The Economy Fiddled....

for a long while, and a lot of us “crafty” folk decided to put our shingles out and party as well.

Well, now… some of us (raises hand) are standing there with the lampshade on our heads wondering where the all the fun went.

I can understand the almost-rampant frustration on my primary selling venue about the cessation of basic accounts for no more than trial purposes. 


To those who don’t know, you could have a completely free studio on ArtFire, where you could list and list and list and not pay any fees.  It was the epitome of coolness in the handmade world.  Yes, you had some limitations on your studio, and you did see some outside advertising in your studio, but to be able to list items and sell, and keep all the money?  How awesome was that.

Come August 15, that is going away.  From what I’m gathering, you can open a “basic” account and have a small trial period to get your feet wet.  People who are already basic will get thrown into that same trial period.  After the trial period, you will have to pay a monthly fee to stay on.

I pay my monthly fee, have since 2009, and have only made 36 sales.  Yes, that’s frightening.  I want so much to be quitting my day job to have fun doing what I love.  But, when I start heading toward the window ledge, I think about this:

*  I could pay a webhosting company a monthly (or yearly fee) to host my blank website.  Maybe I would get a tired template or two to play with and spend tons of hours trying to figure that out.  Um… me?  Okay, you can get off the floor now; it’s not that hilarious.

* I could be paying a person to design and maintain my website to keep my content fresh and fabulous for the 21^st century.  Last time I checked, my name was NOT Bill Gates.

* I could pay an extra fee for an ecommerce shopping cart and – if I want to get fancy—merchant fee to accept credit cards.  Again, my birth certificate does not read Sam Walton.

* I could be doing my own hours and hours of research about search engine optimization (SEO) and website optimization.  With 2 kids who could care less where the money comes from as long as it arrives when they want it?  I don’t think so.

* I could be play hit and miss on my descriptions and photographs.  Ha.  Word of advice:  scanning your items on a flat bed scanner does not a good photograph make.

And then I could sit there and wait for the sales to come pouring in. 

Are those crickets that I hear?  Oh, no, that’s the economy praying to the porcelain god.  Party’s over, get the heck out, don’t care where you go but you can’t stay here. Ugh.

Now, on ArtFire, I pay my monthly fee, and I get a company that's willing to help me through all of the above. 

In one place, you get a decent website design and shopping cart.  I get help with SEO, help with branding, advertising.  I get great advice from people who've been there about photography, keywords, tags, promotion.  Heck, I can even promote my other selling venues in my Pro Studio.

We both reap the benefits: ArtFire and I.  I get traffic to my beautiful studio; they get traffic to their fabulous venue.  I get potential customers who love my products; they get to help ignite that entrepreneurial flame and get potential customers.  I get to connect with great people who are just like me down in the trenches; they get to find out about their “target” audience from down in those same trenches.

So, I’ll lean over here with that lampshade on my head while ArtFire yawns, stretches, whips out the vacuum and starts booting out the people completely passed out on their lawn.
When the world stops spinning so fast, I’ll go take a Bromo™, roll up my sleeves and dig in once again.

And guess what?  The party will begin again.

Feelin' Groovy!

Just in case anyone is wondering, our economy is really sucking wind.  People are either without jobs or not making enough in the jobs they have, therefore they're spending less.  For us online sellers, especially though of us with little to no advertising budget to speak of, that means our sales are not just slow, their downright horrible in some cases.

I think that at first we all take it so personally.  Check our collective breath and arm pits -- is it us?  Our way of listing?  Our Studios? Our products?  Some of us get mad at our venues:  they’re not helping us get that traffic, or they’re asking too much of us to get that traffic.  Some of us get frustrated and close up their shutters and move on, wailing about the injustice of it all.

Some of us dig our heels in and start posting and posting and posting and posting -- and either we annoy the heck out of our audience with our eternal links, or we spend ourselves into a hole with listing/re-listing/renewal fees.

I’ve been riding down all those roads for the past few years.  They’re all bumpy and nasty and have a lot of potholes and more red lights than you can shake a stick at.

Then I took a step back and looked at the retail world around me.  I reminded myself that I actually work in retail for my ‘day job’.  I’ve been working in and around retail since I was 16 years old.  No matter the branch of retail, there is one thing I’ve noticed over and over again:

1.      The months of February and March are super slow, sales wise

2.      The months of July and August are super slower, sales wise.

So, now I sit here and think; if it’s slow in brick and mortar, why shouldn’t it be slower in the online community?  

And here’s the bottom line ick for the year 2011:  with our economy sucking so loud, they’re probably not thinking about that either.  I mean, think about it (if you haven’t already): if you have to choose between a tank of gas or that cool thingy you saw on Etsy or Artfire, or Ebay which would YOU choose? 

Why would you expect anyone else to be different?  No matter what you have in your shop, unless it’s a free tank of gas, you are probably not going to sell it as fast as you would like to.

Okay, thanks Captain Obvious, you say, what’s the point?  Well, after I checked by pits, my breath, the items in my shop, the venue(s) I sell in, pulled myself from the ledge and took a deep breath, I had the following epiphany.  You can’t force people the buy if they don’t have the money. 

Instead of digging that hole of listing fees, that pile of non-selling inventory, or annoying the following I’ve worked hard to gather online by constantly advertising things that they probably aren’t ready to buy yet, I’m going to concentrate on the infrastructure of my business. 

I’ll save all that money up from Etsy listing fees to create an advertising budget.  To design some marketing campaigns that will help those customers out there make their choices. 

I’ll get my current inventory fit and ready for the season that’s coming up. 

With the two companies for whom I work as a representative, I’ll do some training, become even more familiar with the products, and find ways that I can serve my customer base better.

When August ends and September begins, I’ll be all ready to dig in with something targeted, informative, educational even.  Something that the customer base can use while they’re making their decisions to buy.  And even if they’re not quite ready to spend those hard-earned dollars, at least they’ll know I’ll be here with a quality product that I have confidence in, that they will be confident will stand the test of time.

And now that I’ve slowed down (because I found myself moving too fast),

And learning that I had to make the morning last (by not killing my wallet or my customer base);

Now that I’ve finished kicking down the cobblestones (and making good plans), guess what?

I’m looking at fun (the fun of making my own brand shine) and… you guessed it… feeling’ groovy.

U-Haul(tm) Ain't Got Nothing on Me!

I've been busy moving all of my non-rosary/spiritual pieces to Keshkingirl Jewelry, and I'm almost finished.  Splitting one shop into two is a bit nerve-wracking, especially with sales being so... well, non-existent, but I thought it would be best to keep my styles separate.

I'm also working on something I'm tentatively calling the Rose Club... more about that later, but I just want you to know it's going to be fun!

Here's a little taste of what's moved to KGJ:

Winter Sand

Rugosa Rose

Till later all, wish me luck!

When I was about 10 or 11, friends of my parents introduced them to a laundry product that blew my socks off.  I say my socks because the laundry was my chore, my cross to bear.

One teeny-tiny scoop (no more than a table spoon) put into each load left the clothes clean and smelling good, and I didn't even need fabric softener.  Nor did it make me or my step-father itch, like every other store bought laundry detergent did. We bought a gigantic box of the stuff and it lasted about six months.  Six months!  My parents were in budgeting heaven.  I just thought it was neat that a tiny scoop cleaned so many clothes.

Back then it had the pseudo-scientific name of SA8.  It was touted as all natural and biodegradable.  Eco-friendly in 2011-speak. Way before Al Gore started getting busy with his global warming.


So, now, it's a million years later, I'm at home and my husband brings a couple of friends over who introduce us to a line of products that, once again, blew me away.  Now it's in modern packaging, and the product line has expanded, but it still has the same quality and same lasting power.

Washing the brontosaurus hide.

Now, it's called Legacy of Clean.  There's a whole line now, of laundry products, house cleaning products, everything made out of environmentally safe, natural, biodegradable.  I went crazy and spent about $65 bucks, buying the total starter kit.  I wasn't interested in selling the products, or being an IBO (Independent Business Owner) for another company other than my own, but I had to give it a try.

That was about 4 months ago.  I clean my house once a week from top to bottom.  I do about 4 loads of laundry every week. Dishes?  Hand wash and machine wash every day.  Have I run out of anything?  I think I'll be re-ordering at the end of next month.  Seriously.  The only thing that came in the kit that I don't use are the disposable wipes.  I have my own that are re-washable.

So, I probably will be spending $162.50 for the entire year and three months worth of cleaning products.  And yep, I certainly did join the team that sells these awesome products. 

Legacy of Clean Intro Bundle

This is what I got.  Laundry, kitchen, bathroom, all purpose, dishes (yes, dishes!  and the dishes don't get cloudy!), glass, surface wipes, stain kit.  The spray bottles (full-size) are refillable, as are the laundry detergent bottles.  If you do run out of something before anything else, you can get refill bottles to die for.  And the bottles and tubs are are recyclable and re-usable.  Heck yeah.

So what are you doing, staring at the package and drooling?  Head out to my website and buy the starter kit. Yes, I am selling the products now.  And yes, you can buy from me and not worry about me trying to get you to sell it too.  That's not my speed.  Never has been, never will.

Jumped into the Wayback Machine!

When I was about 10 or 11, friends of my parents introduced them to a laundry product that blew my socks off.  I say my socks because the laundry was my chore, my cross to bear.

One teeny-tiny scoop (no more than a table spoon) put into each load left the clothes clean and smelling good, and I didn't even need fabric softener.  Nor did it make me or my step-father itch, like every other store bought laundry detergent did. We bought a gigantic box of the stuff and it lasted about six months.  Six months!  My parents were in budgeting heaven.  I just thought it was neat that a tiny scoop cleaned so many clothes.

Back then it had the pseudo-scientific name of SA8.  It was touted as all natural and biodegradable.  Eco-friendly in 2011-speak. Way before Al Gore started getting busy with his global warming.


So, now, it's a million years later, I'm at home and my husband brings a couple of friends over who introduce us to a line of products that, once again, blew me away.  Now it's in modern packaging, and the product line has expanded, but it still has the same quality and same lasting power.

Washing the brontosaurus hide.

Now, it's called Legacy of Clean.  There's a whole line now, of laundry products, house cleaning products, everything made out of environmentally safe, natural, biodegradable.  I went crazy and spent about $65 bucks, buying the total starter kit.  I wasn't interested in selling the products, or being an IBO (Independent Business Owner) for another company other than my own, but I had to give it a try.

That was about 4 months ago.  I clean my house once a week from top to bottom.  I do about 4 loads of laundry every week. Dishes?  Hand wash and machine wash every day.  Have I run out of anything?  I think I'll be re-ordering at the end of next month.  Seriously.  The only thing that came in the kit that I don't use are the disposable wipes.  I have my own that are re-washable.

So, I probably will be spending $162.50 for the entire year and three months worth of cleaning products.  And yep, I certainly did join the team that sells these awesome products. 

Legacy of Clean Intro Bundle

This is what I got.  Laundry, kitchen, bathroom, all purpose, dishes (yes, dishes!  and the dishes don't get cloudy!), glass, surface wipes, stain kit.  The spray bottles (full-size) are refillable, as are the laundry detergent bottles.  If you do run out of something before anything else, you can get refill bottles to die for.  And the bottles and tubs are are recyclable and re-usable.  Heck yeah.

So what are you doing, staring at the package and drooling?  Head out to my website and buy the starter kit. Yes, I am selling the products now.  And yes, you can buy from me and not worry about me trying to get you to sell it too.  That's not my speed.  Never has been, never will.