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| My Etsy Shop Banner |
My Etsy Shop Url: www.Etsy.com/shop/lwrothpaints.
I've been stocking my Etsy Shop these last few days. I don't know why I've decided to develop the site? Perhaps I'm just fiddling about till I feel like getting serious in the studio again?
Perhaps, after all these years, I'm really contemplating getting out into the real world and selling and this is an easy way to start (especially when it's too cold to go door to door)? Whatever is brewing in my head, the last few days have been an eye-opening experience.
A soul searching experience. To stock an item, Etsy has a form to fill out that shoves you into questioning why the hell you're painting, why are you opening an online shop, what's are your paintings all about anyway, what are they worth--to you--to the public? Answering these questions, gave me a clear understanding of why I paint. For pleasure. Tagging the paintings, as directed, I had to figure out what Joe Q. Public could be looking to buy--modern art, contemporary art, original, reproduction, painting, under a hundred USD, etc. Whatever description I could come up with that someone might be searching for.
Etsy advises you put in ten listings in your shop, tagged with at least 10 tags providing people with an excellent cross sectioning that might pull them in. I really had to think about classification and categorization and why I, as a consumer, would go to this shop rather than that one or one in the neighborhood? Opening an Etsy shop requires getting out of your smock, taking off your beret and donning a suit and putting on your fedora. You, as owner, are stepping from your studio into an office, going from being a laborer to being the entrepreneurial CEO of an enterprise. It's quite a shift! BUT maybe worthwhile? Not for sales, but for getting the lowdown on the art business and answering for yourself if you really want to do take that step?
Ellis says the odds of making sales on Etsy are enormous--like winning the lottery. Scanning through the shops via those customer attracting tags last night, I learned quickly he was right. The only one making money from Etsy shops is Etsy. The amount of original watercolors scrolled on forever, through two two hour movies.
Etsy advises you put in ten listings in your shop, tagged with at least 10 tags providing people with an excellent cross sectioning that might pull them in. I really had to think about classification and categorization and why I, as a consumer, would go to this shop rather than that one or one in the neighborhood? Opening an Etsy shop requires getting out of your smock, taking off your beret and donning a suit and putting on your fedora. You, as owner, are stepping from your studio into an office, going from being a laborer to being the entrepreneurial CEO of an enterprise. It's quite a shift! BUT maybe worthwhile? Not for sales, but for getting the lowdown on the art business and answering for yourself if you really want to do take that step?
Ellis says the odds of making sales on Etsy are enormous--like winning the lottery. Scanning through the shops via those customer attracting tags last night, I learned quickly he was right. The only one making money from Etsy shops is Etsy. The amount of original watercolors scrolled on forever, through two two hour movies.
Etsy charges twenty cents a "listing." the listing is good for four months when, if you don't sell the item or subtract it from inventory, you're charged another twenty cents. If, by astronomical odds, it did sell, Etsy charges a 3.5% fee, which they are entitled to since they handle the monetary transaction while you handle the shipping. But I wouldn't plan on going to Mexico on profits. I wouldn't count on profits covering art supplies or workshops. I would expect to get busy producing new things. If you want to be noticed on Etsy's plan on CHANGING YOUR INVENTORY VERY FREQUENTLY, for THE MOST RECENT LISTINGS are the ones at the top of the scroll in the Watercolor category. An Etsy shop is a job building a business.
From what I garnered last night, the beauty of the Etsy plan is many artists, from all over the world, opening shops at two bucks a pop; many artists forgetting about their shops and consequently automatically repaying listing fees at two bucks a pop; many artists paying 3.5% upon the sale of an item. No doubt in my mind, Etsy is the biggest winner in this art lottery. I'd rather be the CEO of Etsy's, not one of the many struggling artists looking to make sales.
From what I garnered last night, the beauty of the Etsy plan is many artists, from all over the world, opening shops at two bucks a pop; many artists forgetting about their shops and consequently automatically repaying listing fees at two bucks a pop; many artists paying 3.5% upon the sale of an item. No doubt in my mind, Etsy is the biggest winner in this art lottery. I'd rather be the CEO of Etsy's, not one of the many struggling artists looking to make sales.
