Shopping Spree 01 - Julie Scheffer

My first shopping spree item arrived today! Horay!

One of the things I've learned (yet again) from this experience is that I really really really HATE to shop, online or offline it doesn't matter. It's OK when I'm buying art or craft supply, groceries or even cloths and props for shoots, but when it's something for myself, I have to think a 100 times before "do I really want this?" and "is this going to be useful?" and "is this a waste of money?" On a whole, not a bad habit, but when being pressed to shop, it's very annoying. Last month I gave a 200$ gift certificate to a friend because spending the money before the expiration date was too stressful.

But when I saw those, I knew I wanted them right away!



The artist that make those is called Julie Scheffer. She is listed on Etsy since 2007, but I think she only started selling at the end of April. she makes really nice ceramics and the coolest thing is that since I bought those she already made another sale.

I made my order on April 30, and the package got to me in May 6th, so basically a week long delivery time, which is pretty cool. I got an Email from Julie a day after I placed the order telling me it will be shipped in the next couple of days, which was very nice.

The cups were packed really well in bubble wrap and tape and the package contained a business card with a hand written thank you on the back side and... an extra cup! the listing was for 2 and I got 3! how cool is that?! They are beautiful, all made it safely and looks even better in reality then they did in the photos.

The price was 19$ and shipping was 5$ - which to me seem very affordable - there is something about 19$ that is really appealing to me somehow, I know it's "almost 20" but somehow the fact that it's less then 20$ makes it easier for me to spend money. Since I send pottery, I was amazed at the low price of shipping for this, more about that - in a sec.



I recommend everyone on checking Julie's beautiful shop and buy everything! (there are only 4 other listings so it won't take that much time...)

A couple of things that Julie and actually everyone can learn from this transaction:

The first thing, which I'm actually really bad at is how important a personal e-mail is upon receiving a new order. I don't buy often on Etsy and getting the e-mail, even if it's a simple "thanks for the order, package will be out on Saturday" line makes the buyer know that there is actually a person on the other side, it makes you feel like that person is professional and nice for letting you know. I often, as a seller, feels like I don't want to pile the buyers with junk mail and I don't write those e-mails and simply send out the package, as a buyer, waiting for a week without hearing from the seller would be really annoying. I would not treat this simple "Thanks, package will be out on a couple of days" massage as junk mail at all.



As suspected, the price of shipping, especially for 3 cups instead of 2, was not 5$ - not even close! by the postal stamp it was 13.65! I feel so bad for Julie! she charged 24$ for the whole thing, shipping included, and out of that, had to pay almost 14 for shipping! that means that she made about 3.5$ per cup - before expenses. That's really isn't enough for the work she put into it and it really sucks!

What can be done?

Julie send her package using Priority mail, it's great, but it's expensive. The cheapest way I found to send stuff is USPS first class mail. Sometimes with Priority over a certain price, it evens out, but still first class is cheaper. I'm not quite sure how it added up to 13.65, but each cup weigh 9 oz. so the whole package, with box was about 2 pounds with the box. On Priority mail - that's about 12.40, but on first class, that's 8.12 - a third less! when you start making more sales this becomes a big difference. If Julie would use First class (even with insurance which for this price range is about 1.60$) she'd still be making 4.5$ per cup instead of 3.5$.

Freebe

I LOVED getting the extra cup! usually I'm not a huge freebe fan, especially when those are cheap and irrelevant gift, but giving a third anything for free is cool, especially because she already know I love her cups (cause I just bought 2 of them) I don't know if Julie intend to give a 3rd cup with every 2 cup purchase or if this was on account of me being her first sale, but it was super cool.

However, at first, it made me feel a little uncomfortable - it seem to me like a really huge gift. I actually checked the listing again after opening the package to try and figure out whether I didn't notice and order 3 cups instead of 2. But it was a wonderful and huge gift.

A while ago, I took part in 2 truck shows for Christmas, I had a bowl full of mini notebooks and a bowl full of inspiration cards - both those were freebe gift, through both shows, people took a lot of cards, but not even one book was taken, I think people felt like it was too much for a freebe to take a notebook and didn't want to appere greedy. The extra cup, though making me feel really happy and very special, also made me feel a bit imposing, like I got something I didn't deserve.
This made me feel especially bad because of the high shipping price. Julie should have made 9.5$ for each cup, but after the extra cup and extra shipping - she only made 3.5$ - about a 3rd of what I wanted to pay for them (and even at 9.5$ though are cheap!).

If I were Julie, I would reconsider her freebe policy, there are a lot of small things she could make and give as a giveaway which would be smaller and still cool and won't make shipping more expensive. Like maybe a small ceramic tags for instance maybe on a leather lace that can be worn as a nacklace or a key chain, or a small ceramic plant marker or even book mark.

I'm still really happy I got a 3rd cup! it's really really cool!

What Else

Since julie already made 2 sales in her short Etsy experience I'm sure she'll go on doing well! A couple of other things she can do to generate some more views and sales:

Built an inventory
Right now there are only 4 listings in the store - 2 cup sets like mine, and 2 nesting bowl sets (which are really cool!) it still feels like the store is pretty empty, I like stores with 20 items or more - it makes me feel like there's a veriety to choose from.

Have a larger veriety of items
There are a lot of items ones can make with the basic "cup" shape - make a hole in the bottom and sell them as planters, make them taller to be used at toothbrosh holder or pencil holder, get a cork lid and sell them as a sugar bowl or honey jar and so on. The bowls can work as soap dish, pasta strainer (if you poke holes in it), a larger bowl can be used as a fruite bowl or salad bowl or to store anything in really.
A lot of times somebody doesn't like a style for kitchen but would love this style for office or bathroom - it's good to spread out.

Also, the listings only allow buyers to get sets - the cups comes in twos, the bowls in either 4 or 6. It might be a good idea to make listings with just one items in then.

Good Luck Julie! I hope your store makes a million sales!

New mugs

Some projects happens because i plan them in my mind for a while until they ripe and I go, get supplies, make the time to work on them and follow my plan step by step.

Some project happens because I found something inspiring or a cool new material or just cause my hands were bored.

I guess this was a combination of both, I had the idea of making a tea or coffee set with a bunch of cups and not just one or two and have them all with similar pattern but different colors. Somehow it looked like a too large project and I never got around to it.
Then a few days ago, I was in the salvation army store getting some cloths and idea for a shoot tomorrow, I found a set of 5 large mugs, each was 79 cents! I just couldn't leave them in the store. They very rarely have matching pieces, so I was happy to take advantage of those.

Then it was just about putting the time into it, so yesterday, in the first work days I had since I got sick I just set all day and made those. I really couldn't be happier with how they came out! secretly I hope that one person would decide to splurge and buy them all, I love how those look together.

Winter Wonderland

When I came to visit Ned for the first time, I came to New York a few days before Christmas, there were trees being sold all around Williamsburg, and snow that fall a couple of nights before I got there. There were Christmas decorations on the houses and while Ned showed me around New York, we saw the big tree in Rockefeller center and got to hear carols from the church across the street.

I don't know if that's why I like Christmas so much, because it's associate with being in love and happy, or if the reason is too many special Christmas episodes on TV shows, but every year in the past 3 years I'm so excited to see the trees and decorations.

I don't really celebrate any holidays, and I can't really bring myself to do anything that non-Jewish as to get a tree or decorate my home, but I guess I took all my holiday cheers as an artistic effort and made a bunch of winter related things for my etsy store.



A winter wonderland tea set.




A 4 animal print set (there's an owl, 2 playing polar bears, a couple of robins and a reindeer)




Butter fly Christmas ornament.

What does one do in a day of no crafting?

I didn't make anything today, usually I don't make stuff in a day before a shoot. Ned's shooting a beautiful model tomorrow and we are trying to get over the mass in the studio and turn it from an artist studio, a very messy place indeed, to a photography studio, which is basically a lot of free space. So what did I do today?


Well, Ned when into the city for a meeting and I came as well, we agreed to meet back at coffee shop in an hour and a half. I'm almost out of cool fabrics for the lining of the tarot decks, so I walked to PurlSoHo to get some new ones. The store was really crowded and it's tiny, but found some good stuff. It was cool to listen to all the conversation and how people are dealing with crafting problems and what they are making.



It was very cold and i was getting tired walking out, so I stopped in some tea shop and had some tea. I didn't have my MP3 players and for the first time in a while I got to sit on my own and listen to people's conversation that were very strange, There was 2 women in some meeting on one side, one of them were a voice coach or an English teacher and this was their first class, she made the other girl read out a poem lout loud in the middle of the cafe and they went over the difficult words.

On the other side, a girl was telling her friend about her trip to Pushkar, India. one of them watched a TV show about Pushkar and they were comparing notes and talking about guys.

While I was having tea and listening to conversations, I was finishing a painting I was working on for a while.



We went back home and Ned fell asleep while I was trying to clear the mess in the apartment so that we can shoot tomorrow. After a while I stopped, we didn't do the image research we usually do before shoots and I didn't know if Ned's going to wake up in time to do it, so I made one myself, after an hour of finding and downloading pictures, I went back to trying to clear the mess.

Ned woke up and we went out for a late late dinner in Kellogg's coming out, we saw the most beautiful snow falling. It looked like tiny shards of glass or the small tinsels in a snow glob, all tiny and shiny. It was very cold and the snow was staying on the ground, all dry and stiff, like powdered sugar.



In Kellogg's it was warm and crowded, and we had some sandwiches and talked over the photos I downloaded before, thinking about different ideas for tomorrow.

Weekly Summery

Sales This week: 11 (but I'm a day late in writing this)

Hearts: 391

Treasuries: Curated 2, one was dedicated to tarot cards, though i didn't include mine, and one to being sick. I was also featured in 2 treasuries, both dedicated to the color red!

Main source of inspiration: Sadly, non! I was sick all week! the only thing I made for the store were deck of tarot cards and nothing new...

Best thing to eat: just soup and tea!

Shopping: 30$ were spend on about 11 sheets of paper at New York central art supply.

Greatest achievement: Being sick and still manage to get the store going.

Disappointments: didn't do any promotion this week. Also, trying to put down some boundaries to a problematic buyer and failing.



Last week's goals and how I held up:

1. If I can make those 6 sales this week, I'll be happy.
I did much better then that! I made 11, which makes the month total so far at 25.

2. Get my hands on one more treasury at least and if possible, be in one.
Double the fun - I was in 2 and made 2.

3. I got a very nice e-mail from the woman who wrote the Etsy article in Ynet. I want to answer it and write her about my favorite Etsy store.
Nope i didn't do that one, correspondence is really hard for me now.

4. List a fine art piece.
Nope, didn't do that one either.

5. Odin the wolf sold, so I want to make another wolf. And possible another fox.
No wolfs or foxes were made.

6. Make another cups deck and another major deck.
That actually did get done, and I'm pretty susre they both sold.

7. I want to write a blog entry \ article about my experience in Tarot and the history of them in my life. Possibly the first of a series of articles about my personal view of Tarot card. This would be a perpetration to a fuller instruction manual I intend to make about cards.
Nope!

8. Go see those exhibitions!
Nope!

Over all, though sales were great, I didn't do enough to promote or take care of my store as far as stocks goes. I hope I'll be a little bit more energetic in the next few days after I recover some more.



Goals for next week

1. Make one more major arcana and one more cups decks.

2. Make a new wolf and a new fox - there are very few toys in the store now...

3. get a treasury and be in a treasury.

4. Write that tarot article I wanted to write last week.

5. promote more - write in the blog, in indipublic and we-love-etsy

6. make some new small inspirational notebooks and make a tutorial about how to make them.

7. List something every day