Etsy, Regretsy

Regretsy

There used to actually be a web site called Regretsy. It chronicled some of the most outrageous things that people tried to sell on Etsy. This was back in the day when pretty much everything on Etsy was genuinely handmade.

Not that I regret opening an Etsy store. Not at all! It’s an excellent way of starting out for a small handicrafts business like mine.

Advice

Fortunately there’s plenty of help to be had with navigating the process of setting up an Etsy store. Here’s the Pinterest board I used to collect useful links.

The advice for new Etsy shops is to add as many listings as possible, so the shop will look “full.” So I listed a couple of cards and continued working on other simple designs. I didn’t get any orders, but from reading of other people’s experience I knew that to be normal. Not that it kept me from worrying, of course.

I started out with only a few categories:

• All-Occasion Cards

• Ostara & Equinox

• Valentine’s Day

My Niche

Ostara & Equinox are there because I feel that the Pagan community is underserved when it comes to greeting cards in general, and handmade ones in particular.

In the advice I’ve read about starting a greeting card business, it was recommended to find a niche. I’m hoping that Pagan, or at least Earth-honoring cards, can be mine. The thing about niches is that you need to find one that has some competition. That indicates that there’s a market for your products. OTOH there shouldn’t be so much competition that the market is saturated.

It’s going to be interesting to see if this niche is viable. Wish me luck!