Wow I procrastinate. While I should be working on creating products so I can have a store on etsy, instead I’m busy looking around on etsy for articles on how to quit your day job. Wouldn’t that be great?! There are all these great stories of people on etsy who started out small and eventually became so successful they were able to quit their “real” job and do their crafting business. Some of them even opened physical store locations. Here are some great stories of people that have done just that.

While looking around on etsy, I found the Etsy Seller Success kit. This guy sells his guides on how to be successful on etsy. He has a few different topics from general etsy, to publicity, using facebook, using twitter, etc. This guy is smart! He continually lists his items so that when you search “seller success” his items are always at the top of the list and most of the front page are his as well. Smart seller. I bought his Success kit. It was cheap, since it was electronic I didn’t have to wait for shipping and I received my guide in about an hour. He gave some great information on branding your shop, pricing your items, taking great pictures and most importantly how to market yourself. That wasn’t something I was thinking about. Not only do I have to have great products and have something someone may actually want to buy, I also have to find the people that would want to buy it.

One of the ideas on how to do this was blogging. I’ve had blogs in the past for personal use and I found that after the first couple months I started to slack and then stop all together. If this could help me be more successful and get a following of people, I am all for that! So, I’ve created this, backdated the last couple posts and here we go! I’m determined to keep this updated on my progress of starting etsy. And since I’m new at this, I’m sure there will be mistakes along the way and hopefully I can give insight to others that are just starting out.

First thing’s first, figure out a name for my store. Part of the success that the Success Kit I purchased talked about was branding. What type of business do you want to have? What is the general feel you want to give? My husband is also launching a new business of web design and he also talks about the importance of having a brand. For me, I want to make paper flowers and from what I’ve seen so far, there really isn’t competition for that on etsy right now. I need a name that isn’t too long that people might remember that sums up what I do. I’m so not good at this! After much brainstorming I’ve come up with Perfectly Paper. Catchy. Short. Includes Paper but isn’t too specific in what I do. I scrapbook as a hobby and I’d like to eventually branch out to making scrapbook style cards, etc so I didn’t want to include flowers in my name. And so an etsy store is created. It’s empty of course, but at least I have one thing done!