A Week of Progress and Surprise

This past week has been super productive for me.  I'm excited that things are coming along like they are.  On Monday, I announced the opening of my Etsy shop.  I have been working hard all week to photograph items and get items listed, and while I still have a good deal of work to do, things are really moving forward.

A few things this past week have kind of surprised me.  The biggest being how time consuming listing an item has been.  It's actually not difficult at all to list an item on Etsy, you just upload a few pictures, come up with a great title for the piece and provide an accurate, engaging description for your customers.  Then you set a price, input shipping costs, click a few more places and you're all set.  Easy, right?  Except I find myself stumbling at a few points in that process.

I have the hardest time writing item descriptions.  I don't know if I over think it, or if I'm obsessing or what, but it takes me a few tries to write out a description I'm happy with.  You would think that with my writing skills, it would be really easy to just describe the item in the picture.  But I feel like I need to do more than that.  Want to really.  It's important to me that my descriptions are a bland recitation of facts.  I really like the idea of engaging a prospective customer.  I start of with a solid description, but it never feels like enough.  So I've been adding in a short little blurb about how I relate to the piece.

For example, with this Pink Puffy Heart Pendant, this is what I wrote:

This heart shaped pendant is made using 4mm Swarovski crystals and teeny tiny silver colored seed beads. The heart is actually made up of three different sections. If you look closely, you can see the overlapping flower shape that makes up each one. The heart has a pretty unique texture and it's puffy, like a little crystal pillow. This pendant is strung on a silver plated chain that measures 18 inches. The chain IS included with this item.

All my pieces are really fun to make, but this one really stands out for me. I was still really new to jewelry making when I first made this, and I didn't have a lot of experience with bead weaving. I found this cute little pattern on a blog and decided to jump in head first. I used the pattern as a guide as I created my own unique piece, modifying as I went to adapt the pattern to my vision. This adorable little heart shaped pendant was the result. Now that I have more experience under my belt, this isn't as challenging of a piece to put together, but it marks a milestone for me; moving away from following a pattern and into designing on my own.

I like the idea of letting potential buyers in on the back story of a given piece.  When I'm reading item descriptions, I'm always looking for the part that tells me what is so special about the item, what separates it from other, similar items?  I feel like sharing a "fun fact" about the item adds that little something special.  Maybe I'm crazy (:

Anyway, adding that little personal touch is what takes the most time and is the biggest challenge for me, which surprised me.

The other thing that's surprised me this past week was the support from other sellers on Etsy.  If you're unfamiliar with Etsy, you should really check it out because there are some really great people selling some really great stuff on the site.  There is a whole community of sellers, sellers in direct competition for business, but there is no "dog eat dog" mentality.  Instead, a lot of sellers reach out to other sellers to offer help, advice, and friendship.  It's a very "help thy neighbor" atmosphere. 

Within the Etsy community, there is something called Teams that people can join.  There are teams for everything from Etsy Success to Shop Help to a Made in Vermont Etsy Street team.  I've joined a couple of these teams, and I'm really excited to see the support going on within each of them.  At first I was really skeptical about these groups, I mean it's so contrary to business practices I've witnessed in real life.  Competition is fierce yes, but not in a "my stuff is better than theirs" way.  People just work really hard to create really outstanding things, and let the work stand on its own merit without tearing others down.  It's madness, right?  But it works!  It really works.  And in case you can't, that really surprised me :)

Anyway, I think I've carried on enough for now.  If you haven't had the chance yet, head on over to my shop and check it out.  You can find me here or just type Little Hill Jewelry into the search bar on Etsy.com

I still haven't come up with a pithy way to end these entries, so for now, you'll just have to pretend I said something clever and funny.  Thanks for reading!