Answers to Your Questions

Hi everyone! I hope you are all having a great Friday so far. Today I've been working on lots of orders and I wanted to take a quick break from working to answer a few questions from readers, of my blog. I always love talking about how I got started with my business and sharing tips with people who are interested in starting their own. The first thing that I always recommend when turning your craft into a small business is this great book, Craft Inc. Turn Your Creative Hobby Into a Business, by Meg Mateo Ilasco. This book helped me learn the things I'd need know about starting my own small business--all except how to start an Etsy shop--starting an Etsy shop is something completely different but it's still very easy to learn. This book will answer every single question you may have about starting a business--it's such a great investment. In this book Meg talks about creating a business plan, naming your business, company identity, packaging, photography--so many topics that small business owners need to know.

As I've mentioned before this book doesn't exactly tell you how to start up an Etsy shop, that is something all of us Etsy sellers needed to learn on own our; however, Etsy provides so much information on their website that will guide you in creating your own page.

I would like to dedicate a full post to tips for starting a business page--and please feel free to let me know if that is something you would be interested in. As for now I can provide you with a few things that I feel are needed to get the party started (selling your awesome handmade products):

-Figure out what you want to sell (your niche)
-Create short easy to spell name for your shop (discussed in the book)
-Open a business account (It's not as expensive to open as you think)
-Create a Paypal account (optional, now Etsy has Direct Checkout so you can have the money sent directly to your business account/checking account without the use of Paypal)
-Invest in a great camera to shoot your products
-Learn SEO (Search Engine Optimization)--that is super important, especially since Etsy items are listing be relevancy
-Create your shop policies before opening your shop
-Plan on always having at least 3 pages worth of merchandise in your shop--Before I opened my shop I made around 50-60 products that I wanted to sell and I took photos of them all, and created descriptions for each item. I've read in Etsy forums that potential buyers would like the shop be serious and run like a real online store and have at least a few pages worth of merchandise and not just 5-10 items.

Another question I received from a reader was about the printer I use to print my toppers and stationary. I currently use the Canon Pixma Pro 100. This thing is a beast in so many ways--for starters its enormous. I'm not even able to lift this thing on my own. I always have my boyfriend help me move it (when ever I need to). Before owning this printer I printed on a basic printer, like the types that simply print on computer paper but when I attempted printing on 110lb. cardstock with those little printers, the printer would be like, "No way, pal". So I did some research online and found that this Canon printer can handle heavy duty cardstock like no other. I'm extremely happy with this printer--it's wireless, it's has a decent print speed, it prints on heavy duty paper, and so much more. I really love it.

Those are the only questions I received but I would love to answer any other questions any of you may have--I just hope I can answer them all! I do plan on creating a more detailed post about having an Etsy shop and how you can make it thrive. So, if that is something you might like feel free to let me know in the comments.

Have a great weekend,

Nicole