Showing posts with label etsy. Show all posts

Friday, October 9, 2015

Hanging my head and hoping for the best......

by MaryAnn Carroll

For those of you that know me, you know that I am a resource teacher and do my jewelry and bead making part time. Four and a half years ago I stopped selling beads online after a tragic event sent my life into a tail spin. I won't launch into that story here because I couldn't possibly cover it in a paragraph or two. Once things started to slow down from that a year later, I just didn't have it in me to list anything anymore.

There was a time that I did very well selling beads and so so selling jewelry. I opened an Indiemade shop, but get virtually no business from it. It wasn't the site, it was me. I just didn't want to promote, take pictures, list, write descriptions, etc. to sell. The time has come for me to stop avoiding what I remember being a lot of work and get back into the bead business. I've probably written about this exact same topic before, but this time I am feeling the push to do so.

My goal is to retire at the end of the 2018 school year. I will be 58. I am in my 31st year right now. I have been lucky to have a job that I like for the most part. It's a little scary to think about not having the same income. I have all of these thoughts running through my head.....

What is something happens to my children or grandchildren and I cannot help? Are they going to be okay? What if this? What if that?

I need to STOP!!! and remember the advice that I always offer others. Most things in life are out of our control and it is rarely the things that we try to control that end up being something that we are faced with.

So, with my retirement goal in mind, I need to get ahead financially. I thought Handmade at Amazon was going to be the boost that I needed to start selling again. I do want to do this full time when I retire from teaching.

So, I signed up and was accepted. Well, it turns out since I sold a half dozen things on Amazon in 10 years, I have a seller account. It would not let me set up shop. I spent way too many hours on the phone and on the internet trying to take care of this glitch.....

.....only to find out from my friend Staci Lousie Smith, who, if you know her, you know that she knows the ins and outs of online anything, that they aren't taking beads and components at this time. Why the heck did they accept me?

They launched yesterday and sure enough I didn't see beads and components. I did see the number 43,000 or something close to that next to jewelry and I was like..... NO WAY! I cannot compete with that. Hopefully, I will be over all of my frustrations by the time Amazon decides to include components.

So today, I am hanging my head when I say that I am going to give in and start my Etsy store back up. I left Etsy as soon as they included manufactured items, and in all honesty, when I searched for ceramic beads just the other day I was a little appalled at what I was up against, but I am going to give it a shot again.

So, Etsy, here I come..... for a while anyhow. I will wait to see what happens on Amazon and maybe I will make the switch. But for now, I am motivated to start selling again.

assorted porcelain beads

wood-fired stoneware beads

porcelain beads with shino glaze

porcelan beads pistachio shino glaze

I also checked out examples of what you will see when I get started back up!

I hope that ceramic beads are still in style......

Thursday, July 9, 2015

Messy Studio and Etsy Thoughts

Somehow it is July. And almost mid-July at that.

Seems like I just got back from Bead & Button and right around the corner is Bead Fest Philadelphia.

Things go non-stop at times, and right now I have family visiting until next week.

So my studio will remain a mess...

And I am going to have to get a good purging in the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime, my brain gets a bit stressed with making sure I can keep family entertained and have some income trickling in (the bills sure don't stop).

And as far as that goes, I am constantly thinking about how to market my items, and with changes in social media, technology, and how people shop, it gets a bit overwhelming to try to keep up with.

I don't even want to get started with my frustration with Etsy and what is being sold there, and how they have dropped the artisan base. Personally, I still think that if they created "Etsy Handmade" the way they have created "Etsy Wholesale" and take it back to their origins, they could be salvaged.

And now Amazon is getting into the program with "Amazon Handmade" so I am very curious to see how that platform runs and effects Etsy.

Yesterday I got an email from Etsy saying that they have been putting a bit more effort into their Etsy Teams platform through the Sell on Etsy App.

As a captain of two teams, and members of many, this was a surprise and a bit exciting.
Although there is much room for improvement, I am pretty impressed they are doing anything for the teams.

If you have a smart phone (iPhone or Android) you can get the Sell on Etsy App.
You may need to refresh your app if you already have it on your phone to get the teams section to show up.

And as a team captain, I also received an email that gives details that one of the long requested things: for the captain to be able to address the whole team via email is now available. People can opt out of receiving the emails - especially if the captain steps over limits with this and sends out way too many emails.
Having the capability of shooting out an email to the whole team to remind them of an upcoming event, or even a monthly reminder to check the Etsy threads will hopefully allow for more activity and interaction to the Etsy Team Platform.

All of this is pretty exciting to me from the marketing end, because being able to stand together and help promote each others work is a huge part of having a successful Etsy shop.
And honestly, the only reason why I am still maintaining my shop on Etsy.com and I really hope that they will be seriously considering Etsy Handmade to leave the current Etsy as it stands in the dust.

If you have an Etsy shop where you sell your handmade, vintage or supplies to make handmade, you should consider joining the AWETeam (Art Walk Etsy Team).
We host a virtual First Friday every month, and all you have to do is add up to 4 of your shop listings and help promote the event through social media, and other creative ways.

I am curious to see if these tools will help to market artists shops more through the Etsy Teams platform.
Efforts must be made by all involved though, and on a regular basis.
If not, it all just stalls - and that is quite disappointing.

So I'm off to go update my Etsy shop with some new listings, and tags, then add some new items to my teams and then promote.

Spiral Lentil Bead Sets Marsha Neal Studio

It's the new kind of "marketing work" that I am hoping works for todays technology.

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Just a Thought....by Karen McGovern

If you are at all keyed in to the online arts and crafts world, either as a creator or a collector, you know the epic, fit for the big screen story of the rise of Etsy. Etsy, in a very short time, exploded online as the ultimate source for handmade crafts. Artisans from around the WORLD became Etsy-ites, including myself, opening online shops to sell our handmade goods including fine art, jewelry, gourmet foods, textiles, pottery and SO MUCH MORE. For many of us who opened shops, Etsy gave us a wonderful platform to sell our stuff, and they MARKETED THE CRAP out of themselves. Since launching in 2005, Etsy has become a household name, the go-to online source for endless shops filled with GUARANTEED HAND MADE ITEMS. It was great—while it lasted. Slowly but surely mass produced goods popped up in shops all over Etsy. The hipster staff we all imagined running the ship could not, and would not police itself. Founding shops discovered their goods, and ideas copied, sold for half price, and the site became a quagmire of garbage. HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF SHOPS. Those of us that jumped on the Etsy boat from the beginning were capsized under a wave of Chinese imports and resellers. THAT WAS A GREAT METAPHOR!

Many, many founding artists jumped ship, myself included. There are chat rooms, blogs, forums and endless articles filled with angry artists voicing how betrayed we all feel and how DEEPLY DISAPPOINTED we are that Etsy sold out. THEY SOLD OUT. There are websites dedicated to the subject, like the over-the-top How Etsy Raped America. The millions and millions of dollars they make from all the shops; good, bad or indifferent, far outweigh any losses from artists who left Etsy because WE ACTUALLY HAVE ETHICS AND GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THE HANDMADE COMMUNITY. I suspended my Etsy shop well over a year ago, and have moved on to sell through Facebook and my own online website.

Notice I said I “suspended” my shop. Did I close it? No. I wrote a huge, heartfelt message on my home page explaining why I thought Etsy was betraying its original artists and suspended all my listings. Why didn’t I close my shop? BECAUSE, THE SAD TRUTH IS I SHOP ON ETSY ALL THE TIME, and you have to be an active member to use the site. So, does that make me the biggest hypocrite of all time? Maybe. I’ve been thinking a lot about this.

Not every great, original artist left Etsy when they went to the dark side. If you are an artist with a big following, are well known, and have an active client base, you had no reason to leave Etsy. The resellers and crap shops don't affect you. The ruined small artists just starting out, artists that didn’t and don’t have a recognizable name, artists that aren’t blessed with a huge following. There are MANY, MANY WONDERFUL artists on Etsy—some of my all-time favorite artists have successful shops there. Some of my favorite suppliers sell on Etsy, and many sell ONLY ON ETSY. So I shop there. And, I’m considering re-opening my shop. WHAT? GASP? HAVE I LOST MY MIND? DO I NOT CARE ABOUT THE ETHICS ANYMORE? Damn right I do.

Here’s what I am thinking. Original artists who really want to make a living selling their ORIGINAL work need to take back Etsy. I will suggest a scenario here….Love My Art Jewelry is made up of a group of really talented and amazing artists. All of us struggle with the Etsy dilemma, and some have shops there and some have closed shops there. What if we all re-opened our shops, with a “Handmade Manifesto” of sorts on our homepages? What if we used the LMAJ blog and our personal blogs to support each other and other original artists that need Etsy as a selling platform? Let’s face it, no other online retail portal has been able to get the same attention Etsy has. Whether you love or hate them, they are well known and HUGELY SUCCESSFUL. Even the recent bad press Etsy has gotten hasn’t done any real damage. Etsy, I believe, is here to stay. So, let’s USE IT and USE IT WISELY. Be vocal, say what you feel in your shop. Call out the resellers. Name names and make a fuss. SELL YOUR WORK. Blog, post on Facebook, join forums and start your own handmade support groups online to direct traffic to Etsy shops that are run by independent artists creating and selling original handmade goods. What if other arts groups did this, over and over all over the WORLD? WHAT IF WE TAKE BACK THE SITE WE HELPED BUILD AND MAKE FAMOUS?!?

It’s just a thought, and I may change my mind….but I’d love to hear what you think.

Now, GO MAKE SOMETHING AMAZING!

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Oh Spring Where Art Thou

by Staci L. Smith

Well, it's the second day of spring, and it snowed again. I want to start seeing some green when I look outside. So, I made a treasury instead, enjoy!