Shop Lessons

Art Print from Ann Shen Shop

When I first opened up my shop, I was among those people that wondered why people from around the world weren't flocking to my shop and buying everything that was in it. I found a lot of support in the discussion threads of the Etsy Success Team, but soon realised that a lot of the people had that "woe-is-me" attitude and so I moved on to find blog posts and internet articles about how I could make my shop better and become more successful. I don't believe that any of my strategies have worked so far, but I keep plugging away and obviously people are finding me and finding what they are looking for. I'm not going to be a millionaire any time soon, or any time far away either, but I am happy with where my monthly sales are and I am delighted in how far I have come since those first few months where I sat at the computer constantly looking at my stats while feeling down about myself.

I have to tell you, there is no magic recipe or code to make a successful business. Even if it feels like some businesses are successful at the wave of a wand, there are others that have taken years to build themselves up and those are the businesses that I look up to. Although it would be nice for my shop to be instantly popular, there is something to be said for taking things slowly. There has been quite a bit of a learning curve involved in opening up a business, but I like that I have been able to take my time in figuring things out and I feel like I have developed relationships with the people that I look up to and am able to ask them advice on anything. I feel that works much better for me than scrolling through depressing discussion threads.

The above quotation has helped me a lot recently. I keep reminding myself that although my shop is already two-years-old, it is still in the beginning stages of life and there are certain things that I must do in those beginning stages in order to reach the goals that I would like to reach in the middle stage. Right now, my focus should be on those things and not on what other people are doing that have already reached their middle stage. I should be looking up to those people and learning everything I can from them so that I can have a middle stage that I will be proud of too.