Today a year ago, I opend my shop on Etsy. I'm sorry to say that it hasn't been a very profitable adventure so far, but I am working on starting over so-to-speak, with new pictures and new designs and new tags which are oh so important on Etsy, in order to be seen on a web site that already has over a million sellers.
When Etsy started all you needed to do was open your shop and tell your friends and family about it, and "they will come."
But in this day of massive social media and the fact that Esty has grown so large, you have to have a twitter "page" a facebook business page, a blog and you have to set your shop up with the appropriate pictures and the correct lables for your items. And you have to understand how to do all those things perfectly. To someone like me who is slightly computer illiterate, it's not the easiest thing.
Last weekend I had my items in a craft fair of sorts. I had put all my eggs into that basket hoping that my sale items would sell out and I could start adding items for the fall and Christmas season. Unfortunatly, all jelwelry sellers were grouped together at the sale and there were several sellers who were selling their cheaply made items for MUCH less than I was selling my homemade items. I sold only five things and those were all to people I knew. I am grateful to those two people, but I do wish I could have sold more things. Consequently I have taken several things out of my shop. I will take them apart and eventually use the beads in different designs. These items were in my shop since the beginning and have never been shown any interest.
I also have new designs with new beads in mind. Indeed I already have several made. In the meantime I am taking pictures over again and trying to give my shop a more cohesive look. Since the craft fair last weekend I feel like I have lost my creativity and am having a hard time taking photographs that I like and will work for my shop, but I'm not giving up and I will get there!
Meanwhile Happy First Anniversary to my Etsy shop today!
