January 2019

Today is January 6, 2019 and it’s the second day in 2019 that I’ve had some time to work on the store. I wanted to update anyone who is reading where I’m currently at and what I’ve been up to.

Sales so far – $0.00 ( Just added product today )
Total Current Funds – $-106.19
Google Sheets of all finances for this endeavor

Store Stats

The store currently has 21 listings ( or designs ) that were done today. Currently have items in the following categories -Family, Hobbies, Pets, Professions, and Adult/Life . To drive traffic to the store I have opted into etsy advertisement . My current cost per click ( or how much I am paying per visitor) is 15 cents with a maximum daily budget of 2 dollars.

My total traffic stats for the day are:

We have also had a total of 4 items “liked ” ( Favorited )

Things I need to still do

• Add Product: I think the obvious of them all is to keep on adding product. I’m not a huge proponent of making the PERFECT item and striking it rich. The perfect item may or may not come in 2019… Its all about numbers for me for this store. I would like to ideally have 100 items on this store by the end of the month ( honestly earlier ).
• Fix Descriptions: In my haste to put the items up I was not able to do each and every listing 100% perfect. Although I don’t believe in perfection there are some things that just need to be done. Having a good item description or something for the customer to relate to is an absolute must.
• Start a mailing list: Being able to engage customers a second, third, and fourth time is crucial to the success of this store. Having a mailing list will give me the ability to contact customers over and over again without having to invest additional funds.
• Add additional pictures: Gear bubble does give you a mock up of your design but I’ve noticed that customers sometimes do browse through additional ones. I need to include an additional picture for sizing (so customers can see the different sizes of product I offer ), and a picture with all of my social media ( right now its just instagram and its empty ).
• Shop Policies: This is another one of those absolute must. I need to put information on returns / lead times / also details on the store ( like work space pictures ) etc. On Etsy this seems to be important.

Thoughts on today

Considering today is the first “real” day of having product on the store I think its been a huge success. I wasn’t planning on having likes on any items and or visitors. Since this isn’t really a get rich quick scheme I don’t expect to get sales for a couple of weeks.

In 2018, we started our second online store. In roughly 7 months my second store had somewhere in the range of 25k total sales.  At the top of my new years resolution is to add another 5k to our yearly profits. While adding another 5k to our existing store is in fact difficult, its definitively not out of the realm of possibilities. Whats the fun in that? With that being said I am going to completely start a new store from the ground up and document as much as possible along the way. The goal is to somehow motivate and show you the processes I go through while I try to take a store from 0 to hopefully at least an extra 5k a year ( because who couldn’t use an extra 5k a year?).

I would like to add that I will be all over the place with this blog series. I will post things that I am doing also explanations on what I am doing / what you could do.

List of things I need to do:

• Select the name of the store.  Try getting one where the domain and Instagram are available.
• Buy Domain Name. Important! – .com if at all possible. Privacy Protection is a MUST.
• Register Instagram.   Name as close to store and domain as possible.
• Register Facebook.
• Select a niche.
• Start listing product.

Track my expenses of the new project by bookmarking this.

Selecting a niche:

Targeting a niche should be your primary focus. Try to make and or sell products that are specific to a particular person or group of people. You’re going to want to target very loyal and borderline obsessive people within their hobby or niche. The best way to select the niche is to find something you’re passionate about. When you’re apart of the select few, you understand the terminology and can understand what is good and not.

If you decide to start your own store and cant find a niche you’re passionate about the best thing to do is start doing research! A quick google search for popular hobbies shows:

Going over the list there are some that stand out to me. Knitting, Exercise, Sewing, Hunting, Dance, and Soccer.  Because what I try to sell I try to personalize I always look for niches or markets that tend to buy personalized items. I also tend to look for niches that might not have a lot of personalized items made for.

Whats NEXT?

So you have selected your niche…. Now what the heck are you going to sell? If you plan on going the personalization route, there are some defacto items you can do to start getting your foot in the door. Hats, Bags, and T-shirts are good ways to start getting into selling for these markets. If you have the capital, you could buy the machinery make the products yourself.

• Make it yourself: The advantages of making your own product is the absolute full control of the entire process. The downside is that you have to do the entire process. From creating the item to shipment. Its all on you.
• Print on demand: You create the design, drive traffic to your store, once the customer purchases the design you have the company ( IE: Printful) create the final product and ship it to the customer. This normally tends to be less margins…. But after the design is made you just do customer service and collect a paycheck.

Disclaimer: This is my journey to make another 5k a  year. I might not make it and I might lose out on all the money I invest. Online stores do take a lot of time at the start and progressively go down a little. This will never be a 100% passive way to gain money. You will at some point or another have to handle customer service and in some cases all of the production details.

5k logo taken from – https://www.khcpl.org/resources/databases/250-pebblegoanimals