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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The Walker Sculpture garden is a little too popular, so I don’t always visit it when I need a hit of inspiration. But when I do, I always find it rewarding.

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I know some of you all love retro, and the Riverview theater in Minneapolis hits every retro-awesome button I’ve got. Still true to its 60s roots, this great little place gives you cheap movies ($3 a ticket), great popcorn and some of the best cheap date nights I’ve ever had. I thought you might want to take a look – and enjoy!

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Way back in the dark ages, just after I finished college, I picked up this fabulous cookbook:

Not only are most of the recipes super easy and interesting, this book has been invaluable in preventing food waste around my home. The above was a clever way I found of using up some cream cheese that had been sitting in the fridge a bit…long. It wasn’t expired, but it was getting old. Four desserts over two days (with two of us.) Not too bad, and adding the cardamom and cinnamon sticks gave the entire mixture a subtle flavor rather than leaving it as a bland egg-and-vanilla dessert.

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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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image by wendymehndi on flickr

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I thought I’d write a few fun facts and point you to a few of my other running endeavors – I adore perfumery, and it’s one among many other things that I enjoy doing.

• I also write Fat Chic plus size fashion blog.
• I am dedicated to the Artist’s Way and I keep a blog with other cluster members about my experiences.
• I am also a writer, with a focus on occult nonfiction. And I organize my local Doctor Who meetup.
• I have a “landing page” that can take you to all my projects (well, most of them.)

I hail originally from Northwest Indiana, but I consider my hometown Minneapolis. I’m an avid reader and magazine junkie, I love to cook, and if you couldn’t tell, I’m fascinated by gardening.

So hello – nice to meet you all!

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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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image by Glamour Schatz on flickr

The Financial Times dug up some mold on oud, and while they’re talking about agarwood like it’s news, the stuff was sniffed out by perfumers centuries ago. Believe it or not, that modly old wood is one component of the genius behind natural ambers and many a wood-scent cologne.

It’s also insanely expensive, and there’s not really a great way to harvest it sustainably – you pretty much have to break the tree to bits to get at the good stuff. Arguably, if you keep prices high and break very few trees to bits each year, demand for the scent can be managed. But that does run contrary to capitalism at least as I know it thus far.

Here’s hoping there’s a manageable way I just don’t know about yet.

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These are my personal views, and in no way approved, verified or validated by Etsy. My only association with Etsy is that I have a shop there.

For those of you running behind on your blog feeds, Maria Thomas is leaving Etsy and Rob Kalin is returning. Now that Thomas has made Etsy actually profitable (by a narrow margin, judging from her comments when she came to Minneapolis) they’re handing it back over to Kalin, who has been very quiet both as the person who stepped down and in whatever he’s been doing since his Etsy sabbatical. You can see more direct reactions in this thread, until it gets shut down – no one knows why they’re not using the admin forum for this.  If the Admin forum goes away with Rob’s return, my rage will know no bounds.

Etsy was already pretty opaque by the time I got to it in 2006, and having met the staff – and also having met Maria Thomas in person – it’s pretty obvious to me that the entire company is running on personality.  That’s a good thing when you’re starting out but it’s a bad thing when you’re going long-term, which is what’s happening with Etsy. Lots of staff member making lots of assumptions, and very few with genuine research and education to back it up – and coming from the last generation where college education made a damn bit of difference, I can tell you that the lack of curiosity/self-education going on among younger staffers is really disturbing and upsetting to me. New York is lovely, but it is in fact not the center of the universe – but from what I saw and continue to see from Etsy staffers, I don’t think they’ve figured that out yet.

I can imagine I’d be freaking out if I were an investor.

It seems backasswards to me to have Thomas get Etsy profitable (barely) and then to have her step down. “We’re making money, now let’s get in someone who wasn’t, buh-bye.” Um, what? I’m sure it’s more complicated than that – or phrased so it sounds more complicated than that. I’ve learned from many years past in corporate that ultimately, it’s always down to who likes you, not how much money you’re making. I suspect Thomas may have had to play mean-old-grownup a bit too often for anyone’s liking. But THAT is pure speculation.

I hope, truly, that they keep the structures in place that Maria set up – she’s being tossed before her very critical public would even have half a chance of seeing the results, and for a business like Etsy, results are slow because it’s online and we can’t physically see behind the scenes. Running well is about what doesn’t happen – we’ve had way less downtime, much fewer PR disasters (remember those brilliant remarks confusing the exact location and culture of Appalachia, easily corrected by looking at a Google map and by doing a bit of reading?) and it seems like some results are happening more or less on schedule. Also, Admin stickies – we had better keep them.

What this means to me as a seller

Frankly, I’m worried. Etsy hasn’t been great with serving sellers, their primary customers, and it barely protects them as is evidenced by the blogs that have cropped up pointing out resellers pretending they’re handmade.  Some steps have been made to help – hiring Ian from Etsyhacks was a brilliant move – but I get the impression that all efforts are going into getting sellers to sell handmade, not in getting people to shop handmade. Combine this with the cheap-cheap-cheaping that has been picked up by national and international press advocating Etsy as a bargain site, and Etsy’s practices have undercut the very handmade livelihoods they claim it’s their goal to support.

So why am I there still?

Simple: It’s the devil I know. And I’m making what I can of it as far as my section of Etsy is allowed to be my personal domain.

But just in case, I do have a mailing list and Facebook fan page.

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