I Want to Replace My Day Job with Etsy Income

In my Bucket List Investigation hub Port City Soapery, I wrote about my goal of one day having a small retail soap shop in Frankfort, Michigan. Some moving pieces for that goal are in place, and I do believe it will happen some day but not for a few years.

Probably like a majority of the working public, I day-dream about finding a way to work from home--pulling down the same salary as my current day job, but not actually leaving my home to do so. That goal is part of what initially brought me to Hub Pages (until I figured out I'm enjoying writing for writing's sake so much I'm not being proactive about the monetizing end). I do have a vehicle that might let me replace my day job income, but I need to step up and work it. Being a hand-crafted soap maker, I have a shop on Etsy (for those who don't know what Etsy is, I'll explain a bit below). The shop does okay, but I know it could do much better if I would be more intentional about the way I run it.

What is Etsy?

Etsy is an online community that allows members (free to join) to sell items through their website by hosting their own "shop". The catch to Etsy is the items being sold have to meet one of three criteria:

1. They must be hand-crafted; or
2. They must be vintage (20 years or older); or
3. They must be supplies used by those creating hand-crafted art

Etsy provides the template for building a functional website "shop", complete with a content manager that allows shopkeepers to track inventory and sales, and rearrange the "appearance" of their shop. Shopkeepers have a member profile, which helps customers decide which shops they want to patronize. Choosing which shop grows more difficult every day as more and more members open shops each day. Currently over 291,000 members own shops, and over 4,000,000 people use the site to buy items. In 2010, Etsy brought in over $312,000,000 in sales. Although it's free to open an Etsy shop, Etsy is a for-profit business, and running a shop through their site does have associated fees. It's a pretty straight-forward system, the main points being:

• Each item listed for sale costs the seller 20 cents.
• Etsy takes 3.5% of the selling price for each item sold through Etsy
• There are no additional fees associated with credit card payments or PayPal transactions
• The shop owner determines each item's selling price
• The shop owner determines shipping charges
• The shop owner determines 'returns' and other shop policies

Driving Customers to an Etsy Shop

Although Etsy place responsibility for marketing squarely on the shoulders of the shop owners, they provide an almost endless stream of information explaining how best to do that. On the website is a "Seller Handbook" that provides invaluable information on just about any topic you will have questions on. Also provided is an Etsy Success Newsletter. Members can choose to join 'teams" and "circles" and interact as much or as little as they wish. Like Twitter, members have the option to "follow" certain shops if they find that shops products interesting. Although it's called "favoriting". Members can create "treasuries"--16 item showcases usually done in coordinating colors or themes. There is also an Etsy Community Forum and Blog page.

My Etsy Shop

I have nothing but good things to say about my Etsy experience. I could have higher sales, but I know that is up to me. Etsy definitely provides the resources for allowing that to happen. I have found their website template and content manager easy to work with, and I've been pleased with the quality of the shops. By far the best thing is having Etsy bear the brunt of credit card processing. If they want to take 3.5% of my bar of soap profit to do that, I'm all for it! The fees really are not bad...my highest month has been about $20, and that was over the Christmas holidays.

It's not just my own Etsy experience that I have enjoyed, it is realizing just how large the hand-crafted industry is (and what great quality is out there). This past Christmas, I did most of my shopping online on Etsy, and was proud to support other small-business artisans.

When I grab a couple of hours to spend on my Etsy site, I am amazed at the amount of help being freely given, both by the Etsy management team, and by fellow artists. Everyone wants everyone to succeed, and the support is there for the asking. So that is what I'm going to do with this bucket list goal. I'm going to dive into Etsy with more intention, and ask. One of my favorite things on the Etsy website is the section called "Quit Your Day Job". Once a week, a different artist is interviewed about how they were able to turn sales from their Etsy shop into such a profit that they no longer go to a day job. I want to pick those brains, then apply their strategies to my own work situation.

Since my future retail shop is soap-based, it stands to reason that if I were working from home on a SOAP-related business, that karma would only help to move things along in a more timely fashion!