Owning A Business Isn't All Roses

I've had more than one person tell me they wish they could own their own business. Well, I have to say this - no they don't. Believe me, they don't. Not unless they know that the business they are opening is going to be a surefire hit with consumers, they don't.

Why do I say this? Well, for starters, my business has been open for almost three years. Yes, you read that correctly, almost three years. In that three years I have sold: 3 baby blankets ($80 total), 6 bracelets ($97 total), 6 pair of earrings ($6 total), 2 bookmarks ($13 total), 3 hats ($20 total), and 2 washcloths ($10 total). So in three years I have made exactly $226. I have paid out far more than that for materials, listing fees (eBay and Etsy), and monthly subscription fees (ArtFire).

I have purchased items for display purposes for craft shows. I have spent more money than I've made. In fact, I pay taxes for being "self-employed" even when I don't make enough to be taxed for regular income taxes. In short, I pay more than I bring in.

Owning your own business isn't all roses. If you don't have the time or the money to put into it, you might as well forget it. I learned the hard way - you can't just open a shop on Etsy, ArtFire, eCrater, or whoever, and expect it to just sell without having to work at it. You have to promote your shop(s). You have to get your name out there and make sure people see you and know you are there.

You  have to network. Twitter, Facebook, even MySpace. Possibly LinkedIn as well. Blogs and websites are good as well. Email and instant messengers if you can manage them as well are good.

Lately I've been trying to promote my Etsy shop as much as I can for as little money as I can. Why? Because I don't have a day job to back me up. I do freelance writing, which garners me some money to use to pay Etsy fees and the like, but I don't have much.

Am I trying to scare people away from opening their own shops? Not at all. I'm just hoping they'll read this and be prepared for some tough times ahead.

The Search For An Online Marketplace

There are several online marketplaces out there these days, and it seems like all of them have good and bad features to them. Between my best friend and myself, we have been bumbling around trying to find the best fit for both her and myself.

You see, while I have some income through my freelance writing, my best friend has no income at all right now. She literally has no way to pay for ArtFire, Etsy, or any of the other shops that require payment. So we've been playing with a few things to see what would work for her.

So far, the online marketplace that works best for her is eCrater. eCrater is a totally free online e-commerce website. You can create a small e-commerce site in just a few minutes, if you happen to have a few minutes to spare. :P It took me a good 15-20 minutes just to get LaShawn's site set up, and just to add one product. However, things are looking good and once I get her in there to put down more customizations for the about page and the like, she should be good to go. :)

We tried Made It Myself, as I told her I'd just use my debit card to pay the final sale value fees there, but they require a retail value as if you were going to purchase the item in a store. Crocheted baby blankets are not sold in stores, so how on earth would we know what the retail value of the item would be? So we decided not to even finish setting up her items there, because we didn't have a retail value for them and we didn't want to make one up.

I checked out Big Cartel but since she could only have five items for free, I decided not to bother with that site. She has more than five items to sell. So that was a bust. She wasn't fond of the Addoway format, and she didn't like the Copious format either, so we ruled those out as well. She just didn't like that you had to log in with Facebook or Twitter and use your real name instead of your business name, and I can understand that.

So for now at least, the great marketplace search is finished. Now to update her business cards for her. :P

No More ArtFire Shop

I am not particularly fond of the fact that ArtFire decided to do away with their free seller accounts. Yes, I realize that they are a business and that it is their prerogative to do away with the free seller accounts, but I think it was poor judgement on their part.

Allow me to explain myself on this bit of thinking. You see, some shops used the free version because they could not afford to put a lot of money into their shop. The $9.95 price for the pro version of ArtFire if you signed up before 8/16/11 or the $11.95 price for the pro version of ArtFire if you signed up after 8/16/11 may not seem like much, considering the pro version used to be $15.95, but when you are struggling to make ends meet, you might not have that much money. Especially if you are not making sales to help recoup that expense.

I learned that I have to limit myself on how much I post on Etsy because I can easily get myself to a point where I can't afford to pay my Etsy fees for the month. So you can imagine that I would not want an ArtFire account with a monthly fee! I did have a sale there on ArtFire, but I just can't see one sale being enough to make me want to go pro and stay pro when I have other things that $12 a month could be paying for.

Several of the shops I used to visit sadly had to close down their businesses because they didn't have any other resources - and ArtFire even took away access to our listed items so we could get our descriptions and the like from them so we could list them somewhere else! They want us to pay just to get our descriptions and the like back. :( My best friend is searching for a good alternative to ArtFire right now and has yet to find one.

So now I have no ArtFire shop. I am trying Addoway to see how that goes, but I may have to open a second Etsy shop for the baby stuff. I'll just have to see.