Etsy makes it easy to start your own business, but that doesn’t mean running your own business is easy. I am amazed at how many hours I put into it, and I still feel like I’m slacking. Fulfilling an order is only a small fraction of what I do. I am always tweaking photos, tags, or descriptions. I’m planning new products. I’m thinking of the holidays ahead and what I’m going to do for them. I’m always checking inventory and ordering more supplies if needed. I read articles on photography, trends, changes to Etsy, marketing, and the health of the retail market. I browse the forums to see what’s going on with other Etsy sellers and to look for advice. I’ve listened to many of the Etsy Success Podcasts. I’m about to embark on a rebranding campaign and research starting my own website. I don’t keep track of my hours, but if I did, I’d average well under minimum wage. You don’t run an Etsy shop to make money, you do it because you have a passion.

I always dreamed of running my own business. I like problem-solving and being in charge of things. I even like paperwork and spreadsheets, though I’m not great at math. I’m organized, I’m a planner, and I like to feel useful. Etsy is perfect for me. It has an established customer base, so I don’t have to do a ton of marketing (something I’m uncomfortable with), and I’m (mostly) in control of how I run my shop. I can stay at home with my two girls, set my own hours, and even get a couple of bills paid doing something I love. Thank you, Etsy!

Don’t expect success to come right away. I spent a year researching how to start and run an Etsy shop before I opened mine. I feel like I actually did it backwards. Most people have a hobby or talent already established before they open an Etsy shop. Not me. I wanted my own business, but I didn’t know how or what to sell. When I ordered a miscarriage ornament from Etsy and fell in love with it, that’s when I decided I wanted to sell metal memorial ornaments like the one I bought on Etsy. My ornament meant so much to me, and I wanted to help people the same way.

I didn’t even know it was hand stamped. I’d never heard of hand stamping. I researched engraving, but it didn’t match what I had in my hand. I don’t remember how I finally learned what hand stamping was, but I was overwhelmed trying to figure out what supplies I needed to get started. I read books, I watched videos online, and I found hand stamping and jewelry making websites to order tools from. I made a lot of mistakes, but I also learned many valuable lessons.

I practiced hand stamping for months, but I still had a lot to learn about it when I opened my shop. My first ornaments were very simple. I like simple ornaments, and that’s my style, but my first ornaments were very basic and some looked unfinished. I hadn’t learned all the quirks of my fonts and design stamps, so the letters were unevenly spaced or slightly off. I was also still trying to figure out how to best use the space on the metal blanks.

This ornament was my first sale on November 1, 2015. Though oddly, I never sold another one. I stopped listing it two years ago.

I opened my shop on Halloween night 2015. I got my first sale the very next day. WOW!!! I was shocked. I read it took months for most Etsy sellers to get their first sale. That was only the start. I got over a hundred orders that Christmas season. I closed my shop in mid-December because I was going crazy. I was unprepared for that much business, and my stress level was pushing the limits. I spent long hours and late nights trying to figure out the fastest way to get all those ornaments to my customers in time.

I cried a lot that first Christmas because I’d have to start all over on an ornament because it’s wasn’t perfect. Especially with my baby feet design stamp. Yikes! Trying to get all those little toes to stamp perfectly every single time was a nightmare. I’d sometimes go through three blanks per ornament before I got a decent impression. I considered pulling all my ornaments that had those feet, but they were my bestsellers. I just kept on crying until I got it right.

This ornament was hands down my best seller for the first year or two I was open. I sold over 70 of them, still more than some of my current best sellers. It took a lot of time, practice, and tears to get those baby feet to stamp correctly, but the hard work has paid off.

I was amazed at my 5 star reviews. I didn’t feel like my work was crap, but I still felt insecure about it. I felt my competition was more skilled and offered much better products. But people still loved my ornaments. That was encouraging, and a big reassurance that I was making a difference in people’s lives, that I had something valuable to offer. I’ve had a few customers who ordered that first Christmas remember me and come back years later to order more ornaments.

The following Christmas, my sales doubled, but I prepared for it. It was still stressful, but I knew I could do it. My skill was better, my processes and packaging streamlined, and I felt more confident. I still have troubles with the baby feet stamp sometimes, but now I shrug it off and keep going. All those blanks I mess up become my practice blanks for designing new products. They aren’t wasted, and the practice paid off.

Don’t expect to open an Etsy shop, post a few things, and gets sales right away. You need to do your research, learn your competition, define your brand, figure out your policies and your customer service style. Then once your shop is open, don’t expect everything to go right. There’s a lot of trial and error. Be flexible enough to know when something isn’t working and fix it. Treat your Etsy shop like it’s a business and it will run like a business. Treat it like a hobby, and it might take off or it might not. Etsy offers the framework, but you still have to build the shop.

Cari
http://www.etsy.com/shop/embervalley
embervalley@hotmail.com