A few steps further on the road of a new Etsy seller...

I have taken just a few small steps on this road to selling my handmade items at  www.BatsBelfryCrafts.etsy.com .  Not much has changed since my last blog.  I have discovered that all of this social media and etsy forum activity takes a lot of time and crafting has somehow gotten pushed to the side.  I am slowly learning to balance crafting time with computer time as well as "oh yeah the kids need to eat" time (Don't worry the kids are just fine :) Not to mention keeping the house in order.  And let's not forget keeping the baby chicks fed and clean so they will grow into happy chickens who will lay lots and lots of eggs.  

Making a work schedule has helped, although in all honesty I haven't actually written this "schedule" down.  I just decided that etsy is so quiet on the weekends that Saturday and Sunday weren't worth losing crafting or family time.  And having meals planned ahead of time is a great idea now all I have to do is put that great idea into action.  Doing at least one of laundry a day keeps it from piling up and becoming overwhelming but my unruly washer and dryer have yet to take on this chore on their own.  I often feel like Disney's "Alice in Wonderland" in that "I give myself very good advice but I very seldom follow it".  I shall just call these bumps in the road on my adventure that will become funny little anecdotes when I become a crafting sensation!! 

In the meantime I will keep crafting and real lifing (yes that is a real term at least in my world it is ;) and eventually all of the time invested will pay off!

The beginning.....

It has been a few weeks now since the grand opening of my etsy shop.  I am using the term grand opening very loosely here because in reality it was more like "click" and my items were listed for sale.  That was it.  Just a little click of one button to ring in the opening of  Bats' Belfry Crafts!  After weeks of picture taking, editing pics, drafting item listings, editing the drafts, calculating prices of items, calculating postage costs, coming up with descriptions, coming up with  SEO tags, titles for each item, typing shop policies, writing my "about me", the list goes on and on and on.... all this just to be able to open and all that happened was one little click!  

I sat waiting after that fateful click for all those customers to come running.  After all, how could they not after all the hours, days and weeks of careful preparation? What happened was nothing!  That's right,  nothing!  No mass of online shoppers came and cleared out my inventory.  Just one sad little click and I was tossed in and lost in the massive sea of crafters and artists on Etsy trying to sell their items too.   So I wait ever so patiently ((snickers)).  I go back to each item editing tags and editing titles hoping that my item will stay "relevant" enough to stay on the first page of a search.  Then more hoping that just the right person will see it and just have to buy it.  I have joined etsy teams and have participated in the community forum.  I have asked for feedback from other sellers.  I have '"favorited" other shops and their items.  I have created a few "treasuries".  Outside of Etsy I have managed a facebook page, a pinterest board, a very lame tumblr account and now this blog.  All this so I can bring the news that Bats' Belfry Crafts is open for business on etsy.com and not just have the ringing of one sad lonely click in my ears.

 https://www.etsy.com/shop/BatsBelfryCrafts?ref=si_shop