AIBU to give up?

[invisiblewho]

I'm currently on long term sick leave with anxiety and depression. I'm also waiting for assessments for autism and ADHD.

It's a pretty miserable time at the moment. Lots of other crap happening too.

Some of you may remember, I posted a little while ago about setting up a shop on Etsy. I was feeling excited and hopeful about it all, like I finally had a purpose, that I could do something I enjoyed and perhaps provide a little for my family.

It's still early days but honestly I'm feeling very deflated. I've had minimal sales and every day, despite posting new items daily, my site traffic is dwindling more and more.

DH said it's too early to abandon it and not to lose hope yet but as someone with very low self esteem, it took a lot for me to set it up in the first place.

It's not even the lack of sales at this stage that is upsetting but rather the lack of site traffic and item views.

Should I keep preserving with it or give it up before I invest too much time and energy into it?

wait until after Xmas and then give up

I wouldn't give up. I'd maybe rejig my expectations a little. I don't know anything about setting up an Etsy shop, but I assume that it generally takes time and effort. If it was as easy as setting it up and sales flooding in, everyone would be doing it.

Think about what you're getting out of it by just doing it, the enjoyment, the hope, the skills etc. Think of it as a project for you rather than a business that needs to make money immediately.

Building your base takes time. @NuffSaidSam has said a very wise thing. Do not view it as a money making exercise but a project.

Project manage it. This takes time. Set yourself goals. Christmas is coming. You will get there.

What are you selling?

Keep going and post to social media. Nobody is successful without time and hard work but to be honest, even those who used to earn good money on Etsy struggle these days.

Greetings cards! So Christmas, in theory, should be a great time for selling.

Thanks, this is good advice.

Don't give up! Maybe it will take a long time to build it up, but stick with it.

What sort of things are you selling?

You need to do more than just list new items regularly if you want to increase sales. I had a little hobby sideline a few years ago selling on Etsy and Folksy. What drove sales was doing things like creating a blog post with a tutorial for how to make something, then linking the blog post to the Etsy store and adding the blog post link to small business networking sites, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, ravelry or allfreesewing.com

If you try to take a really unemotional and objective look at Etsy, then there are hundreds of thousands of items on there. Lots of people go on to browse rather than with a targeted approach. If you search for an item like yours how many results come up? How far down the list are your items? How good do your pictures look compared to others?

Have you added all possible relevant keywords search terms/tags, have you made sure your storefront stands out and that you aren't priced too low or too high? Too low and people will think it's poor quality, too high and you'll price yourself out. Do you do anything to encourage positive reviews, people buy on places like Etsy because they want the handmade touch so wrapping the item nicely, adding a little handwritten thank you note, those kind of things make people feel more special and appreciated and will increase likelihood of a positive review.

Ah, OK - greetings cards. Good luck, OP.

Are you advertising yourself on other social media platforms? Get yourself a TikTok account showing off your products, advertise on Facebook and the likes. Give it a good push and see how you feel in the new year. Good luck

Perhaps this is part of the problem. I'm not on any social media - not even personally! I'm not a fan tbh, especially of tiktok, but maybe I need to look into setting up some social accounts.

What do you mean?

I bet it takes ages to get an Etsy shop going. Have you looked for a forum of Etsy users who might have some advice? Have you advertised to your own network on LinkedIn, Facebook etc? And if you put a link on here some of us might have a look for Christmas presents...

Is it viable? As in are they priced well enough to attract buyers but also be worth your time?

I’m a crafter but found many items, especially greetings cards simply don’t sell for enough to cover your materials and a shred of your time.

The thing is OP, Etsy and online craft selling is a massively saturated market. You need to manage your expectations and see it as a long term project rather than a recipe for instant success. If you’re not creating social media content that directs to your shop, how do you expect people to find it? If you enjoy making greeting cards, absolutely continue if it’s a creative outlet, but if you want to make it a business you need a strategy. It’s not the kind of thing that will just ‘happen’ without a lot of marketing. I know a few people who make and sell handmade products and they do market stalls, social media accounts, email newsletters, trade shows etc.

I don't have my own network. No social media at all. I think that's something I really need to get sorted! x

So you haven’t promoted your page at all and are disappointed with low views?

You really need to get your name out there, the more people search for you the higher up you show on search results.

Use social media. People may have their own personal opinions on it however the reality is it is the absolute best tool for marketing this day and age.

That's okay!

Well, it's still early days, so all I've done so far is set up the shop and post the items on there - which I have had to make first.

I also plan on adding lots more items, so that'll take time, but I definitely need to research ways of promoting x

My advice OP in terms of getting it out there quickly is use tiktok!

Lots of scrolling, most people (myself included) spend a lot more time on tiktok now then Instagram/Facebook.

Use Hashtags, key words etc so that your videos come up.

Thank you. I guess I assumed people would see the content when they browse on Etsy. Naive! I obviously need to do some marketing! X

There is a saturation in the home made greeting cards area. Some people just make them to donate to charities and even the charities are hard pressed to sell them for pennies. It also costs so much to post cards these days that people are sending far fewer.

OP could you turn your creative energy and talent into something where there is less competition? Leave your Etsy shop up but spend a bit of time researching other things you could make that are a bit more unusual?

I buy greetings cards on Etsy - there are billions of them. I wouldn't buy Christmas cards as I tend to bulk buy those. Are you offering packs of same/mixed designs, or just single?

For me it's for close family birthdays who might be hard to find nichey/unusual cards for.

You need to promote yourself - keep going! You can't really do it without some online presence - a blog like a PP suggested, social media- I would think Instagram is your best bet for beautiful, visual posts. I tend to get the most relevant things promoted to me on there (things I would actually like to buy!)