The Exciting First Sales!

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I think whining to you guys about waiting for my first Etsy sale was a lucky charm or something, because it finally happened yesterday!  I left for lunch with a friend (and also whined to her, come to think of it) and when I came back, there was my first sale!  One of those treasuries I was in ended up on the front page of Etsy, so I'm sure that's what did it.

But wait, there's more!  I ended up with a custom order and TWO MORE sales later in the day, for a grand total of FOUR!  Here's the screenshot of the front page I was on - it's that bunny on the lower left.  The screenshot is from Craft Cult, which is awesome - they track all kinds of cool things for your Etsy shop.  That shop widget on the bottom left of the blog is from there, too.

Funny thing about those bunnies - I wasn't crazy about making them at first.  I made one for Bridget when she was little, and Kenny LOVED it.  He convinced me to make a few when I decided to open a shop, so I did it just to humor him thinking they would never sell.  Boy oh boy, was I wrong.  That's ALL that has sold.  I should probably listen to my husband more often.

Now I'm trying to figure out packaging and shipping.  I hadn't ordered boxes specifically for my stuff yet, so I had to use a box I had here at home to ship the first order.  After I boxed everything up, my shipping came to about $3.50, but I only charged $3 for shipping.  Boo.

I ordered some boxes from uline.com (which has great prices on their boxes, but their shipping is crazy high because you can only do next day delivery) that are a more appropriate size.  Hopefully that helps on the weight, or I'm just going to have to adjust all my shipping rates.  I want to add in my cost of packaging supplies to shipping, but I also don't want to have super high shipping charges.  This whole shipping thing is still a challenge for me.

We have a local store that has great prices on packaging supplies, so I'm going to go there today to buy packing tape for the boxes and kraft paper to wrap the bunnies in.  I had just a little bit of kraft paper - enough to package the first one - but this place has the big huge rolls that I'm sure will save me money in the long run.  And of course I had like two square inches of packing tape in this place.

I'm excited to have a busy day of packaging and shipping and shopping for fabric for that custom order today.  I'm sure the excitement for that kind of thing is going to last about two seconds, so I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.  Oh, and we are taking our big girl to her very first Meet the Teacher Night tonight! 

Craft Night and My Etsy Shop

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Craft Night was Wednesday night and we made cute little headbands inspired by this headband by Ann Taylor plus another beaded one that has disappeared from their website.  They turned out so cute!  I'm debating posting a tutorial next week on both, so if you want to make your own, let me know and I'll work on it.  But watch out - if you make a cute one, Julie will try to steal it. :)

The flower ones are made from either a cut-up t-shirt (like Hillary's sweet IU one below) or some fake silk fabric from JoAnn's like mine above.  They were fun and easy - I think everyone ended up making at least two.  So far, we've just been making accessories at Craft Night, so next month I think we're going to branch out to some home decor. 

 

I started uploading stuff to the shop!  It takes a while, but I'm getting quicker, and I think it will just get easier.  I'm thinking I can kind of re-use descriptions, just making a few tweaks for each listing, and the picture-taking won't be such a debacle in the future.

Setting up shipping policies was such an ordeal.  I followed the advice from this post for international shipping and just used the USPS site for domestic shipping rates.  I had planned on just using Priority Mail, but I realized it is NOT cost effective for small items.  I can save my customers a lot of money by shipping smaller stuff via First Class Mail, but it does require a trip to the Post Office.  I figure it's not set in stone and if my shipping rates don't work out I can change them.

By the way, does free shipping on additional items make you more likely to purchase more stuff?  I'm throwing around the idea of offering free domestic shipping on additional items but I'm wondering if it's worthwhile.

I'm offering a special deal in the shop to Facebook Fans and blog followers for the Grand Opening next week, so stay tuned.  You can Like bobaloo! on Facebook or follow the blog right there on the left sidebar!

Setting up Etsy Shop Policies

Tweet First, word on the street is the Fancy Burp Cloth tutorial will be featured on the One Pretty Thing Daily DIY Roundup tomorrow.  Hi to everyone who's stopping by for the first time, and thanks Rachel!

After getting tons of sewing done last night, I sat down to take care of some more business related items.  I really need to finish setting up my Etsy shop, so I decided to tackle my Shop Policies page (which I've been avoiding).  I searched the Etsy Forums and read this guide to help me with the process.

The Shop Policies page includes accepted payment types, shipping policies, and the shop return policies.  I found the Payment section easy - I know I want to primarily accept PayPal because it's easy, but I don't want to exclude anyone who can't (or won't) use Paypal.  Here's what I ended up with.

The Shipping section is the challenge for me.  I very very rarely ship ANYTHING, so this will be quite a learning experience for me.  I've decided to start out using USPS Priority Mail because it seems to be the most simple - the post office supplies you with free boxes, and the shipping rate is based on size box.  The boxes are delivered to my house and I can ship from home, which frees me from the nightmare of entertaining two squirrelly children while waiting in line at the post office.  As I understand it, this is not the cheapest way to ship, so this may change once I start shipping regularly. Here's my shipping section.

The return section is a little intimidating, but I knew from the start that I wanted a pretty generous return policy.  I just think people are more likely to buy from someone who genuinely wants them to be happy with their purchase.  I figure if I do get some returns, I'll just chalk it up to the costs of doing business.  What do you think, is it too vague?

Last but not least, I put a little note about custom orders and wholesale inquiries. I really would love to drum up some wholesale business, so hopefully this will help.

If you have any advice, I'd love to hear it!  Have a great weekend!