25 MAY 2015 :: First Etsy purchase, and looking for supplies

I actually had to keep myself from writing a post over the weekend.  I have been trying to make myself hold to a schedule, which is forming as I discover the best way to get things done   :-), and have been trying to find a way to collect the topics and information I want to share here in a better way.  It is still a work in progress, but it IS getting better.


Last week I made my first purchases at Etsy -- one with regular Etsy checkout, one with PayPal.  I wanted to find out what it was like to be a customer.  One of the orders had an Etsy shipping label, both had tracking, one came within 3 or 4 days, the other took until Saturday's mail.  Both orders were made at the same time (something I didn't know about buying at Etsy :-) with the same shopping cart.

I would like to add that I sent a Mother's Day gift to California by Priority Flat Rate and it went all the way to New York before it went to California... and I live in Oregon!  The purchases I made had different reports with tracking than the USPS reports I had in the past.

I also have a FIVERR.com account and am trying to decide what to buy there so I can watch their sales system.  I have sold and purchased at eBay in the long past, but want to see what it is like now.  My money is tight, and I am working on a budget to take care of all these needs and more.  It will take time to get to all these things.


I followed a link from somewhere (my artbizcoach.com blog newsletter, I think) to a site called  -  difference.is - and it led to a printable form for developing a marketing strategy before or after you have your product.  :-)   I made copies to work on later, and have some I'm sending to others.  One page forms are good to focus the mental energy needed to plan something.  I hope you go to check it out, too.  It may change the way you think of your business.

It has been a busy weekend for me.  I discovered a bunch of sites to buy supplies from in the future, and discovered the difference in shipping options once I went to the checkout page.  It made me more aware of how great the shipping challenge is to online selling.  I have been looking for a good postal scale and commercial grade food scale.  They were part of my supplies hunt.  I'm getting closer buying both as I work through my product plans.

Christmas is closer than I realize... I need to get my inventory and draft listing ready!

I will share more as I go through my piles of papers and get them organized by blog topic.  I hope GOD blesses me with finances and health... then I can really keep going.  :-)