I'm back and things are looking up!

The whole idea of writing a blog was to hold myself accountable;  to making an effort to increase my sales through my etsy shop and to try to increase my shop's traffic from other forms of media. So far I have mainly been useless at it and the blogosphere has not had an amazing impact,  but as for my shop.......

well, I have news! My sales are up - in that I have made some - and my numbers are good - people are still looking at my shop every day but as to how that happened, I have absolutely no idea.

As far as I can tell, one day someone with a great deal of influence came across an item in my shop, 'favourited' it and - blam! - my numbers doubled, tripled, quadrupled overnight!

And then - people started buying stuff! Which is after all, the whole point, right?

My first custom order was for one of these with a minor modification - the curtains were on the inside (and the fabric was a little different due to sourcing difficulties)

Then I sold one of these: a camping themed tablecloth fort that a customer and I designed together for her party planning business.

 



 

 Then I sold the one item I never thought I would sell, the template I made to take pictures of for my first tablecloth fort listing, the pink one above. (The customer has since left a review, albeit a slightly ambiguous one!) The customer bought one of my cushions too - now that was a good day!

Then I had another custom order for a camping fort - this customer loved the design but wanted a slightly different colour scheme - here's how it looked:

It was really difficult to photograph as I don't have a table the same size as the order so I draped it over some chairs. My customer was delighted with it - 5 stars all the way - so cool to et my first rave review!

In summary: the last couple of months have been super busy - along with my orders I made the two tablecloth forts shown below to give to my daughter's preschool as a leaving gift, and I have been making plans for some items to list in the Fall. I am going to try and get my act together and have the items pre-made and ready to list and ship BEFORE the Fall starts. Good idea, huh? I know, that's what everybody who runs their business efficiently does, instead of playing catch-up all the time, but I'm still learning. And I'm determined. And I'm holding myself accountable, right?

 

MegAndMama

I opened my Etsy shop MegAndMama in October 2014 and have been having a blast running my virtual craft empire ever since.

Actually, I haven't.

After the initial rush of making my items to put on the shelves, thinking up a name and going live with my new project, there has been a whole lot of nothing going on. Apparently running an Etsy empire requires a lot more work than simply sewing a couple of masterpieces and letting them loose on the public.

I was so very excited to be able to see my shop up and running that I positively jumped every time my 'views' tracker jumped up another notch. Not to mention the total thrill of hearing the distinctive 'whoosh!' from my phone whenever one of my listings was 'favorited'. (If you've never shopped on Etsy then you may need some clarification of these terms: all in good time!)

This has calmed down to a mere flicker of interest these days as time and again I hear the 'whoosh!' that shows someone loves something I made, but not quite enough to actually buy it.

I am going to hold myself accountable on this blog and start making a proper effort and see if it makes any difference at all! Who knows, I might sell something else again one day! (Thanks, Mum!)

My most 'favorited' item to date: https://www.etsy.com/listing/209338691/made-to-order-custom-tablecloth-fort?