Set up a shop on Etsy

I thought I’d let you guys know about a giveaway I’m having for my store via Facebook.
It is open for Facebook Fans.
If you’d like to enter have a look here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Under-the-Shade-of-a-Bonsai-Tree/46338803260?ref=s

Well, ok to be honest I only have 1 item listed. But that 1 item marks this goal as done, as having stock in the shop was my criteria for completing this goal!

I have my policies up already, hurray! It took me a while because I had to do a little research on shipping. I was trying to figure out what shipping service other Etsy users from my country use. I’ve written my profile but I’m still not happy with it. It wasn’t pre-meditated but its good that I put the fussy stuff out of the way first.

I’ll be picking out photographs for printing next. I can’t just pull out random photos and put them on the shop right away. I want them printed traditionally using the negatives and not the digital film scans.

A pat on the back to myself :D

I’ve registered on etsy months ago and I’ve been lurking forever. Since I left my job last December, the only movement in my bank account was going debit debit debit. I won’t wait until it’s wiped out and so this would be part of the solution.

Apart from my plans of finishing fashion school and have my own label, I’d be selling prints of my photographs. I’ve made quite a collection of analog cameras. I have seven (yes, seven!) shooters and it would just be practical if I used them to help me out of this rut.

I still have to figure out shipping (rates & number of days), packaging and product details before I give it a go.

Seeing that those who already did it here are raving about it, there are no second thoughts. It excites me and that’s a great big motivation by itself :D

because I committed to opening up on monday. So now I’m going over things and second guessing myself and freaking out about getting in over my head and wondering if this is really going to be anything at all.

I have spent the last year (much of my inactivity on 43t) on the internet building my presence. My blog is flourishing… I have 49 subscribers on google reader! I can hardly believe that many people want to read me every day. I’ve been joining challenges and communities, from nanowrimo to illustration friday to creative everyday. I had an interview featured on someone’s blog and another one featured my painting. I’m in communication with bloggers with larger audiences than mine. I’ve been exploring new venues like twitter and Facebook. I’ve been painting up a storm. Really. Since September or so, I probably have painted 5 paintings a week on average. Maybe more.

Can’t believe it’s almost here.

I have people practically begging me to open my shop. All I need to do is list the dern things.

I’m so scaredy cat.

Yesterday I ordered my business cards, finally. I just bought some new printer ink and art supplies. I have most of my packing materials, except for cardboard envelopes, which I might be able to get this weekend.

I designed and edited my shop banner and an icon. I wrote out a profile though I still need to work out my shop policies.

I’ve been working on building up a body of work for this. I am doing a new series of paintings that have something to do with inspiration and positivity. Meditation, even. I’ve been getting really good feedback on them.

I’ve been building up an anticipation for my shop—unintentionally—as I keep showing my paintings online but don’t have the shop open. I’ve got some marketing going with my two blogs, with facebook and with twitter. I still want to get to flickr, so maybe I can start that going in these next two weeks as I take new photos of the work I want to use. I want to do that anyway, so why not post them on flickr, too. Still figuring this all out as I go along.

In two weeks, my business cards should be here. This is the deadline I’ve set up for finally getting the shop open.

This entails picking the paintings I want to sell and taking photos of them or scans (which I haven’t quite figured out yet) and also writing shop descriptions. Then just putting it all up.

Once I start it, I get the feeling that it won’t be as hard as I have been anticipating. Everyone else just slaps up whatever they have and calls it a day. Perfectionism isn’t really a good thing, folks.

So far I have just set up my account and shop name. Now to begin considering inventory and try my hand at design. Yay.

Oh. Just read riki13’s entries. I guess I have a little more to do before even getting to the inventory part!

I have completed the fine print – shop appearance, policies, shipping, etc, and I have set up a Paypal account. Now all I have to do is stock the shop and I am done! :)

I’ve registered to be a seller, and now I’m working on the fine print – shop appearance, policies, shipping options etc. When that’s done I’ll need to set up for Paypal. And I’ve started making cards to stock my shop :)

an account/username with Etsy. Next step is to set up to sell.