The Start of Something New

Alright, so, already this blog is looking much different than my shop. The colors are darker (though not depressing) and there isn't one happy chick poking its head out anywhere. But I think that's okay, since I think people need to see that I have a lot of different sides. There's the super happy peppy fun wow side, and the more contemplative one. And, as my About Me says, there's that stuff betwixt and between.

I suppose what I'll do here is try to figure out how I want my Etsy shop to go. Where am I heading with all this? What do I want to do? It all started in January on a whim.

The story behind that is really simple. I started sewing because of all the things I was finding on Etsy. Beautiful stuffed animals, ones that made me squee from their cuteness, and ones that made me go wow, that artist has a great imagination. And so, I started making my critters.

I listed them all, and they've gotten a lot of attention. People love them, but only one of them has ever sold. Now, when I started making jewelry, that brought a few sales in. But even with what's popular, I really have to figure out what I want to make.

I've always loved the idea of old watch parts, tarnished metals, and things that have a lot of aged character. Thing is, I am also short on money, so a lot of what I have was made from whatever supplies I had laying around. Being a college student does not make one rich, I can tell you that much.

I also tried going into the Promotional forums. I joined this one thread where if you make a purchase from someone, you get your name on the list for two days. Buy more stuff, get more days. There are a lot of these threads there.

It seemed alright, and I was told they get a lot of sales. I met a lot of great people and I'm not trying to put anyone down. But, thing is, I noticed a few things about these kinds of threads:

- more often than not, any sale you make will be a result of that buyer wanting their shop to be on the list of promoted sellers for a longer period of time

- because of this, most sales come from within that group of sellers who want to keep promoting

- if you have a shop that is not very popular with that group of people, you depend on outside sales

- most people in the promotional forum, I've found, are not there to buy

I really gave it a shot, but was buying more than I was selling (I made no sales while being a promoted seller) and so, left.

I've since gone elsewhere in the Promotional forum, and I'm not entirely sure that any of my sales have been a result of this. I do know, however, that I'm getting my name out there and people know I exist. Huzzah for that!

I've made myself a Twitter account, too. I'm NaviWing on there, if anyone wants to follow. :D I love posting an item on my... feed... or whatever (jeez, I'm 20, tech savvy, and there's something about Twitter that creeps me out) and see that in moments, it gets over 20 views. That's more attention than an hour or so of promoting in the threads gets me.

So! New blog, new chance at promoting, and here's hoping everything goes well.