an old design…
…but with a twist, I guess!
Onto that in a minute, but firstly stuff about the shops I run online : )
Etsy has been wonderful for me, I have sent my items all over the world, to places I can only dream of going, and to have a little piece of me in these places fills me full of joy! However there are limits to the power of Etsy, especially in this country, I want to sell more items here, and if many people haven’t heard of Etsy, even fewer have heard of Folksy : (
But now I have my Not on the High Street shop which has opened up some new opportunities, including a slightly different way of selling my items.
In the past I have made bags of my choice/design, then listed them on Etsy, and hope they sell, for some this has been great, other bags not so good! So with NOTHS (sorry I simply cannot write it full length again!) I will be making bags to order, and with customers able to have bags with their choices of base fabric, and the colour of the embroidered pattern, here is an example,
It is this design, but now on denim, and I think it works really well! So what I will be offering for this design is three or four different base colours with the same number of different colour choices for the berries, does that make sense?
Some colours will be limited, as I will not always be able to source some of the linens, but I want to give some more choice and also potentially some level of personalisation as an optional extra.
I’m still going to use Etsy, but I will be selling on there my one-off pieces, as I’m not going to stop doing what I like as well! I’m going to use Folksy I think as my shop for selling old lines/seconds if that makes sense. That way I can hopefully keep my head sorted for all the designing and making I love to do!
Any feedback would be much appreciated : )
2nd January 2010 @ 10:57 pm
I think it’s a great idea doing the made to order with NOTHS, but don’t over-estimate people’s/customer’s ability to SEE the options. I have options on a couple of my products there, but it’s always the main option/photo that sells best. It’s almost like they can’t see past the initial photo shot. So make sure you always have lots of fabric in stock for whichever image you use as your main product pic. Love the denim, by the way, and love, love, love that orange fabric with leaves.
3rd January 2010 @ 9:24 pm
As long as I can figure out where to purchase your beautiful items it doesn’t matter to me! 🙂
The denim looks very cool!
3rd January 2010 @ 9:44 pm
Happy New Year!
I’m really interested in what you’re doing with this as I’ve been considering NOTHS too, but the overheads of it are putting me off, but it sounds as though it’s upped your orders a lot, so perhaps it could be a good move. However, I too think that the way that it’s set up to handle custom orders is fantastic and so much less labour intensive than doing it through your own site in some ways (well, it is when you have to beg your husband to make website changes anyway), so I think your plan sounds good. I agree – Folksy is so good in principal, but it just doesn’t seem to be in people’s awareness in the same way that Etsy is – such a shame.
Good luck with your new plans. x
4th January 2010 @ 2:45 pm
Yes, that makes perfect sense to me – especially as that’s what I do!
My made-to-order jewellery designs are on noths, and they and my one-off pieces are on my website. It makes life a lot easier.
Good luck with noths – it’s been really good for me.
4th January 2010 @ 11:14 pm
I have the same problem with Etsy/folksy, and I’d like to sell more in the UK too.How are you finding NOTHS? They have invited me to sell with them but I don’t know if it’s worth me opening another store.
Monda
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