Handmade Plush Dolls and Toys Business Online 🧸

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: If you've been thinking about starting a plush doll or plush toy business, then watch this video first because I'm going to break down where to get your supplies, how to price your products and what you need to do to stand out in a crowded market. Let's dive in. Hi, my name is Mei Pak and I help makers, artists and designers make a consistent income from selling their handmade products online. Today I'm going to talk about how to get your plush doll business started. Everyone had a soft toy growing up, right? Whether you called it a softy or plushy or a Teddy. They're a quintessential part of childhood. They're frequently given out as gifts and most children have many more than one. You can create plush toys by sewing crocheting knitting or needle felting and even some creative combinations that use one or more techniques. I love the idea of starting a plush doll business for many reasons. For one the entry point into a plush toy business isn't very expensive to get started. You just need some fabric or yarn and a sewing machine which you might already have for your personal use. I also think there's a lot of opportunity to build a whole world and backstory behind your plush dolls or stuffed animals. And depending on what your designs are, you could have a lot of fodder for content to post on social media and on your blog if you have one and your email newsletter. This is huge because if you're selling something like jewelry or art, it can be challenging to come up with good story based content like that. So in other words that helps make your marketing a little bit easier to do and if you're passionate about designing your own plush toy design, you can later expand your business into a passive income model stream of income by offering the digital pattern for sale. And it's always great to have ways where you can see your business growing. Now having said that there are some challenges you need to be aware of before you jump into starting your business so you can plan and prepare for them. There are a lot of hobbyist crafters out there who are also creating items and selling them for probably little more than the cost of the materials because they aren't running a business. They're happy to just have fun and have their material costs covered. But if you're running a business not only do you need to be paid for your labor and profit, but you're competing with all of these hobbyists, so it's a crowded marketplace and it can be a challenge to stand out. Also making plush toys can be time-consuming compared to other production methods because you're creating each item either stitch by stitch or fabric piece by fabric piece. There is going to be a limit on how many items you can make per week. However, you can get over that by outsourcing and hiring help which is something I've done for my business. So it's going to be crucial that you select products that maximize on your earnings. And finally because you are creating products that will be used by children. You will want to take the time to learn about the legal requirements of toy making and ensure your items comply with regulations. Now. I'm not a lawyer or a professional or an expert on those matters. So this video will not cover that but safety will need to be a top concern for your business and it will inform your choice of materials and offerings first. Let's talk about establishing your shops niche in order to keep your shop top of mind. It is essential that your shop has a clear message and a defined niche. So you've got to dig deep like do you want to specialize in gifts for newborns? Because this will lead you to craft very different toys than if you love creating soft dolls for older girls. Maybe you hate making the same thing twice. And so you may be drawn to a custom plush business that uses t-shirts from the customer stash, right? Or maybe you love embroidering and creating fine detail work on faces that leads you to a higher-end art doll. Maybe you can specialize in making gothic soft toys for people like creepier darker things. The point is find a niche and stick with it when you're just getting started. Okay, make sure that what you want to make and sell is something people actually want to spend money on to see what people are interested in buying. You need to do some research. Etsy is a great first stop in finding out what people are interested in buying right now. Don't be afraid to peek at the competition and see what they're doing and what's working. Now. I'm definitely not advocating that you copy anyone's aesthetic but doing your research on the competition can help you steer your handmade shop in the right direction so you can start making sales quickly steer clear also of any niche. That's completely flooded and too competitive like maybe simple teddy bears stitched in plain fabric. And likewise, you also want to avoid anything that nobody is doing like maybe six foot tall custom plush toys. So take the time to notice more general trends as well, right? So for example, we're in a moment right now where the customer cares a lot about where the materials are coming from. So maybe you would like to craft leather teddy bears using material from your home state of Montana. I'm not saying that's a good idea that will sell but you get what I'm saying. Okay, so now we need to figure out how you can stand out in that niche. It could be a little thing like adding leather tags to finish off your pieces or maybe it's about the quality or type of fabric you use. Maybe each toy comes wrapped in the lovely box with the birth certificate. How cute would that be right? You want it to be recognizable enough that people will know it came from your shop. I have a friend Stacy truck when she was running her plush toy pattern company fresh stitches. Her designs were so distinctive that her customers could pick them out instantly. In fact, she actually told me once that she did a design for a publisher. Like I think it was a magazine which did put her name on the pattern design and then she actually had her customers writing to her saying that the publishing company stole her pattern. I mean, that's not what happened, right, but her designs were so distinctive just from the style. That's what you want to aim for and that's when you know you stand out from the competition and you're memorable, which brings me to the topic of designing. If you're going to set your business up to be sewing plush toys, it might be worth the time investing in developing your own patterns. Abby glass and Burks book stuffed animals from concept to construction shows you how to do that. This way your piece is completely distinctive and you don't need to worry about obtaining permission to use someone else's design for commercial purposes. Now, let's talk about pricing. If you're brand new to pricing, then you'll want to watch my pricing video to get a great in-depth view on how to price your products, but basically it boils down to three things how much you can earn per hour per week and what the market will bear. Let's talk about how much you can earn per week. So let's say you've calculated that you can earn $20 per hour and you're happy with that, but you have to think of your week as a whole. It's important to think of how many hours you can practically produce your products and decide if that suitable for your life and when you're thinking about that, don't forget that you need to set time aside to do administrative business things as well like marketing and promoting your business. Now the third component how much the market can bear. That is will people buy your products at the price. You need to sell it for to make a living. This is where the research you did on your market will come in handy. It's also where having a unique selling point that can elevate your product from us. So so commodity into a luxury is incredibly valuable. If you've done your research or maybe even experimented in your own shop and you suspect that maybe you won't be able to sell your toys for the money. You need to make it worth it. It may be time to go back to the drawing board and brainstorm some new product offerings. Okay, let's move on to your supply chain. If you're purchasing significant quantities of a material, you should be able to purchase it wholesale or at least at a discount from retail. Try to go as straight to the source as possible with your other materials. So like poly fill leather tags and notions can all be purchased in bulk, right? So take time to find your sources and you'll save big money in the long run. Don't hesitate to reach out to a supplier that you like and see if they offer wholesale pricing to production artists depending on the company. It may be as little as a tax ID number some paperwork and a minimum order to get started. And if you plan your products the right way like selecting from a minimal color palette, then you can order bolts of fabric at a time. Then you'll be saving big money on your largest supply cost for other supplies. Check out bat Mart. They sell large quantities of poly fill and shiny. Happy World sells 50 pair packages of craft eyes at bulk pricing. Just take the time and effort to find your materials and allow your products to be shaped by what supplies make sense to stock. This is a key component to profitability. Once you have your products in place in a cohesive shop identity. You'll want to create a library of marketing materials that you can use in your shop and in your social media you can go to sites like Fiverr and Creative Market to get a surprisingly custom looking logo. That's both modern and on trend for a good price. This is also the time to invest in good product photos. You want to have some that are just your product on a white background and then a whole other set of lifestyle photos. So this would be your products being used by people in everyday life. For example, if you sell infant plushies then have a photo of a baby playing with your toy things like that. Give the customer a good sense of scale and show what your product would be like in their world. It helps them imagine it if they've already bought it. These photos are great for social media. They'll help you stand out with your branding and make you more memorable, but they'll also help you out with customer service because trust me customers hardly ever read the written product descriptions and if you don't show your product in a real life setting, you inevitably get someone who thinks it was supposed to be a totally different size, but more than that lifestyle images are great for selling with emotion because people buy based on emotions and feelings. They don't generally buy based on logic. So you want to make sure you have both types of photos in your shop. You also need to set up a website. I highly recommend going with Shopify and if you're curious why I don't recommend Etsy to start out with you can check out this video here where I talk more in-depth about that a long story short. Always start and focus your energy into your Shopify store because that's a more long-term and stable solution. Once you're established and you're making consistent sales on Shopify, then it makes sense to sell on marketplace sites like Etsy and Amazon. Bottom line is you don't want to rely on Etsy and Amazon for sales because they fluctuate way too much one day. You're doing well and the next you're not now once your business is open. It's time to promote it start building an email list with free software like mailer light email marketing is one of the most effective forms of marketing and it's one of the only marketing avenues that you actually own because keep in mind you don't really own your social media accounts and your followers even if you don't plan or you're not ready to send out email newsletters to your subscribers yet. It is worth it to start collecting emails as soon as your shop opens from there I recommend reaching out to anyone who has a large audience on their platform so it could be social media influencers YouTubers magazines big websites like BuzzFeed Huffington Post those types of sites and pitch your products to them. It's free to get your products mentioned and I have a whole other video here that talks about that whole process step-by-step. If you want to learn more it takes a long time to build up your own social media following one person at a time. So that's why I recommend getting your products featured on other people's platforms instead. You can think of it as like a shortcut to getting your work seen by thousands of people in a short amount of time and for very low cost. If you enjoyed this video give it a thumbs up leave a comment. If you have any questions and subscribe to my channel for a whole lot more tips on how to start and grow your handmade business. 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