Saturday, April 12, 2014

Things no one ever tells you when you open a store on Etsy

When I dived down the rabbit hole that is Etsy I had no idea how far down it went.  Well to those of you who are thinking about diving down there with me I just thought I would give you a heads up.

1.  Making quality handmade products will not get your items sold.   No matter how awesome your stuff is no one is going to care unless you have equally awesome pictures, good reviews, high sales numbers and competitive pricing.  I have found that if I price my items at what they are actually worth they get a ton of views, ( I am assuming bot views) but never ever sell.  Even with awesome professional photo's many times items do not sell.  There is a ton of competition out there and it is  not as easy as putting a listing out and getting a sale the next day.  This is not Ebay people.

2.  I had no idea I would spend so much time obsessively checking my numbers.  How many views do I have now?  Okay how many views do I have now?  What about now?  Oh 30 people viewed that scarf maybe someone will buy it.  NO.  You are wasting your life.  There seems to be no reasoning behind what will sell and when it will sell.  You can have an item get shared on facebook 30 times and it still will not sell.  You can have an item be viewed once that day and sell.  Checking your stats while it is fun is in an of itself a waste of time.  Its good to keep tabs and see that at lest someone somewhere is looking at your stuff but checking it more than once a day- waste of time.

3.  I had no idea all the social websites that you can and should promote on.  Not to mention all the time and effort that goes into getting follwers on said websites.  I never had a twitter before I had this store, now I have a twitter, a facebook page, a wanelo account, a weheartit account, a fancy, a google+, craftjuice, craftori, stumbleupon, and probably a bunch I forgot because some of them are tricky and I never could figure how to navigate them so I kind of just gave up on them.  Yeah.  Thousands of followers on many of those sites and it's bringing in views, yet not many sales.  I really truly don't know the formula for sales on this thing. 

4.  Etsy teams.  Yeah.  Tons of helpful nice awesome people who will talk to you all day.  You will have no time to make your items because you get sucked into the promotional threads and making new virtual friends and you learn each others tricks and try and improve upon your respective brands.   Very helpful people but not everyone there is there to help you.  Beware of snakes in the grass. 

Bottom line.  I spend way too much time on the computer these days and I keep thinking that if I spend enough time it will translate into sales.  It's not so much proving true.  If you have tips and or tricks or any advice at all I would love to hear it please leave a comment and thanks ever so for stopping by :)

Saturday, April 5, 2014

God's Not Dead.

I got some extra time off this past weekend so I took the time and went to a movie by myself.  I went to see God's Not Dead because people said it was so good and stuff. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the theater was packed, I was kind of thinking I'd be the only one in there.  You know, these Christian movies are usually made on a shoe string budget and for some reason the writing is usually really bad but I don't have much to complain about this time.  The one thing that got me was the darn Newsboys.  I don't care that they are a "modern" Christian band, a big portion of the movie sounded like a Newsboys commercial.  That turned me off.  The writing, not that good but it had a couple of good parts.  The message is pretty good.  I was told that this helps you when you have questions and it will renew your faith but I did not have that experience.  I wish I could say I did.  All I can say is this,

My ways are not his ways and my little simple brain can not function on his level so I have to keep telling it to SHUT UP because my heart knows the truth.  All my simple first world problems are NOTHING and I am blessed beyond all measure because he has revealed to me his truth.   I keep struggling with the whole "its not fair" thing.  For a long time I have been kind of angry with God for making me a women.  It's no secret that women get the short end of the stick the majority of the time.  It's not fair that Eve ate the fruit and now anyone who's born with girl parts is cursed.  But you know what else isn't fair?  That some people know God and some people never do.  I can't imagine having to go threw this life alone.  Even in the greatest country in the world, even in this day and age with all of our gadgets and luxuries I just can't imagine how empty and lonely it must be without him.  Sure I don't have the latest toys or a car that's reliable or my own home but I have so much more than some people do.  I know that the creator and master of the whole freaking universe LOVES ME- even loves me enough to DIE FOR ME- how crazy is that?  I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have much, but I know this I can do all things threw Christ who strengthens me.  I refuse to live my life bitter or looking back at all the things I've lost.  I don't know why I'm here.  I don't know why he trusted me with these 3 awesome amazing little people but I do know I'm going to take what he has given me and I'm going to run with it. 

I got a miracle yesterday.  It's funny because I just trust him so much with everything that I never even doubted that he would take care of my Asher, but he has.  See Asher was born with a birth defect called Duane Syndrome.  Maybe I spelled it wrong I don't know.  All I know is I used to work at an eye doctor and ever since he could sit up I noticed his eyes don't quite line up and so I took him to a doc who referred me to another one who sent me to another one who did a CT scan of my baby and they found he's missing a nerve cluster witch makes it impossible for his left eye to turn to the left.  Now not only has he blessed Asher by giving him the kind where at least his left eye stays centered when he's trying to turn it left so at least he can still see, (some versions of it the left eye will turn up into their head or down making it useless) but even after 2 years of not being at a specialist he still uses both eyes and he's still seeing 20/20 out of both eyes.  The doc said that it's a miracle.  I can't even count how many modern day miracles God's given me but he's just awesome like that.  On top of that Asher is super smart.  He had saw the eye chart for just a second with his first eye and when they were doing his second eye he was all like "That's a I again.  That's a N again." little stinker memorized the thing that quick.  They then had to do random letters to be sure he hadn't memorized it and sure enough he can see great with both eyes.  So happy for my little man! 

I haven't been on here much and for that I do apologize I have been ill for a really long time but finally went and got some medicine from the doctors and am starting to feel almost myself again.  My sinuses are not happy with this weather and come to find out (again) that I have allergies.  I knew it before but totally forgot.  I stopped taking the allergy meds when the twins were babies because I didn't want that transferring in the milk and then when I stopped nursing I forgot to start taking it again.  Happy to say I can breathe threw my nose again.  Anyways whatever, I'm rambling again.  Waiting for my kids to get back.  I should go do something productive. . ..thanks for stopping by.

Train (feat. Ashley Monroe) - Bruises [Lyrics]