ATuringtest
Elite Member
- Mar 8, 2019
- 1,625
- 2,846
Here's what I learned on Etsy.
Reasons for doing it.
My daughter was on maternity leave and wanted to do something simple low cost.
Ideas.
She saw a free floating string shelf at a friends and decided to put her twist on it.
We first looked at postage and importantly size and weight, then designed items within those dimensions.
Costing.
Then we sat down and did the materials cost, math + shipping - etsy costs. **** you have to cost everything even down to 2p for electricity for the sander- bench saw - lighting + petrol, parceling materials, latex gloves, paint brushes etc etc. Replacing tools is a factor.
Wood we sourced from local timber yards.
Everything else we could get, we bought on Ali Express to keep the costs down. It took forward planning but paid off.
Profit goal.
The aim was to make £20 hour.
So that has to include everything, picking up materials, ordering, designing, making, taking the parcels to the post office, customer service.
It was tight !! Just about made that much profit. You have to factor in every single detail or your working for nothing and its pointless.
We didn't compete with others on prices we simply made different colors and sizes and included postage in the price.
Marketing
I found relevant sub reddit's and posted in them, with a watermark on the photo to the etsy shop. Reddit to start, was the best source of traffic.
My daughter used her Facebook and instagram friends to push them to. They then re posted on their timeline and off it went.
I made a bot to post on Facebook market places.
Result.
By the time my daughter went back to her job.. about 10 months. Withing 4 months it was sometimes taking up 70 hours a week between us (more me 50 and her 20 lol ). Its the reason I closed my market place threads down, I just didn't have the time.
Now I said I costed for £20 an hour.. it ended up more like £18. Still on a good week we made about £1200 clear profit. We never factored in, lost in the post, wastage and returns etc.
But sales started to drop off after Christmas for some reason and as I said my daughter went back to her job.. that she loves.
I never... I repeat never, wanted to do anything other than, marketing, cutting the wood for her and occasionally packaging, plus a trip to the post office.
My idea of work is not grafting in a shed for 50 hours a week and handling retarded customers, who cant even hammer a nail in the wall.
What to do now?
You would have thought, get someone in and they can make them - you make the profit?
Wrong - tried that, total failure, I spent more time in the shed than before. More time dealing with irate customers. Plus I'm not a very good people person, I admit it myself.
So we just advertised the shop for sale on Facebook market place.. fucking bad idea !!
Don't ever do this for a handmade shop. Questions.. questions, can I do this, will this do that , how to I get this..? on and on... and on... never again!
So the shop is closed as a fall back for troubled times. All the equipment is still in place and there's some stock made up, parceled and shelved.
I've gone back to making my automation bots with a nice stash in the bank to tide me over until my other stuff starts making a profit.
I hope you learn something from this thread.
Reasons for doing it.
My daughter was on maternity leave and wanted to do something simple low cost.
Ideas.
She saw a free floating string shelf at a friends and decided to put her twist on it.
We first looked at postage and importantly size and weight, then designed items within those dimensions.
Costing.
Then we sat down and did the materials cost, math + shipping - etsy costs. **** you have to cost everything even down to 2p for electricity for the sander- bench saw - lighting + petrol, parceling materials, latex gloves, paint brushes etc etc. Replacing tools is a factor.
Wood we sourced from local timber yards.
Everything else we could get, we bought on Ali Express to keep the costs down. It took forward planning but paid off.
Profit goal.
The aim was to make £20 hour.
So that has to include everything, picking up materials, ordering, designing, making, taking the parcels to the post office, customer service.
It was tight !! Just about made that much profit. You have to factor in every single detail or your working for nothing and its pointless.
We didn't compete with others on prices we simply made different colors and sizes and included postage in the price.
Marketing
I found relevant sub reddit's and posted in them, with a watermark on the photo to the etsy shop. Reddit to start, was the best source of traffic.
My daughter used her Facebook and instagram friends to push them to. They then re posted on their timeline and off it went.
I made a bot to post on Facebook market places.
Result.
By the time my daughter went back to her job.. about 10 months. Withing 4 months it was sometimes taking up 70 hours a week between us (more me 50 and her 20 lol ). Its the reason I closed my market place threads down, I just didn't have the time.
Now I said I costed for £20 an hour.. it ended up more like £18. Still on a good week we made about £1200 clear profit. We never factored in, lost in the post, wastage and returns etc.
But sales started to drop off after Christmas for some reason and as I said my daughter went back to her job.. that she loves.
I never... I repeat never, wanted to do anything other than, marketing, cutting the wood for her and occasionally packaging, plus a trip to the post office.
My idea of work is not grafting in a shed for 50 hours a week and handling retarded customers, who cant even hammer a nail in the wall.
What to do now?
You would have thought, get someone in and they can make them - you make the profit?
Wrong - tried that, total failure, I spent more time in the shed than before. More time dealing with irate customers. Plus I'm not a very good people person, I admit it myself.
So we just advertised the shop for sale on Facebook market place.. fucking bad idea !!
Don't ever do this for a handmade shop. Questions.. questions, can I do this, will this do that , how to I get this..? on and on... and on... never again!
So the shop is closed as a fall back for troubled times. All the equipment is still in place and there's some stock made up, parceled and shelved.
I've gone back to making my automation bots with a nice stash in the bank to tide me over until my other stuff starts making a profit.
I hope you learn something from this thread.
