How To Sell Tufted Rugs? The 3 Best Ways

Sell Locally

Initially, setting up an online store or creating a personal website can be overwhelming. To create an Instagram account you can promote, you need to have many photos and videos of your previous work as a portfolio. Because of these challenges, starting to sell your rugs locally, especially to the people you know or to friends of your friends, would be the best option for you. Like in many other areas, your connections with other people can play a crucial role here. 

After you create your first pieces of rugs that you think are sellable. Their quality is at a certain level. Now it is time to promote your work through all of your friends and family. It is not something shameful to show what you are doing and promote your new business. You can consider gifting some rugs to your friends, especially to your friends you think can promote to other people for you. It will be more affecting than just showing your work to them and mentioning that you are trying to sell them. If you gift a rug, first your friend will be so happy to have something unique and beautiful like that and happily show everyone their new toy. Advertising your work with word of mouth can be more effective than ever imagined. Do not underestimate it.

Other than just promoting it with your friends and family, you may consider talking with local art/craft shops. In this case, the product range will be important. Try to choose stores where a tufted rug can fit into other products. So it can be an excellent addition to the overall collection. Many stores would be happy to add an item like this to their store. You can make some kind of agreement between you, and they can sell your work for you with a commission cut.

Check for local art shows. These local art markets/shows are highly popular to support small and more significant stores and crafters like you. In an environment like this, you will have access to many customers. Instead of trying to create a target group for yourself in the first days, you can directly use the core audience of the art market instead. Even if you fail to sell many pieces, you can increase your store’s awareness and create future customers. 

Sell Online

The number of people you can reach locally is always limited. Especially if you are living in a smaller city or even town, it can be pretty challenging. Even if you live in a major city, you may want to grow your business even more. In this case, you can consider directly starting an online platform you can promote and sell your work. There are endless options to mention how to set up an online store. Here are some popular options for you to choose from:

• Online Marketplaces
• Set Up Custom Website
• Instagram

Online Marketplaces

There are several available platforms to sell handmade craft items online. One of the most popular ones is Etsy. In 2021, approximately 100 million customers made a purchase on Etsy. This is the best reason you should set up a store on a marketplace platform, the ready customer. Even though you can advertise within Etsy, you don’t need to promote your items because platforms like Etsy will do it for you. There are many alternatives platforms; some of the common ones are:

• Etsy
• Amazon Handmade
• Artfire
• Aftcra
• Folksy
• Spoonflower

Depending on your location and the type of products you are selling, you can choose an option among them. But my recommendation is, why not all of them? You can list your products in all of them and increase your reach dramatically through all the platforms you can access. 

Each of these platforms has a different type of fee and charge. But they are not such high commissions and fees; it is worth trying. For example, in the case of Etsy, it charges 0.20$ per listing an item. If you do not sell anything, it will only cost you 0.20$, so the entry barrier is relatively low. Although it can be a negative aspect because it makes the all market more challenging depending on your niche. After you list your product, if you make a sale, Etsy takes a 6.5% transition fee from the total amount and finally 0.25$ + 3% payment processing fee of the final price, including the shipping fee. Overall, it is totally worth considering setting up a store on Etsy for your rugs. 

Sell Custom Orders

To sell custom order rugs, you can pretty much follow the same process of setting up an online store in a marketplace like Etsy. The only difference is you don’t just list one of your specific products. You can provide an option to your customer to reach you and ask for a custom design. You can design the rug accordingly and start tufting if your customer is happy with the final design. 

Between selling custom orders and premade designs, both advantages, and disadvantages on their own. Selling custom orders can be more challenging. Since it will be a custom-designed rug specifically for the client, you can increase your profit rate, but it is more active work. If you are selling your designs, it is possible to make all the work in the beginning and start advertising it, but in the case of commissioned sales, it is not possible to begin the tufting process without having a request from the potential client.

Your contact form on the platform is one of the most important places to be reachable by customers. It is crucial to have clear communication with the customer. If there is any misunderstanding, you can end up wasting time and material. It is better to provide the necessary information from the beginning so people would know what to expect.

Instagram & Custom Website

Setting up an Instagram account can be the easiest to start but hardest to process. It is not so easy to grow an Instagram account these days because of all the competition. The number of content creators increases every day, and it becomes harder to take the viewers’ attention. But with consistent work and patience, you can totally set up a beautiful Instagram account where you can promote your work and sell your rugs. I think it is a better place to sell custom orders since communication can be more manageable through the app.

You can use many platforms to set up a custom website to sell a product. The most common ones are:

• Shopify 

It is one of the most comprehensive platforms for online stores. You can find all the tools you need to manage your orders and shipping. If you have a limited budget, it can be a bit expensive compared to other platforms.

• Wix 

It is not as common as Shopify because of the lack of extra features provided by the plugins in Shopify. Still, it is an excellent alternative to consider. The cost to use Wix is relatively cheaper compared to the previous option. You can use it for totally free to try it out. You only need to pay when you actually want to publish your website publicly.

• Squarespace 

Similar to the Wix but it is not entirely focused on eCommerce purposes.

• WordPress 

WordPress is one of the most popular tools for creating any website. More than 35% of the websites online are made using this option. With additional plugins, you can create your fully customizable online store. It is probably the cheapest option to start; with hosting services such as BlueHost, you can begin with 2.95$ per month.

How Much Should You Charge?

There can be several different ways to think about this question. Do not forget that they are your art pieces, and it is totally up to how much you value your art. Otherwise, to estimate the value of a rug, you can calculate the cost of the materials plus your hourly rate addition to that would be a good estimation in the beginning.

The two primary methods to approach this question are:

• Estimation based on time
• Estimation based on the design

You can find in-depth information about it in How Much Should I Charge For My Rugs?