Biz Buzz - Should I Close My Shop?

Dr Who Bow Tie

I know I'm not the only one who has ever considered closing up their handmade shop. I hear it all the time. The depression when you go for a week or two without sales. Imagine what it's like for sellers who have been forced off of Etsy, and believe me, there are a lot of us now.

Helleborus Necklace

Actually there are a lot of sellers who do very well on other venues. Sometime you just have to find the right one. I do very well with my genre Aprons and Accessories on Artfire, but my felt flower jewelry sales is very slow. Although the sales have doubled from last year, they still are not enough to do much more than pay for materials and shop fees. If I was on Etsy, with the changes I've made, I'm sure I would do very well, but I'm not on Etsy, so I have to be more flexible.

Ao I've been considering closing my akaCINDERS Artfire shop. I might try another venue. Not sure yet. I've written more details about the where and why on my other blog in the post A Few Months Later. Maybe it's because I've had no sales in the shop this month, although I had a decent amount last month, but when you compare the $0 in sales on a slow month to the $800 in sales on a slow month in my other shops, what choice is there?

Putting it Together - Four Months - A Diary of Progress

Some of you may know that I've  been writing a blog called Four Months - A Diary of Progress for ... well ... almost 4 months now. I started to write it to keep me honest about making a plan to improve my income by either selling my jewelry wholesale or going back to product design. See, my daughter Poppy, is sick and tired of sharing her tiny house with me and wants me out of her living room, so I feel inclined to oblige.


My plan is to prepare my jewelry business for wholesale by:

• Increasing my product line
• Rethinking my current product and approach
• Calculating profit by spreadsheet to get a better handle on worth
• Making a Website geared toward wholesale clients including wedding
• Revising packaging for retail stores
• Creating a brochure for wholesale
• Making a Press Kit
• Reading Posts on improving my business
• Utilizing social networking 

I planed to work on my potential Product Design business by:

• Designing a Portfolio website for potential clients
• Improving my Design skills
• Adding new Open Designs to my portfolio
• Making updates and adding contacts on linkedin
• Contacting potential Clients

I've been working very hard on both plans and the idea was to decide between the two businesses. It turns out that my work has increased my business already, And I hadn't planned to put it all into action until May. I just added product to my jewelry, that has attracted attention, and I updated my linkedin account and that got clients calling.

In March my total income (not profit) increased by $800. $400 was for product design, and nearly $300 was for jewelry. I think I didn't sell that much in jewelry in 2011 altogether. I reinvested a lot of that profit into my plan. I sold more on Etsy, but since the move to Artfire, I haven't had that much traffic. Now with the boost from sales increases and the extra promotion (wanelo and pinterest) I rank higher and get much more traffic there.

I made daily posts on the blog, so there are a lot of posts, but there is a lot of ideas and links to where I got my ideas. If you are really interested in improving your business, you might get some great tips there.