I have spent the last few weeks and weekends organizing my home office. Unpacking more supplies. Getting things in some sort of order. I unpacked a lot of already made jewelry items, so I took the plunge and reopened my etsy store last night. (That’s one goal checked off my list for 2013!) I had no idea how saturated the etsy market had become until I began searching to compare prices. I hope my sales are as good as they were in the past {2005-2011}. I’m not sure what to expect. Etsy use to be a good income stream for me.
Most of the items I had ready to list were my popular items in 2011. I figure that’s a good way to test the current ‘market’. I lowered pricing as well. My prices range from $5.90 up to $13.90. Shipping is $2.50 for the United States up to $3.00 for international. My listing fee’s came to $3.60 for the 18 items I listed. If I can sell at least two items, it will have been worth my while setting it all up again. Fee’s include listing, final value, Paypal or credit card, packaging, and shipping.
I also opted to accept credit cards and gift cards directly through etsy. According to their stats, this should boost my sales by 15-20%. The fee’s are on par with Paypal and the money is directly deposited into your bank account. I used my new ING Direct account for this purpose. I’m hoping to save with these online sales and pay off our remaining two credit cards.
I’ll update my Etsy progress in a month to see how I am doing. I am not purchasing any new supplies and only using what I already have on hand. It would probably be worth my while to invest in a better camera, but unfortunately that’s just out of the question right now. You’ll have to excuse my ‘meh’ photography skills. Etsy is just one of the income streams I am testing out again. Next up Ebay and Amazon!
Budget & the Beach said,
January 15, 2013 @ 8:18 pm
Congrats on accomplishing your goal!
Angella said,
January 15, 2013 @ 9:21 pm
Thanks!
Starting My Own Business To Escape A Crappy Dead End Job! | said,
February 15, 2013 @ 7:05 am
[...] isn’t about that though. Instead, I have a confession to make. Remember when I mentioned that I wasn’t going to buy any new supplies for my etsy store? I was just going to sell things I already had? Well that turned out to be a bit of a lie. [...]