Handy way to make a buck
MOST of her online customers are repeat buyers and the market for the little hand-crocheted bears is growing every day, thanks to a South African online site aimed at supporting local crafters.
Nikki Jones, better known as Nikki’s Bears and Buddies, crochets miniature creatures to supplement her income. Since the development of the South African handcrafts online site, littlemarket. she says her market is growing in leaps and bounds across the country, and beyond.
The site, which was launched by Jean Des Isnards in October, has weathered its initial teething problems – as most websites are prone to such hiccups – and is now beginning to catch on among handcrafters across the country who are looking for an additional marketplace for their wares.
“I lived and worked in London for 16 years,” said Des Isnards.
“I left the IT support business in 2006 and sold sleeping bags with arms and legs – that was a huge success – and then the recession hit and I went back to the IT industry in 2010.”
With a wife and a young daughter, Isnards said returning to South Africa in 2011 was not only to improve his lifestyle, but to take advantage of “so many opportunities” which he says exist here – particularly in the online shopping sector.
“What I have done is create a shop based on the hugely popular American online shopping site, Etsy, but for South African crafts,” he said.
“Etsy is very crowded. So I had a look at it and many other international shopping sites and took the best from each one to create littlemarket.co.za,” he said.
His first hurdle for his clients was the postal service. “First it took too long for the products to get to the destination and one out of a hundred orders were not reaching their destination.
“The online shop owners now use courier services, which has worked out cheaper for them,” he said.
Crafters are responsible for all the photography and detail on their sites. They pay R600 a year to feature on the site. “I am providing the platform. The crafters have full control of their site,” said Des Isnards.
At least 40 shops are now signing up to sell their products on littlemarket.co.za each month, he said.
Des Isnards said the littlemarket.co.za Facebook site had 35 500 “likes”. He added that this was growing by 3 000 new fans, on average, a month since he started.
There are more than 1 900 handcrafts for sale and about 250-350 new products are added monthly, with 145 crafters signed up.
The commission on each sale is 8% with an additional 4% for credit card fees on each successful sale.