I was reading the Etsy forums tonight and came across a few about trying to start-out. I think we had worse luck than many in the beginning. I've had two shops, the only thing the first shop attracted was telling me the name I had chosen was trademarked. Bad luck! (You can read about some of this in the blog here.) I think we were somewhat ill-prepared for the amount of work involved. Your more centered around the design and creating and less on the mechanics of selling. I'll bet my husband and myself so far are making about 5 cents / hour so far! It has been an adventure though. In the few months with the shop my husband and I have learned trademarks (how to find them, search them, etc), photography (my husband is actually going beyond the auto button on the camera!), websites (loading them, designing them), blogs (i.e. right here), facebook (fairly new and I haven't done much there yet), Dreamweaver (creating the web site - my husbands work), Photoshop , consignment, google analytics (keep driving the visits upward), google marketplace, relisting, etc. etc.. That is all since late September. Its one of the things I write here about. The more we learn the more we understand what we don't know. I've been positing on forums and building connections. It took over 3 weeks to get the first sale on the SECOND shop (never had a sale on the first one), 3 days for the second, and only a single day for the third. Maybe the connections are starting, but I know we have a lot more work ahead of us.
Now that I have customers we need to work on the next phase, making sure we give an experience that makes someone to come back and tell their friends. A whole new phase of learning ahead of us. I need to relax with a drink in front of the Christmas tree ...after I get these sale packaged ...
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