A selection of pieces sold from my Etsy shop, WillOaks Studio,during the first several weeks after it first opened in 2008.
I love to mark anniversaries of all kinds--major and minor. Well, today is a new one for me. One year ago on 11-16-08 I opened my little Etsy store. Now mind you, this is only the date I signed up. Although I had a large body of work finished, I was pretty clueless about 1.) Product photography, 2.) Product descriptions 3.) Uploading 4.) Tagging, and frankly, the list went on and on. It took me until after Thanksgiving day last year to fully list some things for sale because I struggled with the mechanics of it all. Then on 11-25, I made my first sale.
To tell you the truth? When I got that notice that I'd sold my first thing on Etsy (first sale on the internet) I was again at square one as I had no idea of what I was supposed to do next--I remember the panic! I must have figured it out because there were a number of sales as the countdown to Christmas continued. As I look back as these memories, I think it's kind of quaint and I marvel at the progress I've made over past year!
I've managed to sell, as of today, 166 pieces on Etsy. I've been marked as a "favorite" ('hearted' in Etsy lingo) 821 times (I'd love it if some of these "hearts" turn into actual shoppers!) And best of all, I've met a bunch of very cool fellow artists AND new customers, several who I now consider friends because we keep in touch!
Bad timing, bad luck for me that the economic downturn would escalate so much as my first year of online art selling was trying to get a footing, but like everyone else, I hope that we'll get through this cycle and prosperity and confidence will return to our country eventually.
So year two, onward and upward for WillOaks Studio! I have a little special going, that some of you might want to take advantage of. Free shipping through 12-17: look here to get the inside scoop (you need to use a secret code!) Next, I'll be having a couple of give-aways of my work here through random drawings over the next few weeks--more details on this are coming soon so do stay tuned!
