Experiencing Etsy

I have a long running history with the website Etsy. Etsy is a site where you can sell things you make, to put it simply. Items range from homemade bath bombs to bedazzled bras. When I was in my first year of college, I would decorate front of blank notebooks with collages of pictures I would cut out from magazines. That was my first posting on Etsy. I mean, those notebooks never sold but it was my first time. I then made a sweater with the lyrics to a Lorde song screen printed online on the front and I sold a couple of those. I then went bigger and drew band lyrics and names in my handwriting on shirts and I sold a good amount of those until I almost got shut down for copyright for using the phrase "5SOS" which stood for 5 Seconds of Summer, a band (still pretty bitter about it). I then started all over and made a new shop for shirts where I put my own quotes I made up on them. That shop definitely went under quick (see my old post about my shirt business). But I decided to reach out to some Etsy sellers that I found via different parts of the internet and I wanted to get THEIR opinions on Etsy, which I thought would be cool in case someone was looking into starting their own Etsy shop! 

People and shops that I interviewed:

Suki Sabur
 Suki's Etsy is: X
 Suki also sells on ASOS Marketplace and the link is: X

Eclectic River Designs
Their Etsy is: X

Bath Bomb and Stuff
Their Etsy is: X

  1) What made you want to start selling on Etsy?

Suki:  So I decided that I wanted to start my own business when I was at uni, I always knew I wanted to work for myself but I just wasn't sure what I'd make etc. When I finished uni I decided to just go for it and as the products are handmade, Etsy just seemed like a good fit and quite simple to open up a shop.

Eclectic River Designs : At the time I started my business, around 2013, my sister was on Etsy with her business and convinced me to open a shop. I'm glad I listened lol!

Bath Bomb and Stuff: I started my Etsy shop when I fell in love with Bath Bombs! I thought that I could easily create those and sell them. I love taking a bath with a purpose! Why not share that with other people!

2) What's you're favorite part about Etsy?

Suki: My favourite part is probably all the lovely customers. I feel like people who buy from Etsy know what they are paying for and are genuinely very lovely. It's also the fact that there's a wide variety of people who shop and sell on there, which I find very exciting and motivating. 

Eclectic River Designs : For me Etsy is super easy and quick. My son has a rare syndrome called 4p- Syndrome and requires most of my time, I'm help my husband run his kayak/canoe rental business so I'm pretty busy. Etsy takes out the worry and hassle of marketing and up keep a website would bring. I've tried a website and it was way too much work.

Bath Bomb and Stuff: I love Etsy. It is easy to have a shop and it is very low cost.

3) Are there any things you've encountered that you don't really like when it comes to Etsy?

Suki: I guess when you're starting up it's very difficult to get your products seen as there's so many shops and products. Also the fact that you can see how many sales you've made, as when you've got 0 sales and you've just opened shop it can be very daunting.

Eclectic River Designs: Not really. I mean sometimes my bill frustrates me but what bill isn't frustrating lol!

Bath Bomb and Stuff: I have had a rude customer or 2. I have a hard time with that. I shoot for the best quality service and product as I can. I have run into a few that have complained and would not let me fix the problem.

4) If you could pick one item, what's your favorite item you sell?

Suki: my favourite I guess is the clutch bags and makeup bags, as a lot of people will use them for special occasions and weddings etc and send photos, which is an amazing feeling when I know that someone loves your products. One of my fave colours is the Night Sky Purple Rainbow Glitter and the Burnt Orange Glitter.

Eclectic River Designs : I cant lie, my body jewelry are my best sellers and I wear them too!

Bath Bomb and Stuff: I would say that my Whipped Body Butter is my favorite product, besides my Bath Bombs. I have very dry and itchy skin and my Whipped Body Butter really helps with that.


___

I want to thank Suki, Mary and Jennifer, who were total strangers to me and were SO so kind to answer my questions when I reached out. It means a lot. And every one of these shops are special and different from each other and they all have AMAZING products!!! 

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Top 5: June 9th, 2017

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It's time for another Top 5, which I've been told by 2 people is their favorite part of my blog? Thank you so much for even reading my blog in the first place (almost to 3,000 reads, by the way!!!) BUT I'm going to just get right into this thing:

1) Sad Boy by Rad Horror. I've followed this band on Twitter for a good amount of time, but I have no idea how I found them, if I'm honest. I bought their song Take Me Back To Your House when I went to Los Angeles (AKA my biggest adventure of my current adult life) and listened to it when I would walk down the palm tree-ridden streets by myself to get rice at the corner Chinese restaurant. Rad Horror just came out with a new song called Sad Boy and I immediately listened to it and couldn't stop playing it on repeat. I texted a friend about it and even put it on my Facebook to let everyone know just how good it is. It is an explicit song (sorry mom) but it's also emotional and I kind of related to it. I reached out to Dylan Scott via Twitter DM and honestly, couldn't ask for a nicer guy to talk to.

 Here's my question I asked him: " Lyrics for Sad Boy are more on the emotional side and as an adult, i connect with the song when it says "I never felt this way when I was young." I feel like during part of my adult life I was just...sad (for lack of better term). Do you write your songs (or this song in particular) to connect with people or are they written to get out some emotions within yourself?" 

Dylan's answer: "I write all my lyrics from personal experiences. You won't ever hear a word out of my mouth that wasn't true at one point or another in my life. I believe in being as honest as possible so the fans can truly see inside of me. They deserve that much"

I also met him in 2014 at the Halsey concert and here's the most blurry picture of us in the world. You're welcome. 

**Thank you to Dylan for letting me talk to you for a quick second. I can't wait to buy a Rad Horror shirt (If you want a Rad Horror shirt or buttons, go here X)

2) SO MANY YOUTUBERS video by Mavis Slade. I feel like this blog is obsessed with Mavis? Is it? Maybe? But honestly, I'll watch other YouTube videos but I watch the most of Mavis' videos. I usually sit down and catch up on what I haven't watched in the last couple months and binge. This was my favorite recent video because it was a lot of fun trying to play "what YouTubers do I know?" Mavis went to an event and met many YouTubers and filmed a lot of it and I felt like I didn't know enough people that she filmed, BUT I KNEW SOME! 3 of them have Netflix movies that I've seen...if you love YouTube, I think this video would be for you.

3) Emails. Simple yet still my favorite way to communicate. I email companies with questions like "hey can I film in your bowling ally" and concert venues with questions like "I'm confused at your ticket policy". And 97% of the time, I get a response back and I can't tell you how giddy I get when I see an email? I have no idea why, but it's nice to ask questions without having an actual word limit or worrying about if my text is too long. I also have an email buddy that I reached out to through her article in Teen Vogue and she is maybe the most interesting person I know. Getting her emails make my whole week. So yeah, email is in my Top 5. Also here's a shirt that I need:

(If you want it too, use the code Hubrex for money off at Soaestheticshop.com!)

4) My Rolling Stones shirt from H&M. I admit, I don't fit in H&M's woman's clothes and I rarely fit in their men's unless it's oversized. I have a long for The Rolling Stones and I saw they had a tank in their men's section and I got it right away. I didn't even try it on, even though it probably wouldn't fit. I went on, tried it on, and was SUPER excited that it fit. It was definitely meant for a guy because the sides are low cut and as a girl, it shows most of my bra. BUT if I wear it with a flannel, then all is good! Very happy with it, but it's  not online so I can't get a picture of it!!! 

5) The album Hopeless Fountain Kingdom by Halsey. This album is Halsey's recent album that just came out, and let me tell you, I was really disappointed in it the first couple times I listened to it. It was suppose to be a love story between 2 people and the whole album was suppose to connect together and it really didn't. Halsey responded to a fan on Twitter that this album WASN'T about toxic relationships (kind of like Badlands, her first album, was about) but there are some songs that seem like it's all about toxicity. There ARE songs about independence, but Halsey always writes about it in a...different way. All in all, the album concept confused me and the 2 "songs" of the album that were all talking really turned me off. The songs didn't grow on me until the 4th play of the album. Now, I can't stop listening to it on my walks around my block and when I walk into work with my headphones on . Walls Could Talk could be the best song on the album if it wasn't less than 2 minutes long, so my bet is that Don't Play is the best song on the album. Very explicit (the whole album isn't meant for some people), but I'm now a Hopeless Fountain Kingdom convert.

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