Time to Catch Up

Wow, it's been quite a while since I've posted anything.  Life has been busy, busy, busy.  Let's see, for a short recap from the last time...moved to a different city in Oregon with my in-laws to help them out with their mortgage, opened a 2nd Etsy shop for supplies, expanded my shop offerings and changed jobs (within the same company but to a different location).

To expand on my short recap, I had to put my shop on vacation for a couple months.  Trying to consolidate all my things into a much smaller space definitely took some work.  I was worried that being out for a couple of months last year would really hurt my shop but things have actually taken off.  I expanded into a bunch of other types of products although earrings are still the bulk of my shop.  Some of my new products...

To add to all these new products, I opened a new store.  I started buying my beads and supplies wholesale and realized that my shop was doing well...but not THAT well.  LOL.

If you are in need of any supplies, come and check out my supply/destash shop === > MSSYLSSTASH

I am hoping that this will be the beginning of a new routine of posting for me!

Sales, Sales, Sales

Sales were booming pre-Black Friday. I was beyond excited over the amount of Etsy sales that I had the 2 weeks before Thanksgiving. My boyfriend probably thought I was a psycho because I couldn't contain my excitement. Hey, I'm not a Etsy Super Seller (yet) so any sale is something to get excitable about. I'm almost at 50 sales. There were some bumps with the sales I made. One customer didn't get her item for nearly a week - which I did send her another pair of earrings and of course, 2 days later she got the original box. I have some awesome customers though, she offered to return any duplicates. I appreciated her offer but let her keep both because she was so nice about communicating with me. Another customer got charged an additional $0.83 by the post office so I refunded her the amount which she was very cool about. I even got 2 repeat customers.

Also, I sent my sister some earrings to sell at a craft fair at her work...and she sold 107 pairs of earrings. Now I really need to send her a great Christmas gift. She deserves it for working the sales of those earrings.

My Thoughts on Etsy Teams

If you weren't sure, Etsy Teams are groups of people that have basically banded together based on a commonality. Currently I am a member of the following teams with the following qualifications:

- We All Belong - team of any Etsians to support each other - no qualifications to join.

- Oregon Team - team of Oregonian crafters - just have to live in Oregon.

- West Coast Team - team of West Coasters (Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California & Hawaii) - have to live in one of the mentioned states.

- Fire Mountain Gems Co-op - team of people that order from Fire Mountain Gems - we can combine orders together to get the best pricing for FMG

- Etsy Paper Team - team of crafters that have at least 50% of their shop dedicated to paper crafted items.

- Promoting Our Shops Team - team dedicated to help the members promote and drive traffic to their Etsy shops

- Promo Swap Team - I mentioned this team in an earlier blog, but a team that trades promotional items to include in sold items.

So far, I've gotten alot of good advice and hopefully some exposure from the teams that I've joined. Promo is allowed in all the discussions except for the FMG Co-op Team. I try to post my items in the New Listing threads and look at the items for the shops that posted before me. Sometimes the threads are 20 pages long so I at least visit the 5 shops that posted before me.

Teams are a good way to get some exposure if you actively participate. I did see another promo team that was interesting but there were specific qualifications to join that seemed like it required more time than I had, so that one is on the back burner for now. Has it helped to drive traffic to my Etsy shop - yes a little, I haven't yet seen any MAJOR traffic coming in after joining the teams but every little bit helps and the discussion forums do provide support if you have questions as well as helpful advice.

One thing that really annoys me about the teams are the OVER-PROMOTERS. I see their posts every other hour in the "New Items" listing. It's like, jeez, give other people a chance to post their items too or so that their items won't get buried. It causes me to not want to visit their shops because their posting is a little obnoxious.

It has not really been that long since I've joined the teams so as time goes on, we'll see how that goes. One thing I have learned about the team discussions is to promote but don't overdo it or people like me will avoid going to the shops of people like that. Just my spin on it.

Etsy Promoting

I am NOT the world's best salesperson, not even the 2nd best, not even the millionth best. If the only job in the world left for me to do was as a used car salesman, I might have to go homeless and hungry. I don't know what it is...okay maybe I do know what it is. I always think of myself as the person doing the purchasing. I HATE HATE HATE it when I go somewhere and I get the cheesy salesperson act. When I shop, it's retail therapy for me. I want to browse, touch, try on, look...in peace. I don't want to be hounded, I don't want someone to attempt to sell me something that I don't want. I don't want to walk out of the store thinking, I really didn't want that thing and have to go back later and return it because of an overeager salesperson. Ok, so it's not always easy for me to say NO, but that's a personal issue that I probably need to address...and I digress.


So you ask, what the heck are you doing selling your wares on Etsy? Everything I've read on being successful on Etsy says promo, promo, promo, Ms. I Hate Sales. Facebook Fan page, Blog, a gajillion other sites to advertise on to drive traffic to your etsy page, BNS/BNR's, teams, forums. Phew! What I've deducted is that promoting my Etsy shop will initially take more time than actually making items to put in my Etsy shop. Ok, I can handle that. Time, effort and creativity...I have the latter 2 in leaps and bounds...now if I could find more time. lol.


Some things that I have done so far (and I will let you know how it works):

- joined a few teams (some for promo, some for support and advice)

- posted in the team discussions

- participating in my first BNS (Buy & Stay)

- started checking out the Forums and will be posting when I have something valuable to contribute

- researched taking better photos and started using them in the new pictures I've been taking although I think I could use some help in the staging department

- started this blog - debating about a Facebook Fan Page


I have to start somewhere...ya never know, maybe I do have a little bit of cheesy used car salesman in me after all!

Journey to Etsy Success?

Wow, my first crafting blog. Let's see, where do I start. First, let me do a little promo since that is what prompted me to start this journey and all the "Etsy Success" blogs and forums I've read say that promoting is one of the keys to success. The link to my Etsy shop is on the right under my favorite links but in case you're sometimes technoligically challenged like me:

www.etsy.com/shop/mssylsstuff

I hope that link works. The shop right now contains all earrings - both beaded and paper earrings. The paper earrings sort of arose out of my desire to create something different. It started off with beaded earrings. I saw some earrings somewhere and thought to myself, I can make something like that and for wayyyy cheaper! Thus the earring frenzy started. I enjoy beading alot and Fire Mountain Gems must adore me - since they are my main supplier of all things beady.

After doing all beaded earrings for a while, I wanted to create something different, I tried many things - that kind of failed miserably in my case. First it was crafting with felt - but I'm a horrible seamstress - whether it be with a machine or hand stitching so that didn't last long. Then I tried polymer clay but again, not my forte. As an aside, I really give the polymer clay crafters props because that stuff is NOT easy to work with. I could barely cut a circle much less craft something out of it. I decided to focus on something that I could access easily and kind of did an internal evaluation. I realized that I love working in photoshop and have been doodling with it for a couple years. I've made family invitations, collages and even a book of my nephew's vacation. It finally hit me, paper earrings. I can create the designs in photoshop and then create some unique beautiful earrings. I was hooked. I had to experiment with the process to make sure that they would be stiff enough for earring use as well as much research on water resistance to make sure they would last. It was worth it to me to be able to create something completely unique to me and I love it!

Initially, the earrings were going to be just for me and maybe to give away as gifts for birthdays and Christmas but I was OCD'ing in photoshop and at last count, had about 100 designs. I still only have 1 pair of ears. My boyfriend's niece saw that I had a ton of earrings and she needed to make a little money so she asked if she could sell them to her friends and mom's friends. So we struck up a consignment deal and she started selling the earrings and making a decent profit which I would immediately re-invest in more earring stuff. lol. I was making more earrings than she could sell so I decided to try Ebay first, but things didn't really work out there, not really the right market. Then I remembered a few years ago I had bought a ton of stuff on Etsy and now, here I am a bonafide Etsy seller.

So, come along with me and enjoy the experience. Success or failure, it'll be something fun, new and exciting. I know I'll find some cool stuff along the way - I mean, I've already favorited a ton of them!