Big FAT Zero

I love books and so to illustrate my blog post today I have chosen a selection of notebooks and journals, some are mine, but there are a few from other Folksy sellers too.  I hope you like what I have selected. Don't forget to click on the photo to take you directly to the item in the shop. Enjoy!

Right, here we go!  When sales are low or non-existent I sometimes feel like chucking in the towel, and donating all my stock of beautiful items to a charity shop.  This way I can have all my storage boxes empty again, and I can start filling them with a new range of gorgeous items!  It also has the added bonus of making some charity shop happy, hopefully with some sales that will boost their funds.

I haven’t got as far as deciding which charity to support.  We have lots of charity shops in our high street, so there are quite a few to choose from!  I have no idea how they would feel about being given a huge range of handmade goods, because I have not approached any of them yet!  I still keep hoping for that elusive sale!  I have a varied range of bags, purses, notebooks, pencil cases and journals in my shop, and even if I say so myself they are all well made, reasonably priced and I offer FREE UK postage.

Sometimes I feel this lack of sales is a failure in me to promote my shop and the items on the WWW, but I do try, honestly, really, to get the items out there – Pinterest, Facebook, Craftjuice, Flickr, etc.  But, I assume my promoting is just not up to scratch.  I know a lot of sellers have more than one outlet for their sales.  I have set up a shop on Etsy, but sales to date have been a big fat zero (and this is the case for Folksy this month too!)  Admittedly, I do find promoting the Etsy shop difficult.  I find Etsy very confusing and worrying, so I spend as little time as possible on the site.  I am much more comfortable with Folksy which I have got to know quite well over the last six months or so.



I know there are other ways to promote your shop and I have read and looked into other possibilities, but it worries me that I am going to be spending even more time on the Computer than I want too.  Even now I feel I spend far too much time – so much so, that I struggle to find the time to do all the crafting that I want to do!

So, that brings me back to the charity shop idea!  Actually, perhaps I should have more giveaways.  My recent Facebook giveaway to celebrate 100 likes seemed to give such pleasure and delight to the winner.  If I can make more people happy by giving away my items, then it makes sense to have more giveaways!  What do you think?

If I had more room for storing my stash of beauties, the lack of sales wouldn’t be such a problem – I am only desperate to sell my items because I’m at my limit with storage!  However, I also seem to have come to a crossroads – not knowing which way to go.  I have a few projects in production and my aim is to finish them, but after that I have no idea what to do.  It’s not that I lack inspiration or ideas, but mostly because items are not selling in my shop, I don’t want to keep filling the shop with yet more items that are not going to sell.  Do you see my dilemma?

I had a good month in May for sales, but strangely enough I sold no more than in April which I found to be quite a tough month!  Am I obsessed with sales?  Does this come across in this post?  I don’t want to be.  I just want to carry on enjoying what I do, and find an outlet for the items so that I can make more.  I love what I do – I really do, but this lack of reward for my efforts (a sale) can be quite disheartening!  Perhaps we all feel like this – what is the answer?

I have considered using other websites for selling.  I also have considered selling on Facebook and perhaps even setting up my own website.  But it all comes back to time, who has the time for all this work promoting?  My items are not quick to make, they take time, patience, perseverance and creativity!  I don’t know what the answer is, do you?

BFN

Edwina

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