Today’s world is getting more high tech all the time. Products are factory made. Items that used to have individual character are being made into commodities. Everything is getting slicker and slicker. What is this doing to our individuality? Individuality has not gone away. The human drive for individuality is being fostered by the growth of interest in handmade crafts. More and more people are taking up the making of handcrafts as a way of expressing their artistic individuality. But these handcrafts can’t be just the same old yadda-yadda that your Aunt Myrtle made. No antimacassars these days. New types of crafts are being invented every day. For example, what about the purse dangle ? No? It’s just a a handbag pendant. Adornment for your handbag. Isn’t that a fun concept?
But there’s not really a Great Divide between the world of high technology and the world of handmade crafts. As it turns out, it is the world of high technology that is nurturing the world of handmade crafts. The best and easiest way to get handcrafts into the hands of the buyers is to sell them directly on the Internet. Sure, you can find stores that sell craft items, but the buyers have to know where they are and have to travel there. And for the seller, the process from making the item to putting it in the buyer’s shopping bag can be complicated. The crafter has to meet with the store owner—on the store owner’s schedule. The store owner undoubtedly will want to examine the item and either accept it for sale or reject it. Then the artist must accept the terms of the sale. A store owner has overhead to pay. That means that she will take a large portion of the artist’s profits. There can be many other complications in the contract, such as obligations for promotional activities.
Selling on the Internet is much easier. The buyer can just sit at home and browse the sites. And even locating the sites is easy. Just google the item that you crave, and the site where it is located will come up. One of the best known sites, eBay, allows anyone to sell just about anything to any buyer. Its fame makes it a go-to place for these buyers. The crafter doesn’t have to make herself known to the world because the world knows eBay. Other sites are more specifically craft oriented. For example, Etsy is a site that is becoming more and more well known as a place to find nothing but handmade crafts and vintage items. On Etsy, the artist has full control of a mini-site. She can develop an identity based on a profile, a photograph, and a logo. The selling process is also inexpensive. The cost is just twenty cents per item for a three-month period, and Etsy’s commission is only 3.5 per cent. The artist can upload a number of photographs of each item.
People are excited to purchase handmade objects because unique possessions allow them to express their individuality in a truly stylish way.
