Etsy

For years, I've thought about opening an Etsy shop. I've been through a slew of ideas for it—some of them good, some of them silly—but I never actually did anything about it.

Back in September, I decided to finally stop putting it off. My plan was to sell my crochet stuff and some printables (which are quotes and such that I design and people can print at home; they're an easy thing that takes little effort on my part.) I set a goal of having it open by the end of October, so I would be ready for the holiday rush.

Well, that deadline came and went.

On the first Saturday of deer season, 11/11, I worked on it almost all day. It was tiring. I had to redo so many things and by about 4pm I was ready to quit, call the whole thing off. It's hard to explain, but the more I did, the more little things I found I needed to do or decide on.

For example: shipping. You have to list the shipping size and weight of your item. Okay, I guess I need to go to the post office and figure that out. Another example: everyone who sells these printables things has an image of them displayed in a frame to show an example of how it could look. I went all over the house taking photos of empty frames so I could do that too. But as I looked at all of the photos in other Etsy shops, mine looked awful in comparison. Their's were clearly some sort of stock photo, which I then briefly looked into, but I didn't want to pay for a photo for this Etsy shop that I may or may not even make any money on.

I decided I had one good photo of my own, so I used it over and over. I got some listings created, but they were all so random, there was no theme or rhyme or reason to them. I really started losing confidence in the whole thing.

My store is going to be called Laughing Dog Co., and in that vein, I started thinking I should probably sell mostly dog-related items. I love dogs—duh!—and instead of offering random crochet items, how about focus on dog sweaters. I also have ideas for dog-related printables.

Yesterday I was really having a hard time deciding what to do about the whole thing, though. I still had a desire to open my shop for the holiday shopping season, but that felt completely unattainable at this point. I would love to press GO and open my shop... the problem is, I don't have hardly any items to sell right now and I am worried that would not give a good first impression. I have been crocheting as much as possible without driving myself mad, but I only have two dog sweaters.

I haven't even had a chance to work on the printables I mentioned, so basically I'd be opening a shop with a few random quotes to print and two dog sweaters? That doesn't sound like something I'd even want to show off to people. I set high standards for myself (typical of only children) and while I've gotten better about that, I would not be okay with having a barely-stocked Etsy shop as a representation of what I'm capable of.

My crocheting is a hobby and for now I intend to keep it that way. I don't want to worry about taking orders, which would then make this more like a business and no longer a fun hobby. That was not my intent going into this. That being said, I would like to sell some things. I don't want to keep making things, list the items (which cost 20¢ per listing) and never sell anything. That's where my hesitation and my desire to have my ducks all in a row before opening comes into play. There are tons and tons of Etsy shops out there who have tried and failed for myriad reasons. The people who are most successful with this are the ones who:

1. have a plan and a bit of a niche/theme for their shop;
2. are good at SEO on Etsy;
3. have social media components to their shops (I went ahead and claimed social media URLs in case I'd ever want to use them); and
4. make their shop look legit with good branding and good photos of their items. 

After all this, I finally feel like I have a good plan and a good vision; it's taken a bit longer than I'd hoped, but I feel a lot better about everything going forward. I'll still sell doilies or snowflakes too, even though they don't really fit a dog theme, but whatever. I am going to keep working on it, and I WILL open my shop, hopefully by the end of the year. And that excites me! I have put a lot of time in to my shop, but for now it's still not enough and I need to keep working. Once it's ready, I'll let you all know!