I hadn't expected to be as successful as I am! I'm not complaining, far from it! Simply admitting I wasn't prepared.
I thought I was! But circumstances have proven otherwise.
Etsy as a platform isn't working for me. While it's great as a start, it's been a mess the last few months with new changes and 'search' rules. I hope to be able to research and find an independent host and payment processor that's affordable. Simply finding me on the site was hit or miss, which was fine, I drive enough of my own traffic and promote outside of Etsy well enough. But they started doing things like... turning 'off' my shop. Views would drop drastically, sort of out of proportion with my averages. Just for a day or two. Ok, so that's great! It would give me time to catch up on existing orders! But, that still doesn't sit right with me. Couple that with the fact that the more you sell and the higher your prices, the more they charge you per sale. If you know the fees, you know what your bills will be, but. Still. It's several hundreds of dollars out of hand.
Even knowing this and taking that into account, I just am not charging enough to make enough of a profit. I cannot keep my prices in line with my philosophy, so to speak. I only use the best butters and oils I can find, and they're already pricey. I cannot 'shop' around for supplies. I have one company that will ship here more or less safely. I lost a supply order over the summer to the USPS that was several hundreds of dollars and then had to replace it on my own, so I found myself running at a loss. During that time, I also lost a couple other inbound packages, but more over, several OUTBOUND packages have been lost. I replace or refund as soon as I can, but. Again, that period over the summer cost me about $500 out of pocket. As I type, I am not on 'good terms' with the PO as I've just processed a refund for another 'lost' package.
I work out of a separate space, which is my studio. Our home has something called a 'dependency', which is basically a mother-in-law suite, or a separate little apartment on the bottom floor. It's inspected and certified so that I can legally and safely produce and run a business out of it. There were some issues in the city with the power the last few weeks and one afternoon the power simply 'popped' in there and smoke started filling the space. A lot of my stock was damaged and a lot of my supplies have this burned smell. I have to wait to hear what the electrician says, but having the little space rewired will not be cheap. So for now, my studio is literally out of order.
I'm currently on vacation, more or less, up visiting and taking care of some issues with my mum and enjoying every second! But when I get home, it will take several months to build up and budget to be able to decide if I can afford to reopen and how to proceed.
This is not good-bye! Not at all. I'm going to take the time to refine and fine tune. To relax! To work on other things and focus on my family and myself some.
I hope that I can blog more dedicatedly, now that I'm not working 8-10 hour days on top of running the house and parenting my little one.
I hope you'll stick around!
