Do you Etsy?

I have been a rather artsy-crafty type person for my entire life, but never thought to do anything with my skills. That is until recently. After several failed corporate career path attempts, I have become very frustrated and want to start my own business. But what to do, what to do? Well, I’ve always loved greeting cards and have always been good making things with paper, so my idea is to join the two. And how will I get my products to consumers? I am in the process of starting an on-line “store” on Etsy.com.

Etsy (www.etsy.com) is known as your place to buy and sell all things handmade. As a buyer, you are free to peruse the listings as much as you want. The site is set up so that you can search in any number of ways…general word search based on tags or descriptions, general category searches, by geography, as well as other unique ways to search such as by color, or you can search by something called Pounce which means that it brings up items from shops that just sold something else. On the Etsy home page, if you scroll down toward the bottom you’ll find a section titled Recently Listed Items which is a scrolling stream of items that have just been listed. It’s cool because you get to see all different types of things---things you’d probably never even think of to search for (looking for aqua spider mum batik fabric? Someone just listed some). Once you do find something that you’d like to buy (and if you like handmade things, you will), you do have to register on the site, but it’s a free and painless process.

In order to sell things on Etsy, you have to register as a seller (also free and painless), read a few documents on terms and conditions, list your items and wait for them to sell. Ahhhh…but the likelihood of your item just selling isn’t that great and Etsy has thought of that too. They have various groups and communities of experienced sellers set up where novice sellers can get advice and learn tried and tested tips and secrets of success. There are also newsletters to offer advice.

Etsy is better than Ebay, in my opinion, because first of all it is tailored to a specific customer---those who seek handmade items. From a selling point of view, it is also much cheaper than Ebay. It costs just 20¢ to list an item for 4 months. And when your item sells, there is a small transaction fee that you have to pay. The rest of the money is yours to keep.

A lot of Etsy sellers make a very decent 2nd income from using their talents and selling items. There are also a lot of sellers who dedicate the time and energy to their shops to generate full time incomes. I hope to fall somewhere in the middle.

So whether you are a shopper or are looking to generate some income, if you haven’t already, you may want to check out Etsy. You might even find a cute, funky handbag! I just did…off to buy it! (smile!)

Purse by Arrowsarah

Luv Ya!!
A Cute Funky Handbag

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