TTMA: Etsy.

[lemon200]

Has anyone ever had a store on Etsy? Have you heard good things? I'm thinking about making E's hair bows because they are so expensive and I was just thinking that maybe I could sell them on Etsy. I wouldn't be able to do it until July because during mat leave in Canada you can't have any sort of income but it just got me interested in it!

[abvintage]

wildermom has a store. My SIL had one and she liked it. You probably won't make a bunch of $. The problem is competition. You will want to make sure you scope out the competition and do something different and price competitively.

[anaberry]

Hey I didn't know this about @wildermom ! What does she sell?

[mkissa]

I have a shop too. I haven't been putting much effort into it lately, so business has been slow, but if you work at it and really use social media you can generate a lot of traffic to your shop. Something like hair bows you will have to work hard at standing out amongst the competition, work on your search engine optimization and really drive traffic to your shop rather than relying on people to find it with keywords.

It can be done, and its fun, and not expensive to start up, so its totally worth a shot if you like making the bows.

ETA: That last line with a bit of encouragement because I feel like I sounded like a bit of a negative Nancy. 

[wildermom]

HI! Thanks for the tag abvintage.

Yup, I totes have a shop anaberry. Though I really only started it in June and y'all know what life's been like since then. Need less to say, it's not gotten the attention it's deserved. I'm finally starting to set aside some time for it.
Anyway, I sell prints. Digital only at this point. I have some local shops interested in them too. But basically everything is automatic and online so I just have to design, then upload for people to buy. Etsy does all the "work" for me. I need to be adding to my item lists now...

Ditto what's been said. The nice thing about what I sell is that it's my own "artwork" so while I have competition from other people that do design work, nothing is just like mine. And the fact that it's all digital means I can price low and not feel bad about it. So from that I'd say to find a way to make your shop different or stand out. And find away to let people know you exist (what I'm working on). I have it linked on my blog but basically do zero promotion. The sales I've gotten so far is just people that randomly found me and liked what they saw. And it seems to come in spurts.

Is there something else shopwise I can I answer for you lemon200? Website related, I've been super happy with the ease of Etsy. And the low cost.

[wildermom]

That time I told you I suck at promotion. Yeaaaah. I guess I could leave my shop link here, haha.

Live A Little Wilder on Etsy

[lawndog1216]

My sister has a shop (she has had one forever) and if it weren't easy, she wouldn't have it.

lemon200, you can't sell now but like abvintage said, you can do all the research you need to do and you can even start making a stockpile now. Make sure you let us know when your shop opens!!

[lemon200]

This is great! Thanks all! I realize that it most likely wouldn't be a second career but I figured if I'm making them anyways, any extra money is money that I didn't have before! And you are right Lawndog, I'll start perfecting them and stockpiling!

[kaeguri]

I had a shop making jewelry, sold a few pieces. But I just didn't have time to keep up with it. Hmm. Maybe I should start back.

[abvintage]

mkissa if you feel comfortable I'd love to look at your shop!

lemon200, you should think of a way to stand out. For example, I've thought about opening a shop and just selling sorority items. There aren't a whole lot of shops that focus just on them.

edit: lawndog1216, your sisters link too. I love creeping on these shops. Especially in time for the holidays.

Edit2: wildermom & mkissa you should share your links for the TCF holiday shop.

[shannonabigail]

wildermom, what is the font used for most of those?

I'm diving deeper into hand lettering and design and I have an unhealthy obsession with fonts.

Also, if you don't mind me asking, how much traffic/business do you get from these prints?

[Laverne]

My cousin turned her etsy shop into a fulltime business,with employee.

[mkissa]

Nov 6, 2015 11:08:36 GMT -5 abvintage said:

mkissa if you feel comfortable I'd love to look at your shop!

lemon200, you should think of a way to stand out. For example, I've thought about opening a shop and just selling sorority items. There aren't a whole lot of shops that focus just on them.

edit: lawndog1216, your sisters link too. I love creeping on these shops. Especially in time for the holidays.

Edit2: wildermom & mkissa you should share your links for the TCF holiday shop.

Of course! MKissaCreations

How do I share that with the Holiday Shop?

[wildermom]

Nov 6, 2015 11:19:32 GMT -5 shannonabigail said:

wildermom, what is the font used for most of those?

I'm diving deeper into hand lettering and design and I have an unhealthy obsession with fonts.

Also, if you don't mind me asking, how much traffic/business do you get from these prints?

+1 for an unhealthy font obsession. So so many.

I believe the one used there is mostly Bonjour, but I'll double check when I'm on my laptop later.

All of my sales/traffic is random. I've done zero promoting, which is assinine on my part but life has been a little crazy lately. I'm hoping to devote more time to this ASAP, actually. Having said that, just on the willpower of the Internet alone, it looks like I've had 15 sales in the last 30 days (to give you an idea). Traffic and sales seem to begot traffic and sales since Etsy does have some feed/recommendation aspects to it. I'm basically considering it free money right now since I'm not putting the effort in. Hopefully with some effort it can be a more legit part time gig. I'm a believer in you get what you give most of the time.

[abvintage]

Nov 6, 2015 13:20:59 GMT -5 mkissa said:

Nov 6, 2015 11:08:36 GMT -5 abvintage said:

mkissa if you feel comfortable I'd love to look at your shop!

lemon200, you should think of a way to stand out. For example, I've thought about opening a shop and just selling sorority items. There aren't a whole lot of shops that focus just on them.

edit: lawndog1216, your sisters link too. I love creeping on these shops. Especially in time for the holidays.

Edit2: wildermom & mkissa you should share your links for the TCF holiday shop.

Of course! MKissaCreations

How do I share that with the Holiday Shop?

Here ya go: goodbyecb.proboards.com/thread/68355/introducing-tcf-holiday-shop

[lemon200]

abvintage, Agreed, the issue with sorority specific ones is that girls would want their letters on them and I don't have a cricuit. And those are like $130 here. I could do their colors though. In Canada there are more local sororities so I may have less competition if I focus on Canadian sororities!

[mkissa]

Nov 6, 2015 13:51:40 GMT -5 lemon200 said:

abvintage, Agreed, the issue with sorority specific ones is that girls would want their letters on them and I don't have a cricuit. And those are like $130 here. I could do their colors though. In Canada there are more local sororities so I may have less competition if I focus on Canadian sororities!

Thanks abvintage for the link!

I sell Sorority geared items, but I stay away from the letters (you are supposed to get licensed by Panhellenic in order to sell) not everyone does this though and there doesn't seem to be much enforcement, I stick with using their symbols which can also just be sold to anyone so it has a larger audience. The great thing I have found about selling to sororities is that if one girl in a house finds you and buys something from you, you can usually get at least 5 more sales from that specific house, so its like built in advertising. 

ETA: a "Thank you"