Creating Subscription Boxes For Your Crochet Business

Let's talk about subscription boxes. These can be a great addition to your crochet business as they give you a form of recurring income without too much risk when it comes to the money side, which I'm betting you weren't expecting. So let's talk all about subscription boxes and how they can compliment your crochet business. So subscription boxes are kind of a crossover with a membership except there's a physical product involved.

So you will ship boxes, container, whatever products you promised every month or every two months, whatever time scale that you want to. People who have subscribed. There are all kinds of subscription boxes that you can use for crochet. You can have crochet themed, so it doesn't have to be a pattern or yarn or hooks.

It can just be a crochet theme, like crochet themed, stationary socks, uh, hats, pencil cases, uh, notebooks, all those type of things. So this can also lean into creating your own merchandise line as well, you can have whatever you want that's related to crochet. A lot of crochet subscription boxes do contain yarn and, uh, um, a monthly pattern to go along with, but how you do that is entirely up to you. You could have crochet themed jewelry, all sorts, as long as it's got a crochet theme, you're all good.

And as long as you deliver what you promise to your subscribers, again, all great. But what about the cost? And this is one of the things that puts a lot of people off subscription boxes. The idea that you're going to spend an absolute fortune without knowing if people will actually buy your boxes.

But this is the beauty about subscription boxes. You don't buy anything until people have subscribed. Now, does that mean there's a delay between people ordering and you sending? Yes, absolutely.

Of course there is. But that's part of the promise. When people sign up, they know this. They know what date the next box is going out.

They know what date they'll receive their first box. Now, there are ways around this, and that could be the first box when anyone subscribes, is one that's always the same no matter what. Which means that although you'll keep some stock in house for those first boxes. It is the first box anyone will receive so they can receive it quite quickly.

And then after that, they will join the regular box that changes every month. But if you don't buy anything until people are subscribed, it means you're not wasting your money. You are not overbuying stock, you are not buying more than you can ship out, and it gives you that security and the reassurance that you are not going to waste. You're hard earned cash on something that's just gonna sit on a shelf in your house.

Now, subscription boxes do come with that cost, but if as long as you know what these are going to cost and what people are paid, you can make sure that you've got the right products to set out every month. It does mean you're gonna have to do your research though. 'cause you need to know exactly what you need to charge and you need to keep the price. The same subscription boxes work by charging a regular monthly fee.

And that fee has to be the same month to month, which means you need to know what things are gonna cost, how much stuff you've gotta put in the box every month, and how much profit you're going to make from that. So when you're researching what you can put in your subscription boxes. You need to have an idea of what you're gonna put in these boxes for several months in advance so that you can work out all the pricing. Because what you can't do is raise the price month to month because you made a mistake.

You've got to sit down and get the numbers right, or you are at risk of losing a lot of money, which we absolutely want to avoid. So. If you wanna do subscription boxes, you absolutely have to sit down and work the numbers out. You can't, not, there's too much at risk, there's too much to lose if you get your numbers wrong.

So once you know what kind of um, crochet theme box you're gonna be sending out every month, work out where you're gonna buy from, what everything's gonna cost, how much is going into that box, how, how many products. And then work out the cost. Work out how much profit you want to make because there's no point in doing all this work if you're only going to make a dollar or two profit from every box. You need more than that to make it worth it for you.

So getting the finances right is the most important thing about these boxes. Subscription boxes have been incredibly popular over the last few years. Because everyone likes a nice treat, and this is a great way to get one. They know how much it'll cost every month.

It's gonna come out regularly, and it contains some goodies that are related to crochet, which is a great way for crochet to treat herself. But what if you're not doing subscription boxes for crocheters? What if it's for something else? Well, if you sell what you make, you can.

Do a subscription box for anything. You can do subscription boxes for, um, baby themed items, and not everything in the box needs to be crocheted by you. It can be something else. It could be one crocheted item from you plus some other themed items that relate to what you've made.

So you get to combine what you make and the your niche and other products. It also gives you the opportunity to team up with other small businesses and buy stock from them. It gives you the opportunity to just kind of relax a little. You get the money that you need for that product that you've made, and you can buy some of the bits in good quality bits.

We've gotta make it worth it to go into that box around that theme, and it adds some easy profit where you don't have to crochet. And that's kind of the source of recurring income. It's having a monthly fee coming in, and you don't have to do all the work yourself, as in, you don't have to crochet everything. You can buy some products online, put them into that box along with something that you've crocheted, but it's not as much work as if you're doing it all yourself.

That's what subscription boxes can give you. So there are all kinds of ways that you can make subscription boxes work for your crochet business. It doesn't have to be for other crocheters, it can be for people in your niche, but it's got to be within your niche because if it's not, it's gonna work out a bit strange. No one knows what to expect, so you've gotta stick with a theme.

You've gotta stick with the niche of your business. But. It gives you security of what's money you've got coming in every month By building the this membership, this subscription membership, you are going to take the pressure off yourself. You are going to know some of the sales you're gonna get this month.

You're gonna have that money in advance so that you can create your boxes and get them shipped out. It's financial security. Yes, people come and go from subscriptions, but as long as you are marketing it, promoting it, and as long as the directory is that people are joining and you know more people are joining than are leaving, then the subscription model can work very well. Now there is a lot of work behind these, you know, you are going to be making and packing them up all yourself and getting them shipped out every month.

But to have that financial security around that. It can really take that pressure off, take that financial pressure off, and give you that peace of mind of knowing you've got a relatively stable income coming in every month. And as long as you deliver those boxes and what you say and make them good value for money, then people will stay because they love getting the treats every month. They love, um, getting something for them.

That's it's good value for money and you know, everyone loves these things. It's a mystery because they dunno what they're gonna get and it plays into that fear of missing out. If they cancel, they could miss out on something really good that's gonna come next month. And so people do tend to stay for several boxes of the subscriptions to not miss out.

And. You can show once everything's gone out, you can show off what the contents are on your social media in newsletters to keep promoting it and for people to realize that actually, yeah, this is a good idea to sign up. So, you know, there is a lot of effort involved, but also security around your finances. When you start building that membership up, you do have to put a lot of work into promoting them and showing off the value for, for the money that that.

They are paying. Um, and as long as you deliver what you say and everything's good quality and they get great value, then everyone's happy. Subscription boxes, they have been incredibly popular because of this idea of treating themselves, of getting, something they don't know. It's a surprise.

And who doesn't love a surprise present arriving in the post? So subscription boxes is a lot of effort, but you don't have to pay a ton of money up front. You only buy the contents, the extra contents that you don't crochet yourself, you only buy them once people have paid, and that stops you from having to shell out a fortune up front, but can be very, very successful. And if you are looking for other ways to make money from your crochet, I have a list of 12 different ways that you can earn money from your crochet skills.

So if you'd like that, then the link is in the show notes and. Explore what's possible for your crochet, because just because you have a crochet business, it doesn't mean you have to crochet every second of your day. There are lots of different ways that you can earn money with your crochet skills that give you the freedom to put your hook down when you want to take time off and still have the money coming in. So download that list and have a think about how it can transform your crochet business.

So thank you for listening. And I shall See you next time for the next episode. Bye for now.