It’s been asked before and will likely be asked again: “Do you have a brick and mortar?” “Do you do consignment?” “Will you be at x show?”

And the answer is a)no b)no and c)probably not.

All of these are followed with: “But why?”

Why no brick and mortar:

I especially get asked about this first one by people who also live in the Twin Cities. They shop on Etsy, but balk at shopping on Etsy for something local (though they frequently make noises to the contrary.) Instead of working out a delivery arrangement or what have you, they usually ask me for where my retail shop is. Retail shops are expensive and require debt. I’m on a shoestring, so I have zero business debt – and I’m not willing to go into debt for my business. I realize that this runs afoul of this weird psychological quibble, and I suspect it’s also about an attempt to get free samples, something which, because of the materials I use, just isn’t possible.

I realize there’s resistance to paying for shipping when you’re local – although, since I do first class USPS shipping, it would cost less than the gas for a delivery, and probably less than it would cost to drive out to a show to look at my goods. It’s just a point of frustration – I do a good chunk of my shopping online, including from local businesses, so to me, it’s no big deal.

This is not to say I don’t have plans for a retail space in the future. Just don’t get too fixated on it being a boutique where you can open product right and left – what I have in mind bears no resemblance whatsoever to the boutiques you see throughout the Twin Cities right now, and for that to happen, I need folks to buy from my Etsy store, first.

Why no Consignment:

As for consignment – I’ve found it’s jut not worthwhile. I have to put money forward on making up product that may or may not sell, and then I provide it to a shop for nothing beyond the honor of having my goods gracing their shelves. And sometimes those goods are put on bottom shelves and other places where small objects like perfume vials can’t be seen. So I’m giving something for nothing, and people are opening and playing with my product as they shop until the quality degrades, and then I’m forced to take home perfume product that never sold and is now unsaleable, leaving me out the money I had to spend to make it. Pass.

Why I probably won’t be at the next show

I would like to do more shows, but I have an additional problem beyond the whole shoestring and product investment issue: I’m a bit clueless as to what I need to present to actually get in to the juried shows. Also, booth fees for the good shows are expensive and sometimes cost more than the product I have on-hand. I’m still recovering from a big show that went badly back in 2007. This is partly because my product photography is weak, but also because jurors naturally assume that perfume comes with soap – and I don’t make soap. Any help someone has to offer on this would be quite welcome, as I continue to work out the kinks with my craft show presentation.

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image by BleuhMeuh designs on flickr

I actually try to make resolutions around October 31st, but since most people recognize resolutions as a January thing – maybe because it keeps your mind off the dead month ahead – I thought I’d play along this time. Most of my resolutions revolve around catching up to promises made years ago: plant that tree (or acorn), finish that book, send that care package, etc. My Google Start page is littered with electronic stickies specifically for that purpose. Last year my big goal was to get organized, and that has been mainly successful. This year I need to advance a bit.

If I had to make a few specific business-related goals for the New Year, they would be as follows:

1. Use up what I have.
My home studio is bursting, but I’m not quite willing to do a destash. I want to become continuously better at what I do, and that means actually using the stuff onhand.

2. Keep it interesting.
In this case, I need to be totally interested in what I’m creating myself. This also may mean I need to block out some “study time” during my work day to keep up to date on new techniques and materials.

3. Keep it up.
For most of last year, I was, as we used to say on IRC chat, “afk.” My shop was usually open, but I was off doing other things – like cleaning out my office or overhauling my blogs.

So this year, I think it’s going to be all about the act of creation – whether its new perfume designs, decoupage vials or finding a ay to use up those tins that I keep inheriting from everywhere.

What are your business resolutions?

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This mainly applies to people who use a home service for shipping – I’m not sure if PayPal has international service (I would think so.) I use and prefer Stamps.com, and that’s the reason I know about this. That image you see above? It’s called a Form 2976-E, E standing presumably for envelope. Technically, it’s the “required” form for international shipping from the US Post Office, although I’ve never seen a postal worker request it or even seen one of these creatures loose among the plethora of forms and envelopes you might see at your post office counter.

Form 2976-E is a plastic insert envelope where you can slide in a hand-written customs form or a simple printout for international shipping. It’s amazingly handy – and better yet, you can order them free. It keeps precious information from getting wet, and while it’s a bit awkward on my 4×4x4 boxes, I think the origami effort is worth it – especially considering the price!

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I realized while watching a parade from my balcony that they are one big promotional opportunity for major organizations – not just the Jaycees and Kiwanis (though they were there) but for places like my local food co-op, who did a cute march with shopping carts in formation (followed by one of an astonishing number of marching bands in the area.)  While any individual seller might not do so well in a parade, I do have to wonder: what about local street teams? Are there any possibilities there – rolling a giant ball of yarn down the street or knitting while sitting on a float?

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I’ve been on Etsy for three years as of today – so my little shop that started toddling along in 2006
can now boast 1465 sales (less than 10% trades), 4606 hearts and a feedback score of 1301. Also, NO BUSINESS DEBT. This last one has been the hardest to stick to, and I’m so glad I have.

To celebrate, I’m opening up my new monthly sampler back. This month, the October sampler, has the following fragrances included:

Quoth the Raven

Zombie Repellent

V(ee)

Vampire Groupie

and Bad Wolf.

Grab your pack – this selection will only be available until October 31st!

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These are blurry images. I was trying to take a shot of some running water indoors on a cloudy day, and was holding the camera far from my body. While a camera with a stabilizer might have made a different, I doubt it – and since the conservatory I was at requires permits for using a tripod, that was also out of the question.

So what happened? They came out blurry.

Blur and grain are the bane of an amateur photographer’s existence – it happens in product photos, it happens in action photos, it just freakin’ happens.

Which is why a few professional photographers kindly passed on this wisdom: if you can’t use a tripod, try to find something to rest your camera against. I have also learned in the absence of a solid surface that holding my camera with my thums at the top and the rest of my fingers stabilizing it towards the bottom can help. Over the course of the summer, there has been less blur but it’s not all gone. And who knows – maybe one day I’ll shell out for a tripod permit!

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I find this all really good advice!

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from Art-a-whirl - the attention getting display of a local arts organization

If I had to pick one single aspect of my business that I still need to master, it would be craft show display. I’m getting better at it – it’s definitely much prettier, I know to find ways to use lots of light, pale colors and I can get attention now.

But there are still lots of kinks. I haven’t found the perfect combination of perfume tester to client, and I can’t always find an item while a prospective client still has interest in buying it. And I have to spend an inordinate amount of time futzing with my display after an interested person visits my booth.

Even tablecloths are an item of frustration and debate – and since they’re underneath all sorts of breakable stuff, once it’s down, if it turns out I picked the wrong color that day I could easily drive myself to madness trying to compensate.

Until I get these kinks worked out, I’m shopping around other people’s display ideas. While I wouldn’t outright steal (most of) them, I am inspired and amused by the clever ways people can reuse random items to catch attention. Like this image here with the Sumo wrestlers. I saw these little guys at the local surplus store, and it never even occurred to me to use them the way this local arts organization did.

So for now I’m eyeballing craft display pictures and craft shows, as well as combing through every storage store known to North America. I shall overcome – I shall organize!

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Startup Singapore by marcus.tan.yi.wi on flickr

An article yesterday in the New York Times profiling a woman within a year of my age who, upon losing her contract position at Williams Sonoma, decided to strike out and start her own business provoked a bit of thought. While I’m envious – I wish I could get NYT to cover me! – I’m also curious and cautious. There are a lot of us doing this business thing now, and as the article itself notes, it’s a different response than what usually happens during a recession.

But then again, the game has changed – some of our jobs are lost through sheer location of population (India and China outnumber us so severely that more of them have what used to be traditional US jobs – but because their population is so high, there isn’t a notable increase of living standards for them despite the relocation of the jobs.) It makes me pause, and ask myself: why am I still doing this?

I started my perfumery thirteen days before I left a corporate job. I probably could have stayed at the corporate job, but employers and I frustrated each other – no one actually throws their ambitions into the pool with the CEO and the corporate machine, and I wasn’t even pretending like I was buying into it. My first vocation-identity has always been as a writer, my second is now as a perfumer, and my third is as a blogger.  I’ve never enjoyed a sense of security that these corporate jobs supposedly offer. I’ve never even enjoyed a sense of adequate training, and loyalty is a loose and dirty joke. Every time I took a corporate job, I always knew on some level I was signing up to be bullied, and that’s still how I feel about the corporate experience.

That isn’t to say I haven’t learned some valuable lessons in my corporate time. Here and there there are remnants left from when corporations were a positive thing, a smart way of doing business, a body of something that was constructed to bring ideally good things into the world. I did see value in delegation, and in compiling resources. While I to this day passionately hate meetings and phone calls, when used wisely and sparingly – with an agenda – I along with my teammates managed to stay on task. And to have a work partner who is on your side and who supports you professionally as you in turn support them in a well-coordinated effort of building mutual competence – it’s an amazing thing. Sadly, corporations often don’t like that, far too many still believing that they benefit most from internal cutthroat competition. You’re expected to “learn” from someone who makes you miserable – and seriously, when does that EVER end in learning something that is truly for your betterment?

By October of 2006, my health and my patience were no longer in line with the corporate game, and I was out. This was well ahead of the trend although there were warning signs even then of the looming economic crisis. And even then, old-timers on Etsy were bemoaning the influx of new shops; I could now be an old-timer on Etsy and the influx, it continues as more and more people are seeking out new ways to bring in income.

I have to admit, I like what I’m doing. I like getting up every day and knowing that what I’m building is for myself, and that the people I do business with are, as much as I can manage it, genuine connections based on shared values. While I’d love the larger paycheck and the better clothes that come with it, I can handle what I’m doing now, and I’m thinking ahead of how I can escape the corporate model trap of long-term unsustainable growth.

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I snagged a treasury yesterday and thought it worth sharing with you – this is an amalgam of a few of my favorite artists on Etsy. It reflects energy, effort and color, great things to experience in summer!

For those of you wondering what on earth to do with a treasury once you get one, I offer you these posts for review:
What to do when you get or are in a treasury
So I’m included in a treasury – now what?
Great, I scored a treasury, now what?

And please, give my treasury picks folks some lovin’!

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