I’m no longer selling on Etsy.
An actual conversation I had with one of my besties about my decision to change my production proess:
“I know it doesn’t make sense. I know that, but if I’m not making every single piece of my products myself I feel like I’m cheating.”
“You’re not cheating! I mean, you do all the printing but you don’t actually sew the t—”
“No, and I feel bad about that every day.”
Throwing his hands in the air, laughing and sitting back in his chair :“Well then I don’t know what to tell you because that’s just crazy!”
He’s not wrong. 🤣 As a recovering art school graduate I feel like I have to physically make every single piece of the products I sell if I truly want to put my name on a product. I’m not saying it’s logical, but it IS my mentality.
And I’m working on it.
But why, Hillary?! You're probably not wondering at all.
The biz reasons:
A crap ton of fees
You get punished with little to no exposure** if you're not constantly selling a f*ck ton of product (i.e. Etsy curates everything)
No communal feel anymore
The human reasons:
It was stressful.
It was a time suck.
And always, after the initial excitement of receiving an order subsided, the anxiety was right behind.
…and would be there until I’d physically dropped the wrapped package on the counter at USPS.
Since Day One of HYY I’ve been the sole person to design, print and package every single piece of apparel that has passed through my store, sat on my vending table and stored in my very small office.
Aside from the small batch of pre-made tees I had printed for previous conventions and craft fairs, I fulfilled most of my orders as I received them, and that felt as though I were always on-call.
I oscillated constantly regarding which was more of a money saver: print in bulk and put them up for sale, or print only on demand?
I’m sure any highly successful entrepreneur would say I need to work smarter, not harder. In that spirit…
I’ve decided to outsource production and shipping for new products.
Here are a couple news things that have just popped up in the shop.
A couple new Golden Girls goodies:
One that I have been putting off for a few years, but one that I am SO excited about this two-sided bag I designed, inspired by the 80s movie, Teen Witch. This scene is one of of the iconic scenes from any 80’s movie, IMHO:
