On line selling

It's a tricky question, where shall I sell my work, there are so many option?.  I was very lucky when I started out in that a local bead shop where I used to buy jewellery supplies asked if they could stock my beads (I grinned for days) and then a client of my partner's asked me if I would have a stall at a market she was starting up.  From those small starts the markets grew and so did the outlets.  That's fine for selling locally but what the wider market place?

When I started lampworking I was recommended a forum to join,  Frit Happens.  A wonderful friendly place with lots of help and support.  From here I found out about two online selling platforms, Etsy and Folksy (there are others too).  I do have my own website Glass Beads by Lotti and did to start with a shop on here, but it was time consuming to do and so I opened up an Etsy shop Glass Beads by Lotti Etsy shop.  It was sooooo easy to open (and with help and advice from the forum and from the Etsy site itself) easy to populate and use.  I also opened a Folksy shop, but to be honest I haven't got any stock in there at the moment as most of my on-line sales have been through Etsy and it is tricky to keep track of everything!  A really cool thing now is that you can input your Etsy shop into your website (which I have done) and I have a link on my Facebook page Glass Beads by Lotti Facebook page, brilliant! :)

Etsy is an online selling platform for handmade items, there is a worldwide audience and I would say that over 50% of my sales are to North America (I have had beads go to Australia too).  It is free to join and you pay a small amount for each listing and pay a small fee to Etsy and to Paypal (the payment system Etsy uses) when you make a sale.  Simple :)  So if you are a crafter or artist of any kind, do have a look at Etsy (Folksy, Artfire and there are many others).  These are not like Ebay, they are not auctions and you know that people searching on these sites are looking for handmade items specifically.  Of course there is no reason you can't sell on Ebay I know alot of crafters who do, it is just that these other platforms are orientated to the artisan maker.  Like with so many of these things you do need to list frequently to keep your shop active and new (same with Twitter and Facebook).

Of course now the markets are starting up for the summer and the studio/workshop in Bude is going to get busy for the summer, my challenge is going to be making enough stock to spread between my commitments.  One final word of caution then from me, don't over do it, don't over stretch yourself in terms of your selling outlets, you might not be able to keep up!  :) :)