Woodworking has turned into one of the most cherished pastimes in the United States. Some enthusiasts earn extra income from woodworking, and some even build a stable living by selling their woodworking projects.
If you plan to profit from your craft, you need to choose the right venue to showcase and sell your creations. Below, I will share details about the many places you can sell:
- Flea markets
- Craft fairs
- Renaissance fairs
- Furniture shops
- Amazon Handmade
- Etsy
- eBay
- Zibbet
- Artfire
- iCraft
- Shopify
- Personal brick-and-mortar business
🛍️ Showcasing Your Products at Flea Markets: A Fantastic Opportunity
Flea markets are excellent places to begin marketing your woodworking projects. They’re usually low-cost to set up a booth, and you can put together a vending station with minimal equipment—sometimes just a tarp.
They also boast decent foot traffic, and it’s rare to find a flea market without a good number of visitors, especially people eager to buy woodworking items.
Additionally, flea markets are wonderful spots to expand your network. Many other sellers offer handmade crafts and may be willing to trade tips on selling or on crafting your woodworking products.
However, at a flea market, expect to sell your pieces at a lower price. Many woodworking vendors note that they make around $200-$500 a day at a flea market after vendor fees. Still, selling at a flea market helps you establish regular clients, so you might earn consistent income once you’ve built your reputation.
Bear in mind that flea markets require your time to sell your goods in person and to gain a feel for managing your business. You’ll likely need to sacrifice some of your free time to make it work.
🎨 Craft Fairs: A Hub for Handmade Goods Enthusiasts
Craft fairs, sometimes known as craft shows, resemble flea markets but focus on selling handcrafted, artisanal items. They can feature specific kinds of crafts, including woodworking.
Craft fairs can be juried or non-juried. Juried craft shows usually showcase higher-quality items. These events often require an application and a fee (possibly quite high, even thousands), so they may not be the best starting point. However, once you’ve developed your business, they can become very rewarding.
Non-juried craft shows don’t call for an application, but you might encounter a vendor fee, typically up to $100. They may not be well-advertised or heavily managed, so foot traffic can be limited. Nevertheless, they’re an excellent option if you’re just starting out.
Unlike flea markets, craft fairs concentrate on handcrafted goods. You’ll have a higher likelihood of making meaningful connections at a craft fair compared to a flea market.
🏰 Renaissance Fairs: A Haven for Artisanal Shoppers
One of the lesser-known venues for selling woodworking projects is Renaissance fairs, places where many enjoy seeing traditional skills in action. Visitors often appreciate the medieval ambiance that highlights craft vendors—especially if their goods are handmade or use historical techniques.
Your woodworking items will appear perfectly at home, and people who adore the nostalgic vibe are often more inclined to purchase your creations. Don’t forget to dress the part in a medieval-inspired outfit to complete the experience. If you craft your wooden products by hand, consider demonstrating how you carve or finish wood using old-world methods to captivate fair-goers.
🛠️ Showcasing Practical Uses of Your Work in Furniture Shops
While woodworking projects can be applied to countless items, it’s tough to picture furniture without woodworking at its core. Many furniture pieces integrate woodworking, including:
- Bed frames or bed posts
- End tables
- Chairs
- Tables
- Desks
Numerous furniture shops welcome woodworkers to sell their pieces on consignment. You can anticipate smaller profits by going this route, but unlike at a flea market or craft fair, furniture stores typically have an established marketing plan. Plus, you usually don’t pay a vendor fee since you sell directly to the shop.
Working with a furniture store is a terrific approach if you’d rather devote your time to woodworking than to orchestrating your own marketing strategy.
💻 How to Sell Your Woodworking Projects Online
Although selling in person has its perks, you can only be in one spot at a time. Thanks to the internet, however, you can connect with potential customers anywhere. If you’re aiming for the broadest audience, selling your woodworking projects online could be your best bet.
On the other hand, going digital can reduce the personal touch, and there are certain risks: sometimes payments can remain unpaid, and cybercriminals may pose a threat. Still, these challenges are common to all who venture into online sales.
📦 Amazon Handmade: A New Platform Backed by Trust
Amazon is a household name, a global brand that has dominated online shopping for decades. Amazon Handmade is a newer branch of Amazon that many haven’t heard of yet, launched in 2015 specifically for artisans worldwide to sell handcrafted items—including woodworking projects.
Amazon is a well-tested platform, offering you services such as:
- A well-established customer base
- Secure payment systems (just like any other Amazon transaction)
- Access to Prime shipping
- Permission for light machining (you should confirm with Amazon, but essentially, your production can’t be fully automated on an assembly line; using mostly hand tools is acceptable)
- A marketplace that only permits handmade items
That last point can seem restrictive, but it prevents mass-produced pieces from competing with your authentic, handmade products. You’ll have to verify that your woodworking projects are indeed handmade during the application process, but it helps eliminate unfair competition.
However, there are a few drawbacks:
- 15% referral fee – If you sell a $50 item, Amazon will take $7.50, which can significantly reduce your profit margin.
- Limited control over pricing – Amazon can influence the pricing of your goods.
- A massive, well-established market – Although a large market is advantageous, it also means fierce competition, so you’ll need to stand out.
🛍️ Etsy: A Trusted Platform for Selling Your Woodworking Projects
Etsy is widely celebrated for selling handmade items, including woodworking projects. Similar to Amazon Handmade, Etsy mandates that all products be handcrafted. Etsy itself sells over $5 billion in products annually.
There are several benefits of using Etsy, including:
- A lower sales fee (5% on price, shipping, and tax)
- Support for in-person sales
- Advertising support (including off-site ads)
- The opportunity to sell custom, made-to-order items
These features make Etsy highly attractive for many artists, sometimes more so than Amazon Handmade.
Unfortunately, Etsy does have other charges:
- Listing fees
- Advertising fees
- Higher currency conversion fees
Despite the extra costs, Etsy is a powerful brand that some argue has an advantage even over Amazon Handmade.
🛠️ eBay: A Marketplace for Everything, Including Woodworking Projects
If you want to reach a vast audience, eBay is a worthy choice. eBay doesn’t specialize in any particular category, meaning the competition can be steep since it boasts numerous buyers and sellers. However, eBay makes market research simpler by letting you see what’s currently trending.
Additionally, eBay has a favorable fee structure for newcomers. Your first 200 listings are free, and each listing after that only costs $0.35. The selling fee is 10% of the item’s price. This setup can help beginners experiment and discover which items sell best.
📦 Zibbet: A Powerful Platform and Management Tool for Sellers
Etsy, eBay, and Amazon Handmade might dominate online sales for woodworking projects, but there are other platforms too, like Zibbet. They cater to sellers of handmade goods without charging you to list on their marketplace.
Moreover, Zibbet can assist you in managing your other sales channels, such as Etsy. This integrated approach helps you track and organize all your listings in one place.
🎨 Artfire: An Excellent Option for Sellers of All Levels
Artfire is another website specifically designed for handcrafted goods, making it an excellent platform for woodworkers to market their creations.
The standard account includes:
- $4.95/month
- 250 active listings
- $0.23 per listing fee
- 12.75% fee on every sale
- Each listing remains active for 2 months
This option is perfect if you’re new and prefer not to pay hefty fees upfront. However, once you start selling more, this plan may become less cost-effective.
They have more affordable plans for larger, established shops:
Popular Shop Account
- $20/month
- 1,000 active listings
- No listing fee
- 4.5% fee per sale
- No time limit on listings
- CSV importer
This option is better once you’ve built a solid brand and anticipate higher sales.
Featured Shop Account
- $40/month
- 2,500 active listings
- No listing fee
- 4.5% fee per sale
- No time limit on listings
- CSV importer
- Enhanced visibility on the site
Artfire might not draw as large a crowd as Amazon or eBay, but that could mean less competition for you. In addition, Artfire provides multiple tools that help you leverage your audience effectively:
- You can launch a Google Shopping campaign via Artfire.
- Your listings can achieve high search engine rankings.
- Order processing is straightforward.
- You can offer discounts and coupons for specific items.
- Sales management tools on Artfire are user-friendly.
- Widgets and blogging features can create an immersive experience for your store visitors.
- No intensive technical work is required—just craft top-quality woodworking projects and list them.
💡 iCraft: A Budget-Friendly Option for Beginners
Among the best sites for selling woodworking projects is iCraft. Although smaller and based in Canada, iCraft attracts over a million visitors annually.
iCraft also stands out as very affordable. Registration is $25, and membership costs range from $10 to $15 per month, depending on the length of your agreement:
- $10/month if you pay annually
- $12/month for six months
- $15/month if you pay month-to-month
You can test it out by paying slightly more month-to-month. If you find it beneficial, commit for a longer period to save money. iCraft promises no commissions and no hidden fees, striking a good balance between exposure and affordability.
🌐 Why You Should Build Your Own Woodworking Business Platform
With so many choices to sell woodworking projects worldwide, it’s easy to forget that you can create your own platform to sell under your own brand. Developing your own setup can be costly and may take time to gain traction, but it lets you keep more of your profits since there are fewer transaction fees.
While this reduces costs and boosts your earnings, success will hinge on your ability to do everything—from marketing to customer service—yourself. Building an independent woodworking project business platform might feel daunting if you’re entirely on your own.
💼 Build and Grow Your Brand with Shopify
Shopify is popular with entrepreneurs looking to create an online business. It’s especially beloved by artisans selling their custom pieces.
Shopify is a well-regarded company that enables you to set up your online store for a reasonable initial cost. It’s also user-friendly, assisting you with listings and shipping. In fact, Shopify is arguably the best way to streamline shipping for your woodworking projects online.
Plans on Shopify range from $29/month to $299/month. Higher-tier plans offer advanced features such as:
- In-depth report creation
- Professional reporting options
- Enhanced shipping tools
The principal differences include how many staff accounts you can create and the transaction fees you’ll pay. More premium plans reduce the cost per sale.
Nonetheless, be prepared for a 0.5% – 2.0% transaction fee depending on your plan. Additional features may require extra fees if they aren’t included in your current plan.
Alternatives to Shopify for creating your own woodworking brand online include:
- BigCommerce – Comes with bonus features and uses your annual revenue as a threshold to automatically upgrade your plan, giving you better resources and saving you money in the long run.
- Big Cartel – Tailored for artisan products and offers more affordable tiers.
- Weebly – Owned by Square, making it easy to sell projects online and in person.
- Volusion – An all-inclusive eCommerce service that’s simple to use for designing and launching an online store.
🏠 Starting Your Own Brick-and-Mortar Woodworking Business
Even though online sales are convenient, running a brick-and-mortar location is still a good idea. Research shows that an enjoyable in-store experience matters greatly to many shoppers.
With a current trend toward smaller retail stores, there’s an opportunity for emerging business owners. You could open a brick-and-mortar shop in your own home (provided it’s legally permitted) and sell woodworking projects right where you craft them.
Keep in mind how crucial it is to provide a positive experience for visitors. You can enhance that experience further by using online tools such as:
- Omnichannel strategies
- Blog posts
- Videos
🎯 Key Takeaways to Remember
You have plenty of ways to sell woodworking projects, and there’s no reason to limit yourself to just one. Most successful business owners recommend exploring various avenues to broaden your potential.
If you want to dive into online sales, that’s great. Just remember that in-person sales give buyers a chance to see and touch your workmanship, an important sensory experience that’s hard to replicate digitally. If you’d rather start with in-person events, that’s fantastic too. But acknowledge that the internet’s reach can amplify your business beyond what’s possible face-to-face.
This isn’t about picking one path but exploring all the possibilities. The options listed here can be your first steps into selling woodworking projects as well as your next steps once you’re ready to grow further.