This month it was my pleasure to interview Susan Bonnar of The British Craft House (TBCH). Susan has been in the artisan industry for over 10 years and has a wealth of experience running handmade businesses. She shares her insights on handmade businesses and TBCH in this interview. I strongly encourage you to go listen to the whole episode no matter where you are located- this is a very colorful, delightful conversation that will give you hope and make you smile! I had to condense it for the sake of this article.
See below for answers to all the basics about The British Craft House, and check out the interview on YouTube for even more gems and nuggets of wisdom as part of our interview.
Can you share the origin story behind the marketplace?
This is a winding tale, with a few chapters.
While I was in the military, I started a card business. I realized there was more profit to be made in guest books for weddings and christenings so I switched to that. I was selling in 12 different shops when I left the military.
I had my own website, but it was quite hard to be seen. I started selling on Etsy and some of the UK marketplaces. And and I was having a good amount of success. And then one day I had a conversation with another artisan. She said. “I have to sell something because I can’t get into my garage!”
Realizing how many artisans were struggling to sell their products gave me an idea. I set up an Etsy team where everybody would help each other. If you joined the team, you kind of pledged an allegiance to help other people and to promote other people. And that worked really well. I realized there was a huge swathe of creatives, worldwide creatives that were desperately trying to be seen.
I was also running a Facebook group as well that grew to 20,000 people. I was just running this alongside my Etsy shop for around about a year and a half, just promoting and helping other people to be seen. Eventually people starting asking to pay to get posted in the group. This made me stop and realize I needed to see if there was a business here.
Finally, around about 2018 Etsy decided that people could only be seen in their search results if they had free shipping, which hurt many UK sellers. There were lots of really unhappy people. And so I did this kind of big brainstorm, I started getting idea to build a platform.
And I went to a conference where Sir Tom Hunter was the main speaker. He said- if you have an idea and you’ve got the passion and the drive and you’re prepared to put in the hard work to make it work, you’ve got to do it. Because if you don’t do it, you will never know what could have happened.
It was like something from Hollywood was talking to me- like the the spotlights but on me. I just really felt he was saying to me you know you’ve got to try this because because actually what’s the worst that can happen?
This was in the February of 2019 and I launched on the 1st of November. I managed to get a Virgin Entrepreneur Loan which Richard Branson sponsored around about 5,000 businesses. Mainly they invest in tech companies- in men and people in their 30s so I was completely blown away.
What countries/locations/categories are eligible to be sold on your marketplace?
The British Craft House is a multi-vendor platform for handmade items made in the UK. You do have to be physically based in the UK.
We’re a little bit different to a lot of the other marketplaces in that we are by application only, and which means that it’s a very curated site.
We sell many different categories- but everything has to be handmade. Art has to be original art. We don’t have any kind of AI generated art. We don’t have any drop shipping or kind of copyright infringement. Again, because we’re small, we can keep quite a tight rein and everything. But everything has to be genuinely handmade by the seller.
We have quite a different stance on jewelry actually which is something that I wanted to make different. To to sell jewelry on the site you have to have made the focal point on the piece. So we’ve got lovely silversmiths, we’ve got amazing jewelers. And this has led to jewelry being our most constant, best selling category.
Are you focused on specific niches or is it a general marketplace?
We are a general marketplace, with categories including gifts, cards & stationery, jewelry, home, art, and more!
Can you share more of how the marketplace worked when it first launched, and how it has been evolving?
Because I had a built in base of about 50 sellers across a variety of categories, we did a LOT of testing before we launched. This allowed us to launch without a lot of the usual issues that can occur on marketplaces. This also allowed it to launch as a mini version of what it would grow to be, since we had all the categories from the beginning.
Over time we have also added features like an Etsy import. This makes the upload process easier if you already had an Etsy shop.
Our growth has been evolving and has been up and down depending upon what is happening in the industry. When Etsy makes a change people don’t like, we see a spike in applications.
We have now grown to a marketplace with 20,000 items available, which is quite a nice size for us. We do still have some room to grow yet. I would love to add about another 100 sellers before the end of the year.
How do your fee structures work?
We have three different plans depending upon your needs. We also have recognized since the beginning that these sites are large and expensive to run, so we don’t really run sales or gimmicks to get sellers to sign up. Our updated plans and pricing can be found here.
One thing to note is that all our plan comes with inclusion in off site advertising that we run and a free Etsy import tool.
What do you do to attract both sellers and buyers to your marketplace?
We started building our seller and buyers through the original groups we ran. This was before the British Craft House platform was ever created. This gave us a built in base to work from. We originally built up to a base of 20,000, but have since grown it to over 53,000.
Also, our buyers also do like that we curate items to send out. We put a lot of emphasis on the quality of the listings in the marketplace.
I have done some advertising for sellers on Facebook and Instagram. But sellers to our marketplace generally come to us via word of mouth. Another thing that is unique- because it is selective, sellers might be rejected. If you are rejected, you can improve upon your shop and apply again.
From your perspective, what makes a good product listing for your site?
Now this part is interesting. It’s very important for your photos to be a good quality. But it’s more than that. It’s really important to to bridge that gap for where the person might think I’m just not sure because I can’t see it in real life and so it’s just trying to you know get that onto the page. It’s like bridging the gap between the craft fair and the website.
That starts with a good photo – clear, in focus and enticing. I run Facebook ads all the time for every single product on the website. Those are not curated at all. Because the website is curated and has high quality listings I don’t need to curate the adverts.
What advice would you give artisans when looking at a marketplace to know if it might be right for them?
There are several things to consider:
1. What is there for you as a seller? Think about that community that is around you for a marketplace. In terms of total number of sellers, we are a small marketplace. However, we have a very active community for sellers. It is common for our sellers to help each other. Even people in the same genre of of craft will help each other and I think that’s quite, that’s quite special.
We also have a few groups that have started to meet up in person, to help with the isolation that comes with running a small business. Consider what elements of community are available from a marketplace. Also consider what kind of support you will receive from the marketplace. Is it bots or humans that answer questions?
2. What is there for the buyers? As a curated marketplace, we also put together special communications for our buyers. Some of our buyers prefer these communications and spend less time searching on the site. Our strategy is to reach both those on our email list and in our groups as well as those shopping on the site. Consider how the marketplace reaches its buyers.
3. Who is your competition on the site? Look at your competition before you sign up for marketplace. Are you adding to a category that is already oversaturated? If you are adding yourself to a category with a lot of competition, how will you stand out?
4. Spread yourself out and try several marketplaces to see what works. There are a number of marketplaces – some that are new and some that have been around a long time. Just because an marketplace has been around a long time does not mean it is doing a good job reaching and engaging its buyers. You may also want a strategy where you sell entry level items on one marketplace (like Etsy) but more upscale items on a different marketplace (like TBCH).
5. Contact someone that is selling on the site and see what they think of their experience.
How do people get started on your site?
It’s easy to apply right on our website. Head over to the site and Click on “Sell on the British Craft House.”
