Pros and Cons of Mom Made Businesses: Tips for Buying Handmade Items Online

When I first started doing business online, I felt the need to support work at home moms before any big corporation. After all, their main goal was to stay at home with their children just like me.

However, as the years went on, I realized not everyone in business was honest. Not only that, I couldn't always afford to support a mom when I could buy the same thing somewhere else for half the price. I have a family to take care of too, and money is tight.

The fact is there's pros to both buying from family businesses and larger companies. Below are the pros and cons of buying handmade, and tips for how you can support honest families without hurting your checkbook.

Pros of Buying Handmade

- Higher quality
One of the biggest advantages of buying handmade items is they are usually better quality. Handmade soaps for example are much better for your skin than stuff you buy in stores. Candles are another great example - it's hard telling what's in those candles at Walmart, where as owners of handmade candles will tell you exactly what they've used to make them.

- Better customer service
If you should ever run into a problem with your order, it's much easier to deal with an individual owner than it is a large corporation. Some of the bigger businesses have really let their customer service go, while many individual owners know good customer service is one of their biggest selling points. They are more likely to go out of their way to fix it, unlike a customer service rep who has no real control over "company policy".

- Lower Cost
Often times you will find handmade items for less cost than you would in stores. For example, handmade candles can often be less cost than those "gourmet candles" made in mass by big companies. Do some price comparison if you are shopping online and you'll see some pretty good deal.

Cons of Buying Handmade

- Unknown company
Unlike a big corporation, it's a lot harder to check feedback on a smaller company. An individual may be a lot harder to trust than bigger businesses. If you are shopping on a place like Etsy though, this may be a little easier.

- Slow shipping
Handmade items, especially custom items, may take longer to ship. They don't have huge warehouses and staff hired just to ship orders. Individual owners are all by themselves, and it may take them a bit longer to get orders ready and shipped. If you order from an individual, make sure you've allowed them enough time to get it to you before the order is needed.

- Higher costs
Now granted often times products will be lower cost, they can also be much higher as well. You need to pay attention to the quality of the product when comparing the price to something you saw in Walmart. The price may be worth it or it may not be. Most the time it is, but not always.

Tips on Shopping Family Stores Online

- Order samples
Before putting a large order with any individual company, test them out by ordering samples first. If they don't have samples (which many do not because they can be too costly for a small business), try placing a small order first.

- Investigate the site
Look over their site to check their shipping policies, return policies, contact information, and any other ordering information they may have on their site. If something is missing, contact them. A serious company will should have all the information you need, or at least an easy way to contact them for questions.

- Use review sites
Many small businesses have their products reviewed on other sites (such as MomsMarketOnline.com). Do a search on their company name plus "review" to see if it's been reviewed somewhere. You can also use sites like Etsy.com which allow customers to easily leave feedback on the products.

Once you find a small business you like, it's hard to ever shop anywhere else. Making a connection with the owner is a wonderful thing, and your shopping experience can be so much easier.