This is another suggestion from fellow Affilorama staff, Melissa. She is definitely on a roll, and having gone through the research for this niche, spot on in suggesting this niche. The handicrafts niche is timely, trending, and full of money-making potential. Why I hadn’t thought of doing a Niche of the Week on handicraft affiliate programs escapes me.
Meh. Just probably didn’t think anyone would make money off recommending a website to buy quilting patterns and such from.
Well, this should teach me not to underestimate any niche — because you can make money telling people where to buy craft supplies online.
I have a whole slew of statistics and numbers to show you. Let’s start with the State of the Craft Industry report by the Craft & Hobby Association:
- 72% of crafters are women.
- Their median age is between 35 and 44.
- 42% have children.
- Nearly half of crafters (47%) have 10 years of experience or more.
It makes sense, it really does. Just think of the rise of Etsy — a place for people to sell their handcrafted clothing, home decor, and art. (It’s also a marketplace for craft supplies). There are more than 20 million users on the site and 1.4 million active sellers. And the social media network Pinterest (think of it as a digital corkboard for design inspiration, craft tutorials, infographics, recipes and more) is huge, too, with its membership expected to hit 47 million people this year.
Plus, there has been a steady increase in fabric, craft and sewing supplies stores since 2008. According to Statista, the industry is now worth USD $4 billion.
I could go on and on, but I’ll let MisterArt.com sum it all up as to why the craft supplies niche is worth putting up a site for:
Craft Keywords
You’ll need to be creative to find good keywords to target in the craft supplies niche. There’s a good mixture of high-, mid-, and low-competition keywords in this niche, but you need to be specific to get your target market. Otherwise, you’ll run the risk of getting traffic that may be interested in getting craft supplies online, but are not really looking for the specific craft supplies you recommend.
Try for long-tail keywords. If the affiliate program you’ll join will allow you to use brand names as keywords, then look into them. Be as specific as possible. “Craft lace” will get you high monthly search values but high-competition keywords. “black craft strip lace” will get you lower search values, but also lower competition.
You don’t really need to focus much on buyer-intent keywords in this niche. Information keywords will get you plenty of traffic to your site just the same. You can target keywords by writing reviews on specific craft supplies, which works better for some projects than others. Or, you can write about your own creations and show how you did it, then list what materials you used with your affiliate links. This works much like those food blogs where blog owners share their recipes with a link here and there of the things they used. Tutorials for crafting, especially for costume-related projects, will carry you a long way, but it should be something you have some experience with or at least feel passionate about.
The Craft Affiliate Programs
This is yet another niche that does not have any affiliate programs through ClickBank. There are a handful of craft affiliate programs in the ClickBank Marketplace, but they belong to specific crafts, not the craft supplies niche.
So, as always, I went looking for craft supplies affiliate programs online. Now, these 5 options I think best represent the diversity of affiliate programs for this niche. But they are not the only ones, and they are not necessarily the only good options. There are plenty more out there, but the ones I’ve chosen for you are a great way to get your feet wet, so to speak, when starting on this niche.
CreateForLess.com
CreateForLess.com has all the crafting supplies you need for your scrapbooking. sewing, quilting, and beading projects. Ir has a section for kid’s crafts, too. Prices range from a few dollars to about $20 or so.
Affiliates receive a 7% commission for each sale, and bulk orders can get you bigger commissions. Affiliate cookies last for 45 days and you need only apply through Commission Junction to promote CreateForLess.com.