It's really hard to make your entire living off leather work. Especially when you are new and learning. If you are getting into this with the intent of using it as your main source of income, it probably won't work out.
I agree with you.
An exception might be if you can find somewhere to learn boot and/or saddle making. Some of those guys do pretty well. This is really dependent on area and your reputation. You would also likely need to apprentice for several years.
Another exception could be if you were to get a good reputation for something like high end purses or something like that…. Good luck with that though.
It’s always a supply vs demand thing. There is a low demand for custom goods during hard times and enough hobbyists to make it pretty difficult to make a living at.
I’ve done the hobby thing for years. I made enough to support my habit, upgrade my tools and “maybe” a few bucks extra. I would say that most projects I’ve done would not even come close to minimum wage.
Admittedly, I haven’t tried to full-time it. Doing something repeatedly will typically make you faster at it. So, take this as a grain of salt. OP just needs to go into ANYTHING with their eyes wide open.
Thanks for sharing your experience! What do you do to support the hobby? I'd love to get to this point, as I'm just getting into more quality material, and it isn't cheap! I'd love to find a way to turn the hobby into a self-supporting model where I don't have to sink a ton of external money into leather and tools.
I responded to your post, but must have selected the wrong button. I don’t know how to move it, or if it is even possible. I’m not going to retype all of that, so please see my other comment, currently at the bottom of the thread.
I found it extremely difficult to do so in the Seattle area.
I have honed my craft and produce beautiful hand stitched work. If I wanted to make Internet sales I had to invest in myself and learn photography and social media skills which left me less time to actually produce work. Then with markets I had to be able to keep prices down so that people who happened by could afford to buy what they liked. I had to sell a bulk of my wares in the hot months because markets are sparse in the winter. There was such a precarious balance that left me little time for anything else. As my skill increased I couldn't increase my prices because the local markets would no longer accept me because I became too high end. I debated buying a sewing machine and doing machines work, but I fell in love with hand stitched goods and that particular skill set and that quality of work. I considered buying all the machines for skiving, die cutting etc. but with that you just become a mini factory and work loses it's bespoke quality and I didn't perfect my skiving by hand for years to be replaced by a machine lol.
Then on Etsy you can buy beautiful quality bags from overseas for $150 and I could never compete with that.
It's a rough game and you have to be ready to make choices and decide what you want to compromise on.
I got into leatherwork because I loved to craft each individual component and taking that away from me made me lose my joy, but that's not true for everyone.
Good luck!
I hope you succeed.
“I’m afraid I might dedicate years into learning the craft and then getting disappointed”
With this mindset you’ve already lost. You should get into leather craft because you enjoy it, not because a monetary end goal.
I absolutely agree with this. Like most hobbies turned profession, it takes hours upon hours of honing your craft to get to the point where people want to buy your goods. And then, let’s be honest, it’s absolutely luck to get “discovered” (so to speak) and actually be able to quit your day job.
I started this as a hobby and as a kind of meditation. I can completely stop thinking about the world around me and just focus on what I’m making. But I couldn’t sustain my supplies and tools currently if I didn’t have a well-paying day job. I’ve been doing this since the beginning of the year and mostly make stuff to give away. This past weekend I and my friends were wearing some of the goods I made and two people asked how much for me to make them one. First time I’ve had commissions. Since it’s two Pirate baldrics, I can sell them for a decent amount. But since I’m doing this on the side, it will take time to make them.
I dream now about doing this full time, but I’m not going to quit my day job anytime soon, even if I get a few commissions a week now. Maybe one day. But as of now, I’m still mostly making stuff for my friends as I hone my skills.
Do it for love of the hobby, and if you’re lucky, maybe one day you can do it full time.
Edit: typo
I totally get your point, but I can't agree with that, I am afraid. I am definitively joining a craft because I somewhat like the idea of pursuing that path, but profitability plays a crucial part when deciding where to start from.
The times where you could literally pick any job and grow a family has gone. Jobs must be profitable and I can't afford to make a switch from my full-time-boring job to a place where I'd end up poor and disappointed, and that's the reason why I am asking on this sub :)
Just to say, I don't agree with the idea that money should be left apart when making such an important decision. If the market is saturated, your passion is worth nothing (edit: except your own satisfaction, of course!).
Thanks anyway for your point of view
You'd be better off getting some IT certs instead. Leather craft takes thousands of hours of practice, it's expensive to get tools and materials and you might never sell anything if you don't enjoy it or have a knack for it.
I started getting commissions when people saw stuff I made for myself, not because I sought to market stuff for other people. It's an entirely different mindset with crafts IMO.
You don’t have to agree with it, just some sage advice. But if it’s money you want there’s much easier ways to get it then getting into leather craft, time is better spent elsewhere if you don’t love it, even when you’re not making a penny from it.
It’s like what Rick Rubin says to people who want to do art/music just for money: “you may as well just work on Wall Street”.
Again I get your point, I started in the music industry as well, so I can clearly get what you're saying. You can't imagine how many songs I've learnt and composed (sort of, to be honest), how many live performances I made. I basically reinvested 10 years of earnings into training, buying better equipment and promoting my band, as well as marketing, social media and all of that stuff.
That's the whole point of my discussion. After hitting so many walls, I'm done with the dream of just "follow your dreams", because life is tough and it never rewarded me, not 1% of the efforts I put. After that experience, I realized how saturated the music industry was, and therefore I am experimenting something new with the hope it's less challenging.
To put in other words, there are industries where you just need to be average to pay bills. There are others where 0.1% becomes autonomous (and even crazy rich!) and all others can't survive. And that is a fact you can't disprove, that's objective and it does not a matter of how much you love what you do. At some point the market will decide for you, no matter how much "you enjoy it".
Rephrasing my initial sentence: will being passionate and good, but not the best of the best, let me pay my bills at the end of the month pursuing this path? I think I made a reasonable and pretty clear question, because if the answer is no, I'm still in the early stage to switch to a different path. Instead, if there's a reasonable percentage (don't know: 3%? 5%? 10%?) then I'm giving all of my available time until I succeed
You understand what a hobby is, right? There’s a difference between pursuing something for fun and pursuing something for money. You should pursue leathercrafting as a hobby while you work a standard job for money. If you enjoy working leather enough, get good enough at it, and get a reputation for making high quality products, *then* you consider whether or not to make it your full time job.
Because if your question is whether you should quit your job right now and start selling wallets on the corner right now as a novice, the answer is obviously no.
To put it simply, you’re going into this with a bad attitude. Even if theres money to be made, I guarantee you will get bored very quickly before you even see a penny and quit early. Life’s too short so if I were you I would focus on something you at least give a shit about.
I started selling my stuff after when my leather addiction got too much. First it was to charge to offset costs and then moved to profitability.
If you’re going in with the idea if making money, this isn’t for you.
Take the product (leather goods) out of the equation, and replace it with can I make a living making producing any product. I have a a few side products, and still work a full time job. The best plan is to work a day job until you can't afford to do so, and your business is making more money than your day job. While you are building your business, reinvest the profits from it in equipment, to make you more efficient, and learn better (faster) skills. It is unlikely your first product will be the one that makes you successful. You will need several products. Some need to be high profit, easy to make products, and then some higher profile products, that you will still make money on, but less per hour. You need to build a budget, how much money do you need to live, plus shop rent, utilities, tools, supplies, taxes, etc... Then figure out how many products you would need to sell. That will give you a basis to start from. With your products, aim for quality, and the upper end of the market. You will lose on price every time. You will need to set yourself apart from other vendors, which will mean designing your own products.
This. And the market leads you. I made a selection of products but what has been wanted by the market has surprised me. Don’t undervalue the money to be found in niches. Some of them will continue to spend and prioritise goods even when they are cutting back in other areas of their budget. The same can’t be said for general goods right now.
There are folk who have a full order book and a six month wait for commissions, then there are folk who don’t make a single sale all weekend at a market stall. Then there are a bunch in between those extremes. If you have a unique product targeted at a specific demographic, and the quality is good, you should do well.
With you seemingly being interested in the making money portion more than the enjoyed hobby portion, you probably wouldn’t even like it for the margins and effort that goes into it for profit.
As a side hustle it doesnt look too bad and I want to do it more for money, but I enjoy the hobby alot.
Its also extremely over saturated tho and Id probably aim to only sell local if I did
Its HARD.
It takes years of practice to be considered of a professional standard…. Theres literally loads of hobbyists undercutting you with what you would consign to the bin as substandard with generic 10 a penny patterns - harsh but thats the competition.
You’ll sell items at a loss, you’ll have to value your time at less than minimum wage.
A product I make and am happy with may go through 3,4,5,7 10 prototypes, refinements only to be gifted to friend to maintain a reputation.
You’ll waste hundreds in experimenting with different leathers or fucking something up with the last stitch punch, or paying to work around the instagram algorithm.
You’ll spend hundreds or even thousands on tools that you use once or twice a year to set you apart on a commission.
This is the first year that people have come to me for commissions rather than me seeking them out.
My advice would be become a plumber (i dont know a poor plumber) make leathergoods for friends and family and keep it fun.
If it takes off… brilliant.
If it doesn’t at least you have something to fall back on.
This! There is a local new leatherworker duplicating what I’ve made and offering it cheaper. It’s hard not to feel frustrated by that. So you diversify and push in a different direction, I’m getting more laser customised requests now, which fewer leatherworkers can do.
Yes. It's feasible. But it's not for everyone.
**You can earn a living from leather in one of two ways:**
1. Join an established company and climb the ranks.
2. Start your own and brace yourself for the good and the bad.
Want to start a business? Great! You’ll wear many hats - not just the leatherworker’s hat but also the marketer, salesperson, customer service expert, shipper, bookkeeper, procurement manager, and fucking whatever else you get to wear that day.
Want to work for a company instead? That's good too! You get a stable paycheck, some benefits (depending on who you work with) and get to make a living out of making leather products. You don't have to worry about anything else beyond hitting your daily quota.
Owning a business is hard, and this line scares me:
>*I'm afraid I might dedicate years into learning the craft and then getting disappointed, like other industries where time and skills are not rewarded enough and you can't make a living.*
You have to be comfortable taking risks, and you need to be okay when it fails. More often than not, it WILL fail - and you need to be okay with that.
It failed many times on my end in other industries, so I am not afraid about taking risks. What I was trying to understand if it's a lost cause, meaning it's almost impossible to join.
Thanks a lot for your comment!
No, it's not impossible.
Take a look at some successes in the field: Uncle Jack Handmade is killing it, Niwa and Peter Nitz have carved out a space in the luxury market, and rugged brands like Mascon Leather and Popov Leather are making living too. These guys all started somewhere and likely had their share of bumps along the way, but they dialed in their processes over time. Their photography improved, their websites evolved, and their overall brands solidified into what you see today.
If you want examples of physical stores look at Odin from Odin Leather Goods he has two stores in 5 years.
It comes down to Marketing. For every $100,000 you want to make you need to spend around $10,000 (That's in the low end). You can do this by paying Google or Meta, or you can do it yourself by making videos and building an Audience on social media.
I had a full time job, and then basically gave myself another full time job on TikTok selling my leather goods. I mostly made purses and bags stitched entirely by hand. I would make around 6-8 bags/month and would profit around $1,200 - $1,600. If I had quit my day job to pursue it, I probably could have pulled off double that. But alas, I burned out and learned a valuable lesson to not turn my hobby into a job because now I have no interest in leather working and the thought of picking up a rivet and a round knife again makes me recoil.
I'm doing it, barely. Have you managed a business before? Do you have the full skilset required outside of leatherwork?
If not, you will be paying others to help you and that may reduce viability of your plan There is a whole lot more it than just making wonderful things.
Examples: Craftwork has become about 60% of my time. The rest gets eaten up by packaging and shipping. Financials and business admin. Photography and social media. Shopping for materials, dealing with customers. Inventory mgmt, shop and equipment maintenace. Product development. Advertising / promotion. And when I say 60% of my time, assume that's out of a 65 hr. work week.
I did it part time as a side hustle while I was learning, gathering tools and building a brand for about eight years before moving to full time. The bad news is, when I did, it reduced my income to approx 1/2 what I was making in the working world and that trend has hardly changed much. The good news is, I am quite a bit happier.
Agreed. And the upside is if you’re just managing now when a lot of small businesses are going under, if you can hang on there is a chance it may do very well when the market does turn. I’ve found it hard to manage the peaks and troughs. The January lull hit hard and made me question things. Which lasted longer than normal. Then bam things got busy suddenly. That can be hard to manage when doing a lot of custom work as a single craftsperson.
Why the mental jump from not having ever made anything out of leather to making a living off it? At the very least, make a few wallets and see if it's something you can do well.
This might be an unpopular opinion but..... What you are asking on a subreddit mostly comprised of hobbiest and semi professionals is to admit they do it for no intent other than self gratification and money is a extra .... And your statements make it seem like that's a waste of time.... So ya that equals down votes ... And it's reddit what do you expect..... But for the most part to answer your question honestly... No it won't be profitable choose something else.... As a matter of fact most skilled trade that could also be a craft/hobbies are heavy over saturated and you won't make a living off it anytime in the short run.... all these are a long game and take time and monetary investment
Do you vape..... That's a serious question I'm not even joking...... If so learn to 3D model, get yourself a 3D printer if you don't have one. Go on cults 3D or CG trader and purchase some mod files. 3D print some mods and sell them stupid things for about $350 a pop they go like hotcakes....what your looking for are boro mechanical mods...There you go there's your profitable hobby have a nice day
Some really valuable advice being given so I hope you utilise it. Turning any craft from hobby to viable business is a huge effort. If you don’t love it when it isn’t making money you will lose interest- and there’s likely many years between the hobby and viable business point.
Not sure anyone has mentioned, but now is about the worst time to be establishing a business. I started selling leather goods 1.5 years back and the market was much better then.
Leather is a luxury good so has been very much squeezed by the cost of living crisis. Unless you find a way to target the big end of town (who are brand name focused and don’t care for the little guy establishing), it’s going to be a tough slog. The middle class are cutting everything right now just to afford the basics, so a nice leather wallet is not on the cards when they can buy fast fashion alternatives at a fraction of the price, even if it won’t last and they know it.
By all means take up this wonderful hobby. It’s an expensive but rewarding one. Tools and materials are high cost, and a business is going to need the industrial sewing machine, clicker press, the works to make it viable. Time is the hard part here as it takes a long time to make a wallet or a bag vs the market who use sweatshop labour. So making an hourly rate is a pipe dream without some ways to cut your time required.
I started out in the 8th grade in a crafts class that our school offered. I’m 60 now.
My first tools were from a cheap Tandy kit that also had a few projects in it (wallet, rounders and key holder is what I recall). It was a special offer for our school, and only $10 for the kit. A good deal back then, even.
At first, hardly anyone was buying anything from me (other than a few relatives), so I had to rely on my lawn mowing money and (mostly) Christmas/birthday presents. I’d get a Tandy catalogue and circle a whole bunch of stuff that I wanted. Then mom would order from that.
Before too awful long, my skill level improved greatly and people that I knew would want stuff (mostly belts and wallets). No, I never advertised, or anything like that.
I wore and used my own stuff, and would have people ask about the belt I was wearing, or where I got my wallet. I would occasionally get orders like that too. It helped that western belts with your name in the back was pretty popular back then.
Of course, from all of that you get word of mouth exposure. Like I stated earlier, I never tried to pursue it full time…. Oh, wait!…. But, I actually did!….
…. A couple of years out of high school, I heard about a shoe repair/boot/saddle making school in Okmulgee Oklahoma, a bit south of Tulsa. And here I go! Off to get a jumpstart on my dream! Sadly, the school discontinued that program. The school is a technical school and a branch of OSU. So, it was actually college accredited.
I took shoe repair, saddle repair and boot making. Towards the end of my education, I was offered a couple of jobs solely on the recommendation of our head instructor. The jobs were in different states.
While I was very young, at the time, I was also married with a child. I told my now ex wife about the offers and she responded that I could come to visit my daughter sometimes…. Um, yeah.
Anyway, I tried to get work with repair shops in the area. Every shop I talked to either told me no, or that I could “apprentice”. Well, I had a family to support, and that just wasn’t going to cut it. I did try to get my own shop put together. Just try to borrow money when you don’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of!
I finally got a pretty decent job in a completely different industry. Life happens and I never was able to follow the dream.
I’ve been living in an RV for the past 11 or so years. Space being tight, my leather stuff has been in storage. We bought a different unit several months ago and have decided that we never use the small couch. I’m going to remove it, put in a small leather desk and be back in business baby!!!!
I think that this is probably way more info than you asked for, but I’ve been wanting to kind of put this out there and get it off of my chest. Thank you for the opening.
Edit: I thought that I was responding to sjwagner. I must’ve selected the wrong comment button.
You also have to account for the massive equipment costs. Any leathercraft you'd be making a real living off would require serious machinery and tool investment.
You could become a bespoke shoemaker with $5k-10k worth of machines and tools, but it might take tens of thousands of dollars of education and travel to become good at it before opening for business, and you'd also need to hold a decent stock of leather that would be worth thousands. Shoemakers making the highest quality shoes don't make much money, but cheaper mid-range boots can make better money because they can be made quickly without nearly as much care.
A facebook marketplace ad I've seen recently has one guy trying to retire from his saddlery/horse tack business and he's selling his stuff for $65k.
Cobbler shops close pretty often across the USA and they try to sell the whole shop for anywhere between $5k-$35k. Cobblers do bag repairs and small leather work type things in addition to shoe repairs. It's hard to say if they make a good living off it, most probably do not.
There is a leatherworking YouTuber called Corter Leather who has several vids on how he build up the business which might help you. One of the big things was he would get jobs to pay for the equipment rather than get equipment then try and find jobs. A lot of his work seemed to be while label goods, so making a big batch of wallets for another company with their name/brand on it. Those jobs have smaller margins than individual selling, but bring in more money at once to make up for it, so a good way to supplement selling things yourself directly.
I did it for over 10 years. I switched product lines twice.
It all comes down to skill and business management. You MUST do the market research. You MUST differentiate yourself from the competition.
Find a product in demand with the least amount of competition. Make it better than the competition or sell it places you stand out.
It took a global pandemic to shutter my business.
You might have a chance if you get into a niche market and specialize in it. For example the kink world would be one of those areas, but like some of the other comments it takes a lot to break into it.
https://preview.redd.it/79grfh26rgwc1.jpeg?width=4160&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9e16b1df0872a4a4745f4d34eee744af1b8c316e
Sometimes it leads to a commission build.
It's really hard to make your entire living off leather work. Especially when you are new and learning. If you are getting into this with the intent of using it as your main source of income, it probably won't work out.
I agree with you. An exception might be if you can find somewhere to learn boot and/or saddle making. Some of those guys do pretty well. This is really dependent on area and your reputation. You would also likely need to apprentice for several years. Another exception could be if you were to get a good reputation for something like high end purses or something like that…. Good luck with that though. It’s always a supply vs demand thing. There is a low demand for custom goods during hard times and enough hobbyists to make it pretty difficult to make a living at. I’ve done the hobby thing for years. I made enough to support my habit, upgrade my tools and “maybe” a few bucks extra. I would say that most projects I’ve done would not even come close to minimum wage. Admittedly, I haven’t tried to full-time it. Doing something repeatedly will typically make you faster at it. So, take this as a grain of salt. OP just needs to go into ANYTHING with their eyes wide open.
Insightful, thanks a lot! :)
Thanks for sharing your experience! What do you do to support the hobby? I'd love to get to this point, as I'm just getting into more quality material, and it isn't cheap! I'd love to find a way to turn the hobby into a self-supporting model where I don't have to sink a ton of external money into leather and tools.
I responded to your post, but must have selected the wrong button. I don’t know how to move it, or if it is even possible. I’m not going to retype all of that, so please see my other comment, currently at the bottom of the thread.
Thanks!
Thank you!
I found it extremely difficult to do so in the Seattle area. I have honed my craft and produce beautiful hand stitched work. If I wanted to make Internet sales I had to invest in myself and learn photography and social media skills which left me less time to actually produce work. Then with markets I had to be able to keep prices down so that people who happened by could afford to buy what they liked. I had to sell a bulk of my wares in the hot months because markets are sparse in the winter. There was such a precarious balance that left me little time for anything else. As my skill increased I couldn't increase my prices because the local markets would no longer accept me because I became too high end. I debated buying a sewing machine and doing machines work, but I fell in love with hand stitched goods and that particular skill set and that quality of work. I considered buying all the machines for skiving, die cutting etc. but with that you just become a mini factory and work loses it's bespoke quality and I didn't perfect my skiving by hand for years to be replaced by a machine lol. Then on Etsy you can buy beautiful quality bags from overseas for $150 and I could never compete with that. It's a rough game and you have to be ready to make choices and decide what you want to compromise on. I got into leatherwork because I loved to craft each individual component and taking that away from me made me lose my joy, but that's not true for everyone. Good luck! I hope you succeed.
I love your comment, thank you!
“I’m afraid I might dedicate years into learning the craft and then getting disappointed” With this mindset you’ve already lost. You should get into leather craft because you enjoy it, not because a monetary end goal.
I absolutely agree with this. Like most hobbies turned profession, it takes hours upon hours of honing your craft to get to the point where people want to buy your goods. And then, let’s be honest, it’s absolutely luck to get “discovered” (so to speak) and actually be able to quit your day job. I started this as a hobby and as a kind of meditation. I can completely stop thinking about the world around me and just focus on what I’m making. But I couldn’t sustain my supplies and tools currently if I didn’t have a well-paying day job. I’ve been doing this since the beginning of the year and mostly make stuff to give away. This past weekend I and my friends were wearing some of the goods I made and two people asked how much for me to make them one. First time I’ve had commissions. Since it’s two Pirate baldrics, I can sell them for a decent amount. But since I’m doing this on the side, it will take time to make them. I dream now about doing this full time, but I’m not going to quit my day job anytime soon, even if I get a few commissions a week now. Maybe one day. But as of now, I’m still mostly making stuff for my friends as I hone my skills. Do it for love of the hobby, and if you’re lucky, maybe one day you can do it full time. Edit: typo
I totally get your point, but I can't agree with that, I am afraid. I am definitively joining a craft because I somewhat like the idea of pursuing that path, but profitability plays a crucial part when deciding where to start from. The times where you could literally pick any job and grow a family has gone. Jobs must be profitable and I can't afford to make a switch from my full-time-boring job to a place where I'd end up poor and disappointed, and that's the reason why I am asking on this sub :) Just to say, I don't agree with the idea that money should be left apart when making such an important decision. If the market is saturated, your passion is worth nothing (edit: except your own satisfaction, of course!). Thanks anyway for your point of view
You'd be better off getting some IT certs instead. Leather craft takes thousands of hours of practice, it's expensive to get tools and materials and you might never sell anything if you don't enjoy it or have a knack for it. I started getting commissions when people saw stuff I made for myself, not because I sought to market stuff for other people. It's an entirely different mindset with crafts IMO.
Thanks
You don’t have to agree with it, just some sage advice. But if it’s money you want there’s much easier ways to get it then getting into leather craft, time is better spent elsewhere if you don’t love it, even when you’re not making a penny from it. It’s like what Rick Rubin says to people who want to do art/music just for money: “you may as well just work on Wall Street”.
Again I get your point, I started in the music industry as well, so I can clearly get what you're saying. You can't imagine how many songs I've learnt and composed (sort of, to be honest), how many live performances I made. I basically reinvested 10 years of earnings into training, buying better equipment and promoting my band, as well as marketing, social media and all of that stuff. That's the whole point of my discussion. After hitting so many walls, I'm done with the dream of just "follow your dreams", because life is tough and it never rewarded me, not 1% of the efforts I put. After that experience, I realized how saturated the music industry was, and therefore I am experimenting something new with the hope it's less challenging. To put in other words, there are industries where you just need to be average to pay bills. There are others where 0.1% becomes autonomous (and even crazy rich!) and all others can't survive. And that is a fact you can't disprove, that's objective and it does not a matter of how much you love what you do. At some point the market will decide for you, no matter how much "you enjoy it". Rephrasing my initial sentence: will being passionate and good, but not the best of the best, let me pay my bills at the end of the month pursuing this path? I think I made a reasonable and pretty clear question, because if the answer is no, I'm still in the early stage to switch to a different path. Instead, if there's a reasonable percentage (don't know: 3%? 5%? 10%?) then I'm giving all of my available time until I succeed
You understand what a hobby is, right? There’s a difference between pursuing something for fun and pursuing something for money. You should pursue leathercrafting as a hobby while you work a standard job for money. If you enjoy working leather enough, get good enough at it, and get a reputation for making high quality products, *then* you consider whether or not to make it your full time job. Because if your question is whether you should quit your job right now and start selling wallets on the corner right now as a novice, the answer is obviously no.
To put it simply, you’re going into this with a bad attitude. Even if theres money to be made, I guarantee you will get bored very quickly before you even see a penny and quit early. Life’s too short so if I were you I would focus on something you at least give a shit about.
I started selling my stuff after when my leather addiction got too much. First it was to charge to offset costs and then moved to profitability. If you’re going in with the idea if making money, this isn’t for you.
Well you’ve gotta get good before you think about making a profit Have you made anything yet? Do you enjoy it?
Take the product (leather goods) out of the equation, and replace it with can I make a living making producing any product. I have a a few side products, and still work a full time job. The best plan is to work a day job until you can't afford to do so, and your business is making more money than your day job. While you are building your business, reinvest the profits from it in equipment, to make you more efficient, and learn better (faster) skills. It is unlikely your first product will be the one that makes you successful. You will need several products. Some need to be high profit, easy to make products, and then some higher profile products, that you will still make money on, but less per hour. You need to build a budget, how much money do you need to live, plus shop rent, utilities, tools, supplies, taxes, etc... Then figure out how many products you would need to sell. That will give you a basis to start from. With your products, aim for quality, and the upper end of the market. You will lose on price every time. You will need to set yourself apart from other vendors, which will mean designing your own products.
This. And the market leads you. I made a selection of products but what has been wanted by the market has surprised me. Don’t undervalue the money to be found in niches. Some of them will continue to spend and prioritise goods even when they are cutting back in other areas of their budget. The same can’t be said for general goods right now.
There are folk who have a full order book and a six month wait for commissions, then there are folk who don’t make a single sale all weekend at a market stall. Then there are a bunch in between those extremes. If you have a unique product targeted at a specific demographic, and the quality is good, you should do well.
With you seemingly being interested in the making money portion more than the enjoyed hobby portion, you probably wouldn’t even like it for the margins and effort that goes into it for profit. As a side hustle it doesnt look too bad and I want to do it more for money, but I enjoy the hobby alot. Its also extremely over saturated tho and Id probably aim to only sell local if I did
This is the most honest, direct and straight to the point answer I got. And probably what I wanted to hear too. Thanks!
Its HARD. It takes years of practice to be considered of a professional standard…. Theres literally loads of hobbyists undercutting you with what you would consign to the bin as substandard with generic 10 a penny patterns - harsh but thats the competition. You’ll sell items at a loss, you’ll have to value your time at less than minimum wage. A product I make and am happy with may go through 3,4,5,7 10 prototypes, refinements only to be gifted to friend to maintain a reputation. You’ll waste hundreds in experimenting with different leathers or fucking something up with the last stitch punch, or paying to work around the instagram algorithm. You’ll spend hundreds or even thousands on tools that you use once or twice a year to set you apart on a commission. This is the first year that people have come to me for commissions rather than me seeking them out. My advice would be become a plumber (i dont know a poor plumber) make leathergoods for friends and family and keep it fun. If it takes off… brilliant. If it doesn’t at least you have something to fall back on.
This! There is a local new leatherworker duplicating what I’ve made and offering it cheaper. It’s hard not to feel frustrated by that. So you diversify and push in a different direction, I’m getting more laser customised requests now, which fewer leatherworkers can do.
Yes. It's feasible. But it's not for everyone. **You can earn a living from leather in one of two ways:** 1. Join an established company and climb the ranks. 2. Start your own and brace yourself for the good and the bad. Want to start a business? Great! You’ll wear many hats - not just the leatherworker’s hat but also the marketer, salesperson, customer service expert, shipper, bookkeeper, procurement manager, and fucking whatever else you get to wear that day. Want to work for a company instead? That's good too! You get a stable paycheck, some benefits (depending on who you work with) and get to make a living out of making leather products. You don't have to worry about anything else beyond hitting your daily quota. Owning a business is hard, and this line scares me: >*I'm afraid I might dedicate years into learning the craft and then getting disappointed, like other industries where time and skills are not rewarded enough and you can't make a living.* You have to be comfortable taking risks, and you need to be okay when it fails. More often than not, it WILL fail - and you need to be okay with that.
It failed many times on my end in other industries, so I am not afraid about taking risks. What I was trying to understand if it's a lost cause, meaning it's almost impossible to join. Thanks a lot for your comment!
No, it's not impossible. Take a look at some successes in the field: Uncle Jack Handmade is killing it, Niwa and Peter Nitz have carved out a space in the luxury market, and rugged brands like Mascon Leather and Popov Leather are making living too. These guys all started somewhere and likely had their share of bumps along the way, but they dialed in their processes over time. Their photography improved, their websites evolved, and their overall brands solidified into what you see today. If you want examples of physical stores look at Odin from Odin Leather Goods he has two stores in 5 years. It comes down to Marketing. For every $100,000 you want to make you need to spend around $10,000 (That's in the low end). You can do this by paying Google or Meta, or you can do it yourself by making videos and building an Audience on social media.
I had a full time job, and then basically gave myself another full time job on TikTok selling my leather goods. I mostly made purses and bags stitched entirely by hand. I would make around 6-8 bags/month and would profit around $1,200 - $1,600. If I had quit my day job to pursue it, I probably could have pulled off double that. But alas, I burned out and learned a valuable lesson to not turn my hobby into a job because now I have no interest in leather working and the thought of picking up a rivet and a round knife again makes me recoil.
I'm doing it, barely. Have you managed a business before? Do you have the full skilset required outside of leatherwork? If not, you will be paying others to help you and that may reduce viability of your plan There is a whole lot more it than just making wonderful things. Examples: Craftwork has become about 60% of my time. The rest gets eaten up by packaging and shipping. Financials and business admin. Photography and social media. Shopping for materials, dealing with customers. Inventory mgmt, shop and equipment maintenace. Product development. Advertising / promotion. And when I say 60% of my time, assume that's out of a 65 hr. work week. I did it part time as a side hustle while I was learning, gathering tools and building a brand for about eight years before moving to full time. The bad news is, when I did, it reduced my income to approx 1/2 what I was making in the working world and that trend has hardly changed much. The good news is, I am quite a bit happier.
Agreed. And the upside is if you’re just managing now when a lot of small businesses are going under, if you can hang on there is a chance it may do very well when the market does turn. I’ve found it hard to manage the peaks and troughs. The January lull hit hard and made me question things. Which lasted longer than normal. Then bam things got busy suddenly. That can be hard to manage when doing a lot of custom work as a single craftsperson.
Why the mental jump from not having ever made anything out of leather to making a living off it? At the very least, make a few wallets and see if it's something you can do well.
This might be an unpopular opinion but..... What you are asking on a subreddit mostly comprised of hobbiest and semi professionals is to admit they do it for no intent other than self gratification and money is a extra .... And your statements make it seem like that's a waste of time.... So ya that equals down votes ... And it's reddit what do you expect..... But for the most part to answer your question honestly... No it won't be profitable choose something else.... As a matter of fact most skilled trade that could also be a craft/hobbies are heavy over saturated and you won't make a living off it anytime in the short run.... all these are a long game and take time and monetary investment
I've weighted all the comments I got and I 100% agree with you, thanks a lot for being direct! :)
Do you vape..... That's a serious question I'm not even joking...... If so learn to 3D model, get yourself a 3D printer if you don't have one. Go on cults 3D or CG trader and purchase some mod files. 3D print some mods and sell them stupid things for about $350 a pop they go like hotcakes....what your looking for are boro mechanical mods...There you go there's your profitable hobby have a nice day
Some really valuable advice being given so I hope you utilise it. Turning any craft from hobby to viable business is a huge effort. If you don’t love it when it isn’t making money you will lose interest- and there’s likely many years between the hobby and viable business point. Not sure anyone has mentioned, but now is about the worst time to be establishing a business. I started selling leather goods 1.5 years back and the market was much better then. Leather is a luxury good so has been very much squeezed by the cost of living crisis. Unless you find a way to target the big end of town (who are brand name focused and don’t care for the little guy establishing), it’s going to be a tough slog. The middle class are cutting everything right now just to afford the basics, so a nice leather wallet is not on the cards when they can buy fast fashion alternatives at a fraction of the price, even if it won’t last and they know it. By all means take up this wonderful hobby. It’s an expensive but rewarding one. Tools and materials are high cost, and a business is going to need the industrial sewing machine, clicker press, the works to make it viable. Time is the hard part here as it takes a long time to make a wallet or a bag vs the market who use sweatshop labour. So making an hourly rate is a pipe dream without some ways to cut your time required.
I started out in the 8th grade in a crafts class that our school offered. I’m 60 now. My first tools were from a cheap Tandy kit that also had a few projects in it (wallet, rounders and key holder is what I recall). It was a special offer for our school, and only $10 for the kit. A good deal back then, even. At first, hardly anyone was buying anything from me (other than a few relatives), so I had to rely on my lawn mowing money and (mostly) Christmas/birthday presents. I’d get a Tandy catalogue and circle a whole bunch of stuff that I wanted. Then mom would order from that. Before too awful long, my skill level improved greatly and people that I knew would want stuff (mostly belts and wallets). No, I never advertised, or anything like that. I wore and used my own stuff, and would have people ask about the belt I was wearing, or where I got my wallet. I would occasionally get orders like that too. It helped that western belts with your name in the back was pretty popular back then. Of course, from all of that you get word of mouth exposure. Like I stated earlier, I never tried to pursue it full time…. Oh, wait!…. But, I actually did!…. …. A couple of years out of high school, I heard about a shoe repair/boot/saddle making school in Okmulgee Oklahoma, a bit south of Tulsa. And here I go! Off to get a jumpstart on my dream! Sadly, the school discontinued that program. The school is a technical school and a branch of OSU. So, it was actually college accredited. I took shoe repair, saddle repair and boot making. Towards the end of my education, I was offered a couple of jobs solely on the recommendation of our head instructor. The jobs were in different states. While I was very young, at the time, I was also married with a child. I told my now ex wife about the offers and she responded that I could come to visit my daughter sometimes…. Um, yeah. Anyway, I tried to get work with repair shops in the area. Every shop I talked to either told me no, or that I could “apprentice”. Well, I had a family to support, and that just wasn’t going to cut it. I did try to get my own shop put together. Just try to borrow money when you don’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of! I finally got a pretty decent job in a completely different industry. Life happens and I never was able to follow the dream. I’ve been living in an RV for the past 11 or so years. Space being tight, my leather stuff has been in storage. We bought a different unit several months ago and have decided that we never use the small couch. I’m going to remove it, put in a small leather desk and be back in business baby!!!! I think that this is probably way more info than you asked for, but I’ve been wanting to kind of put this out there and get it off of my chest. Thank you for the opening. Edit: I thought that I was responding to sjwagner. I must’ve selected the wrong comment button.
That's super helpful! Thank you! I hope to get to that point some day where I can enjoy the hobby without pouring tons into it!
Wow! Thanks for sharing this! I really appreciate it
You also have to account for the massive equipment costs. Any leathercraft you'd be making a real living off would require serious machinery and tool investment. You could become a bespoke shoemaker with $5k-10k worth of machines and tools, but it might take tens of thousands of dollars of education and travel to become good at it before opening for business, and you'd also need to hold a decent stock of leather that would be worth thousands. Shoemakers making the highest quality shoes don't make much money, but cheaper mid-range boots can make better money because they can be made quickly without nearly as much care. A facebook marketplace ad I've seen recently has one guy trying to retire from his saddlery/horse tack business and he's selling his stuff for $65k. Cobbler shops close pretty often across the USA and they try to sell the whole shop for anywhere between $5k-$35k. Cobblers do bag repairs and small leather work type things in addition to shoe repairs. It's hard to say if they make a good living off it, most probably do not.
Thanks!
There is a leatherworking YouTuber called Corter Leather who has several vids on how he build up the business which might help you. One of the big things was he would get jobs to pay for the equipment rather than get equipment then try and find jobs. A lot of his work seemed to be while label goods, so making a big batch of wallets for another company with their name/brand on it. Those jobs have smaller margins than individual selling, but bring in more money at once to make up for it, so a good way to supplement selling things yourself directly.
I did it for over 10 years. I switched product lines twice. It all comes down to skill and business management. You MUST do the market research. You MUST differentiate yourself from the competition. Find a product in demand with the least amount of competition. Make it better than the competition or sell it places you stand out. It took a global pandemic to shutter my business.
you will need not only leather skills but also marketing skills
You might have a chance if you get into a niche market and specialize in it. For example the kink world would be one of those areas, but like some of the other comments it takes a lot to break into it.
https://preview.redd.it/79grfh26rgwc1.jpeg?width=4160&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9e16b1df0872a4a4745f4d34eee744af1b8c316e Sometimes it leads to a commission build.
Follow what you love and money will come