The Results of TCR's 2000 Survey Are In ... And They Might Surprise You
by Noelle Backer
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Are Craftspeople Making Money on the Internet?
The Results of TCR's 2000 Survey Are In ... And They Might Surprise You by Noelle Backer |
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AFTER YEARS OF SPECULATION, THE FIRST-EVER STATISTICS ON ONLINE CRAFT SALES AMONG CRAFT ARTISTS ARE HERE. BUT, THEY MIGHT NOT BE QUITE WHAT YOU EXPECTED. IF YOU THOUGHT THAT NOBODY WAS MAKING MONEY ON THE WEB, YOU WERE WRONG. IF YOU THOUGHT THAT ALL THE CRAFT SITES POPPING UP THESE DAYS MEANT THAT THE CASH RIVER WAS FLOWING HEAVILY THROUGH THE CRAFTS FIELD -- WRONG AGAIN.
As it turns out, some craftspeople are making money, some aren't. Some are making lots of money. Where you fall in this dusky Web-based financial scheme depends on a few concrete factors. But it also seems to depend on a few intangible factors about which we can only theorize.
In general, more artists are making money online than not. While nearly half of respondents said they make less than $500 in a year, about a quarter of artists are making between $500 and $5,000 a year. A very small percentage of artists reported making more than $15,000. See "Online Income Levels Among Respondents," for the complete breakdown.
DOES IT TAKE MONEY TO MAKE MONEY?
A generally accepted business theory is that it takes money to make money. Online, this seems to be at least partially true. All of the respondents who report spending $8,000-$15,000 promoting their Web presence say they make at least that in online income. Half of those make more than $15,000 online.
On the flip side, the majority of artists who say they spend nothing on online promotion actually make money. A third of them make nothing.
And those who spend nothing but make something don't actually make much. See "$0 Spending vs. Online Income." A third of those who make money say they make less than $500 annually. Compare this with the statistics on the $8,000-$15,000 investors who make more than $15,000, and a definite correlation develops between online promotional spending and online income.
This is not to say that if you spend nothing, you'll never exceed $500 in online income. Some artists do. In fact, 14 percent of those who spend nothing say they make between $1,000 and $3,000. Few artists who spend nothing exceed that. Less than 3 percent of them make more than $15,000 online (although that's still a pretty big return on even a few artists' investments).
STAYING POWER
Other big news is that 83 percent of respondents have had an online presence for less than two years (see "Length of Online Presence"). Everyone is getting on now. The venue is rapidly becoming one of the most popular for marketing exploration. And while still up in the air about the Web's viability as a sales venue, most craftspeople would rather be on it than not. After all, why not, when you have a 3 percent chance of making more than $15,000 for nothing?
Are all these recent recruits to the Web making money? In general, the survey results indicated that the longer you've had an online presence, the greater your chances of bringing in the big bucks. Almost a third of respondents who have had a presence for more than 5 years are making $8,000-$15,000 a year. Compare that to less than 4 percent who have had a presence for one or two years. (Refer to "Length of Online Presence and Its Effect on Income," for the complete breakdown.)
WHICH MEDIA ARE BIG ONLINE SELLERS?
Overall, no medium is outselling the rest by a landslide. Jewelry artists, however, are at the top of the big-money list: Jewelry artists constitute more than 20 percent of those who make more than $8,000 online in a year; followed by ceramics, glass and "other" media, which all came in at 13.7 percent.
The interesting thing, however, surfaces when you look at the percentage of artists within each medium who are making the most money. For example: Less than 4 percent of all respondents making $8,000-plus online were leather artists; however, almost 20 percent of leather artists are making more than $8,000. In other words, fewer leather artists participated in the survey, so as compared to all artists in all media making more than $8,000, leather artists came in at a lower percentage. When comparing leather artists to each other, the percentages are more telling. (Refer to "Artists Within Each Medium Making More Than $8,000 In Online Income" & "Percentage of Total Artists Making More Than $8,000 In Online Income" for complete details.)
WHOLESALE VS. RETAIL: WHICH VENUE IS BRINGING IN THE BUCKS?
More craft artists are making money from retail sales online than from wholesale sales online, according to the survey (see "Percentage of Monthly Sales From Online Wholesale Customers" & "Percentage of Monthly Sales From Online Retail Customers" for details).
The survey also indicates that for many artists, these online retail sales make up a large percentage of their total annual income -- online and off. For nearly a third of them, online retail sales constitute 75 percent to 100 percent of their total income.
Less than 10 percent of artists reported this level of income from online wholesale sales.
WHAT ARE THE MONEY-MAKERS DOING RIGHT? WHAT ARE THE OTHERS DOING WRONG?
Regardless of their preference for wholesale or retail sales, those craftspeople who are making more than $8,000 in annual online sales listed the following among their methods of Internet promotion:
The conundrum, however, is that the artists who are not making a dime from online sales are doing many of those same things. Their promotional efforts generally included:
(See "Methods of Promotion" for a breakdown of promotional efforts among total respondents.)
A THEORY ON THE UNEXPLAINED
Why can one person do one thing and make money, while another does the same thing and makes nothing? Why do some movies flop at the box office despite inundating the public with TV, radio and billboard ads?
As in any other marketplace, the quality and appeal of the work are likely to affect sales. But, that's certainly not true for everyone: Some beautiful, well-made work is surely sitting on studio shelves waiting to snag the attention of an online buyer. And, as proven by the fact that "Married with Children" was on the air for what seemed like an eternity, it seems that every product has its market, it's just a matter of finding it.
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About the Surveys
Part II of TCR's survey, "Are Crafts Retailers Buying and Selling on the Internet?" is available online at www.craftsreport.com/april01/2001retailerresults.html
The Crafts Report's Internet Survey Series, Part I and II, were conducted by The Crafts Report staff. The objective of the surveys is to provide current information about craft sales on the Internet to artists and retailers. The scale of the surveys is believed to provide a fairly representative sample of artists and retailers, although the artists' portion of the survey is based on a larger, more representative base of respondents. For more information about the methodologies of the Internet surveys, visit our Survey Methodologies page. |
Noelle Backer is editor of The Crafts Report.
Copyright© 2001
JANUARY 2001: TABLE OF CONTENTS