4. Funding: Self-fund vs Preorders

 

You have your designs and audience on your social media account, now you can consider putting your design in production. 

But where will the funding come from? 

Contents:

• Funding
• Self-Fund
• Preorders

• Pros and Cons of Different Selling Platforms
• Bigcartel
• Etsy
• Shopify

1. Custom making pins is not a cheap process, some choose to self-fund their items and some would open preorders instead.

Self-funding is self-explanatory but, you might ask: what are preorders?

Preorders the process of allowing customers to purchase the item because it goes into production. It is held in hopes that the design can be funded with that amount of money. If it doesn't get funded enough for a long amount of time, you can always refund those who did preorder.

We give a few incentives in our preorders so that people would consider ordering before the actual product gets produced:

• Preorder prices are usually discounted/little lower than the actual price of the item 
• Include freebies ex. stickers, photo cards, prints, etc.
• The items have the best quality out of the batch

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Self-funding

Pros:

• Can go straight to production, no need to wait for the design to be funded
• Seeing the actual product or process may attract more customers
• Convenient and efficient 

Cons:

• Money comes out of pocket
• The cost of production and shipping might be expensive

Preorder

Pros:

• Production funds don't have to come out of pocket
• Let you know that people are interested enough to preorder your design

Cons:

• The design may not get funded
• Sometimes can't help but feel a little disappointed
• Refunding is inconvenient

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2. Selling Platforms

This is one of the most important parts of an online shop. A place to sell your items.

These are the most common platforms I've seen these two years:

Bigcartel $0 - $29.99

    

Pros:

• Easy to navigate and set up
• Different webpage themes
• There is a free option (upgrade to first-level Platinum plan is recommended for optimal functions)

Cons:

• Not a lot of functionalities
• Hard to discover unless guided towards

Etsy $0 - $10 + transaction fees

    

Pros:

• Easy to set up and maintain
• Large audience (comes from search function in the page)
• Calculates shipping for you

Cons:

• Transaction fees
• Shipping is not discounted and has limited options
• Saturated with other shops' products

Shopify $29 - $299/month + transaction fees

Pros:

• Many features
• Has a selection of themes
• Good shop analytics for sellers

Cons:

• First-level subscription is pricy for starters
• Transaction fees

Note: I use Bigcartel for my shop platform and I personally think the first level subscription plan for $9.99/month is enough for optimal shop functions (inventory count, discount codes, 50 products). It is not complicated to manage and many things are self-explanatory after playing around. 

I haven't used Etsy or Shopify, but those are just some of the main Pros and Cons I've gathered through research. For more information about them, you could search it up too!

My take on what to choose:

Bigcartel or Etsy if you are tight on money or don't want to pay too much subscription fees per month despite the number of sales you make.

Bigcartel if you don't want to pay or pay too much for a subscription and don't mind if the only way people can access your shop is by actively searching for your website or clicking on a link you provide.

Etsy if you don't mind the transaction fees and want your products to be accessible to search Etsy search engine.

Shopify if you like the availability of different functions from add ons and have a lot of sales to back up the monthly subscription fees.

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Now you should be able to consider whether to self-fund or open preorders and think about what platform to sell your products on!

If you have any comments or questions for me please feel free to comment below, dm me via Instagram or Twitter @teataekl, or email me at teataekookie@gmail.com