Digging Out

The latest winter storm to hit the south not only caused delays at airports but made me late as well for posting another blog entry. But we are slowing digging ourselves out from the snow and ice and driving on the road is greatly improved. Of course I am speaking of the asphalt kind.

Not so much on this highway. While the ice and snow made everything pretty, the driving was treacherous and I have found the same to be true in the virtual countryside. With all the help and tools provided for dummies like me, we can look amazingly professional. But navigating the slippery path takes a lot of know how, just like a seasoned driver in bad weather. And in real life, I do drive like an old lady. I can never seem to remember to turn the steering wheel in the direction of the skid. (Let's face it; that just isn't natural.)

So, I decided I needed some sort of GPS to help me along the way and the best solution I could find was making a schedule of what needed to be done to get things rolling on the shop. Based on my previous research, I came up with one weekday to blog, one day to read Etsy forums (research), one day for treasury making (promotion), and one day for item listing (writing and research). I travel every other Friday so this day is reserved for catching up, usually on more reading. The weekend is divided between actual photography of sell items and learning the newly bought program on photo editing. After finishing my schedule I had to take a nap. (Did I mention I had a full time job?)

Now the schedule is not set in stone as one always has to be able to "drop back and punt". But it does give clear enough directions for which road I am going to take on a particular day.  Part of my problem is I believe I may have adult ADD and this surely will help staying focused. Maybe not awake but focused.

The second challenge is the technology itself. It took me a moment to figure out how to post another addition to this blog. Signing on helped. I think part of my problem is that the short term memory is already failing. It would be wise for me to start to write things down, especially passwords, if I care to make any progress at all. I got a really cool stocking stuffer to keep track of passwords and websites which will be undoubtedly helpful. I just have to watch where I put it for fear of not remembering where it is later.

Moving on to Etsy itself.  I do have the framework of my mother's house set up although in doing some forum reading, I have caught some mistakes that beginners often make in setting up shop, according to the experts. Most importantly is where, how and what to write in those few first precious lines that will make Google or any other search engine find you. Etsy will clearly state that it is up to the shopkeeper to drive traffic into the shop. It also behooves one to use a "canned" free shop banner or pay for a professional one unless you really know what you are doing. My rule of thumb: if it takes more than 1 hour to do something, suck it up, go another way and move on. So my banner is not what I had envisioned but it will definitely do. It was free although I will probably purchase a custom made one later on.

Lastly, I had originally thought that I would open shop with about 25 items from the get go. This is the slowest part of course as you have to know your price, your shipping costs, your knowledge of the item, suggestions for use and of course, your photos have to be arty yet in focus. And they want 5 of them per item. I have since learned this is not the best method however for stocking your store. What I learned from the forums, is that the more frequently you list items, the more exposure you get on the website overall. True enough, when one browses the website, the newly listed items come up first, in every category. So instead of starting all at once with 25, I decided to start with 5. Add 5 more the following week then 5 more, etc. So my first 25 items in essence becomes a 5 week inventory and continuing to add 5 items per week does not seem insurmountable. At least not in theory. We'll see. I may need to carry a shovel in case I have to dig myself out of the ditch.

Until next time, this is my mother's house.