Advice wanted

[ewt]

So.

I'm going to go back to making stuff and selling it online, because, well, I need to either pay less rent or earn more money and the former would involve moving which is SO not an option right now.

When I was doing this a few years ago it was mostly selling hairfalls on eBay.

I like making hairfalls, I like getting paid for it, but I don't like selling things on eBay.

I'm thinking about whether Etsy might be a better place for some of my things, particularly as I'd also like to experiment with making and selling things other than hairfalls. Do any of you have experience with this? Is it better or worse than eBay, in terms of faff? Is there enough UK market for it to be worthwhile?

Other selling ideas include:
-hanging some stuff on the wall at the Pembury Tavern.
-pimping stuff on this journal more, and various LJ communities as well
-maybe various craft shows/market stalls, but I'd need a lot of stock and I'd need some help because I can't really carry stuff.

Any other suggestions?

I want to avoid taking on too much commission-based stuff, because my health is quite patchy at the moment and I am already behind on that, and it's really embarrassing (not to mention really unprofessional) when I screw up.

Comments

[vampwillow]

Just went to see what Etsy was and got a lovely error message. I'm guessing that anything that gives an error message repeatedly isn't that stable and therefore not so likely to get many users ...

[randomchris.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[vampwillow]

but even with site maintenance you put up a "We're doing some site maintenance" page, redirecting the DNS temporarily if required, you don't just display a complete fault text ...

[yady.livejournal.com]

True, but I've visited the site before and I don't think I've ever seen it do that before (it did earlier, but it's fine again now). So it may just have been an incidental problem.

[mubeimmik.livejournal.com]

I've done okay in my etsy shop. You have to be good about promoting it. In terms of an audience, ebay is a far better way to go, but if you find your niche in etsy and advertise the hell out of yourself, some people do really well. It's NOT less work than ebay, if that is what you're hoping for.

[karen2205]

Is it ebay specifically or selling at all that you don't like? If the former could you write your own website (or get someone to do it for you or find a useable free software build your own shopping site thingy) and sell stuff from there? Initally you could build a standard website & take orders by email/post and arrange payment by cheque/bank transfer/paypal etc.

[arkady.livejournal.com]

FWIW, we still have your mannequin head here....

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Any chance it might make it as far as the Pembury on Tuesday?

[arkady.livejournal.com]

In theory, yes; D will be on call from 6pm but he could probably do that from the Pembury with the free wifi. I'll check with him - it also depends on how splat we both feel tomorrow!

[devvie.livejournal.com]

I bought something from Mubsy on Esty...it was beautiful. :D

[redcountess]

A friend of horngirl, andricongirl, has an Etsy shop for her jellibat creations. I bought her Kitty giraffe from there, and have never had a problem visiting it.

[owlfish]

juniperus has an Etsy site for her pottery and swears by it. I bought some things from her that way - it went quite smoothly.

[dethany.livejournal.com]

Etsy isn't bad at all, I'm doing well on there supplementing my regular, stand-alone webshop.