QR Code for Crafts

Are you inclined in arts and crafts?

Do you take pride in what’s uniquely yours?

Do you love making vibrant and useful goods with your hands?

Are you planning to make a living out of this talent?

If your answer to these questions is a resounding yes, then handicraft is the best business opportunity for you.

Handicrafts are goods that are created by hand, using simple tools. These represent the culture and traditions of a certain country. According to an article in the IMARC Group website, handicrafts play an essential role in economic growth as they are a prominent means for foreign exchange revenue.

Creators of handicrafts make use of indigenous materials, meaning the materials that are endemic or prevalent in the country. Producing handicrafts requires creators to concentrate fully, and to employ hand-and-eye coordination.

You’ve probably encountered these items before:

  • Woven crafts (baskets, purses, bags, scarves, dolls, blankets, coats, etc.)
  • Ceramics and glassware
  • Embroidered and crocheted goods
  • Sculptures (furniture, wood crafts, stone crafts, metal crafts, etc.)
  • Leather crafts (belts, purses, etc.)
  • Imitation Jewelries
  • and more

These are some examples of hand-crafted items. You mostly find them in souvenir shops when you go on a tour. If you think you have what it takes to create your own marketable handicrafts, nothing is stopping you.

But to make sure that your small business will boom, you have to integrate technology into your promotion, and that includes the use of QR Codes.

The QR Code, its Origin and Function

Quick Response Codes, also known as QR Codes, are a type of barcode that can store a bulky amount of information. In fact, it can hold up to more than 7,000 characters, making it capable of handling a variety of transactions (e.g. buy and sell, store and access files, register in an event, contact someone, record important information, etc.). Before, accessing information from a QR Code requires a specialized device. But with the advent of smart technology, a user only needs a smartphone with a working scanner to do whatever needs to be done with a code.

An engineer from Denso Wave, an automotive company in Japan, developed this revolutionary technology together with a company staff. This was due to the need for a barcode that can hold a huge amount of information, to be used for inventory management purposes. Aside from this, storing information through constant encoding proved to be a disadvantageous task to the staff of the company.

Appearing in the form of a square with black and white lines (dots or other shapes), the QR Code got its inspiration from a traditional Japanese game called, the Go-board. Nowadays, technology has made it possible for QR Codes to be customized (e.g. recolored, designed uniquely, added a logo) so that companies can use it to promote their own brands.

How Your Handicraft Business can Benefit from QR Codes

Cost Effectivity

With QR Codes, you can save a lot of money. Nowadays, you don’t need to put up a stall to display your crafts and let people come and go inside. Putting up a stall requires registration fee, materials, electricity bills, and the like, and that could be a huge strain to your capital. With QR Codes, all you need to do is to paste the link of a landing page, a gallery, or an application where you can showcase your hand-crafted goods. Promoting your business online only requires a few pictures, minutes, and technical skills (which are not really hard to learn) and you don’t even need to pay for these things now.

Eco-friendliness

As most hand-crafted materials are ecological, using QR Codes to promote them is an icing on the cake. Creating QR Codes does not require energy, time, and resources. This means less carbon emissions, hundreds of trees saved, hundreds of biodiversity saved from microplastics, and the list goes on.

Quick and Easy Transactions

Here are just some of the transactions that you can do with a QR Code: promote your products; present new items; let customers know what your business or product is about; educate customers on how to use your products; reply to customers’ queries and address their issues; streamline payments, and more. Imagine, customers will no longer be burdened with the disadvantages of physical browsing (like difficulty in finding items, long queues, cost of travel, waste of energy, and the like).

Safety and Security

Let’s face it: the challenge posed by the pandemic is far from over. While most of us would have been vaccinated by now, it doesn’t mean that COVID-19 has totally disappeared. Using QR Codes to promote your products will ensure customers’ safety, particularly from contracting and spreading the virus.

Where to Put Your QR Codes in Crafts

E-Publication Materials

The web contains a variety of platforms where you can promote your products. It can be on your website, YouTube channels, social media pages, email, messenger accounts, name it. The possibilities are endless. All you need to do is lay out your QR Code on a uniquely designed e-poster or infographic and post it on your online platforms. In little time, you can create a huge base of followers or loyal customers willing to invest in your goods.

Easily Accessible Places

You can lay your QR Code out on a poster, a print advertisement, a billboard, a tarpaulin, or anywhere it can be seen by the public.

Product Packaging and Item Tags

A QR Code not only adds to the uniqueness of your product packaging or item tag’s design, but also redirects your customers to a page where they can learn more about your product, company, or advocacy. You can also use the QR Code for customer service or tracking the item number.

On the Items Themselves

You want to take your hand-crafted items’ uniqueness to the next level? Print your QR Codes on them! You can actually have it embroidered on a textile/clothing, crochet it, or print it on a transparent sticker and paste it on your product. You may direct your customers to a page where they can learn a lot about your product, its story, materials, and other things they can glean knowledge from.

How to Create QR Codes

So you want to integrate QR Codes into your handicraft business? If you are looking for a reliable website to create these unique and personalized codes, qr-cloud.com is the solution. Here are the steps in generating unique codes for your one-of-a-kind business venture:

Visit qr-cloud.com

QR Cloud offers a variety of features that you can use to create your QR Code. If you are worrying about how you can create one, don’t worry. This website is user-friendly. You can easily follow their instructions and icons.

Access Your Account

Open your account by signing in or signing up. This feature can be found at the upper right corner of the website. If you choose to sign up, you will be offered three plans to start. If you choose to sign in, you will be redirected to the dashboard.

Create QR

In the dashboard, there is an icon that looks like a QR Code. Click it and you will go to another page where you can find the button, “Create QR.” Click that button.

You will then land on a page where you can change the name, type, and appearance of the QR Code. Here are some things you need to remember once you come to that page:

  • Rename the QR Code. This will help you remember what that code is for.
  • Decide on the type of QR to create. Are you going to create a QR Code for your website link, social media pages, YouTube channel, store’s location, or payment form? You can choose the type of QR Code from the bar just below the QR name. Just remember to create only one QR Code for one purpose so that your customers will not be confused on what action to take with it.
  • Proper Layout. While you are aiming for something unique to promote our brand, it is essential to remember the basics in customizing your QR Code: always opt for a darker foreground and a lighter background, and never let the size of the logo overpower the functionality of your QR Code.
  • Test Scan. It is always good to give your QR Codes a test scan. That way, you will see if your code needs changes or if it is ready to go.

Before Publishing the QR Code…

Let’s say your created QR Code works. You can already download it. But before you think of publishing it, you may want to visit a page layout and design website to create a call for action (e.g. Scan to View, Scan to Pay). A call for action is a must because your customers need an instruction that they can easily follow.