1.4. Local Cafe/Restaurant
Some cafes have their own IPs, so personalizing crafts according to the IPs, or you can assist to sell your arts. People like the sense of uniqueness, so make sure your projects slay.
1.5. Your Own Store
If you get stable buyers via your business, get a store to sell your projects and service. Maybe a personal studio is the best.
1.6. Art Gallery
For people like painting, now it is the show time. Now, this spot is mostly for those artists whose crafts are truly unique or even considered fine art. If you're doing something like abstract resin work, incredibly detailed laser-cut wall pieces, or mixed-media jewelry that really pushes the boundaries, galleries might be your next level.
Online Sales
Online is the route for maximum reach. Etsy is the obvious starting point—it's built just for us crafters. But if you want to grow a real brand, setting up your own shop via Shopify gives you more control over your brand look and customer data. It really suits folks who want to scale up.
When it comes to selling online, you've got so many options now, and each one has its own quirks, so let's break down where your time and money might be best spent.
1.1. Etsy
Etsy is usually the first stop for almost everyone, and honestly, it's still the best for getting seen fast. Its big advantage is that the customers coming to the site are already looking for handmade things, so the traffic is gold—it's very friendly for new sellers. However, because everyone is there, you're competing with a million other shops, and the fees (listing plus transaction) can really start eating into your profit margin once you sell a lot.
1.2. Shopify
Shopify is the choice for serious brand builders. The good thing is that you have total control over everything—your branding, your data, everything is yours. But it's not very friendly for beginners because you have to bring all the traffic yourself; it's like building an amazing shop in the middle of nowhere, so you have to spend a lot on marketing for anyone to find you.
1.3. Amazon Handmade
Amazon Handmade offers a massive customer base—millions of shoppers every day, which is its huge upside. It's moderately friendly for new sellers once you pass the maker application, but their rules are strict. Plus, even with the "Handmade" tag, shoppers still expect lightning-fast service and often lower prices, which can put pressure on your profits.
1.4. eBay
eBay is known for its huge global reach and its simple structure, which is great for moving general items. However, people don't go to eBay specifically for fine crafts; they go for deals, so it can be tough to compete on value. It’s pretty neutral for new sellers—it’s easy to list, but hard to get noticed among all the random stuff.
1.5. Instagram Shopping
Instagram Shopping is fantastic because it meets people where they already are: scrolling and getting inspired. It's super friendly for new sellers who are good at photography and telling a story. But it’s not a true shop on its own; it mainly links back to one of your other sites (like Shopify or Etsy), and if Instagram changes its algorithm, your shop window can disappear overnight.
1.6. Facebook Marketplace
Facebook Marketplace is incredibly simple and best for local, quick sales, and it’s very friendly for complete beginners since it's free to list and everyone already uses Facebook. The biggest problem, though, is that it’s known for low-price haggling and meeting strangers, so it’s not ideal if you're trying to sell a beautiful, high-priced custom piece across the country.
1.7. Folksy
Folksy is a great option if you are based in the UK, as it feels a lot like an earlier, more intimate version of Etsy, focused purely on British makers. The benefit is that the community is smaller and often more supportive, making it very friendly for UK-based new sellers who want to stand out quickly. The drawback is its limited market reach globally.
1.8. Made Me
Made Me is similar to Folksy in that it targets the dedicated artisan crowd. The positive side is that you join a well-curated space, which helps elevate your brand perception. It’s moderately friendly for new sellers as it's small and highly focused, but the traffic is lower than the giants, so you have to work harder to pull people to the site.
1.9. Teedo
Teedo is one of those smaller, niche platforms that might pop up. The main advantage of niche sites is potentially lower fees and a highly targeted audience. The downside is obvious: traffic is extremely low, meaning it's not friendly for sellers who need immediate exposure and sales volume.
Pricing and Sales Strategy (A Quick Look)
When setting a price, please, don't just add up your material costs. Your time, your skill, and your unique design are the most valuable things. Your price needs to cover your materials, your time (pay yourself a decent hourly rate!), and a fee for the creative magic you put into it. For custom items, you can use a simple strategy: charge a base price plus a clear personalization fee. This makes the value of the custom service obvious to the customer.
Legal Considerations
This part isn't as fun as designing, but you gotta do it. If you want to run a profitable business and not get into trouble, you need to know the rules.
The kind of certificates and regulations you need when selling your own crafts mostly fall into three buckets:
1. Business Registration and Taxes: If your sales are regular, you probably need to register as a sole proprietor or a small business depending on where you live. You must pay taxes on your income, so keeping clean records of sales and expenses is non-negotiable.
2. Intellectual Property (IP): This is where people get caught out. You cannot, under any circumstances, use copyrighted or trademarked images. That means no engraving Disney characters, famous sports logos, or popular movie quotes unless you have explicit permission. You need to make sure your designs are original to avoid huge legal headaches.
3. Product Safety: If you sell things that kids will use (toys), things that touch food (cutting boards), or things with electricity (lamps), your products must meet local safety standards. Don't cut corners on safety just to save a few bucks on materials.
Summary
The future of the craft market is bright, genuinely. New tech is lowering the barrier to entry, making creativity the most valuable tool you own. To succeed, you need to know who will buy your stuff, pick the right sales spot (online or a market), price your effort fairly, and keep everything legit and by the book. It’s time to stop just having those great ideas and start turning them into actual profits!
