Recently, the Craft and Hobby Association came out with their statistics for 2006. Overall, it’s a good year for crafts and hobby in general with the entire category of “Crafts” growing at 2.6% per year. In fact, 57% of US Households participated in crafts last year. This is a good trend! Creativity, in all of its forms, enhances lives and communities.
Not so good in the trend was that soapmaking has fallen so far down in the piece of crafting pie that it doesn’t even rate its own category anymore. Floral arranging, woodworking, cake decorating and crocheting get their own categories but soapmaking doesn’t even rate a mention.
In case you’re curious, scrapbooking was once again the number one craft for 2006.
According to the report, people craft for different reasons but a full 69% of them like to craft because “They like to learn new crafts.”
I like this statistic! Let’s teach them to soap! Soapmaking would clearly be a new craft for at least 98% of them.
I also found it interesting that only 2% of the total dollars spent on crafting are spent on Internet crafting sites. Wow! I am excited for the Internet to become more adopted as a medium for shopping. A full 56% of shopper bought at a Discount Store or Craft Chain Store for their supplies. If we could only convert 2% of those shoppers that shop primarily at Michael’s or JoAnne’s to online shoppers, our little crafty mail order business could double.
So, things to do: proselytizesoap like crazy and convince those new soaping converts to shop online.
