Anyone have an Etsy store?

[IndyColtsFan]

So, I had a business idea and after making some important strategic decisions and prototype product reveals, it appears I‘m going to be hit hard with a tidal wave of orders. I’ve been considering an Etsy store to sell my products and ultimately, if the products prove as consistently popular as the initial reveal showed, I may have to outsource manufacturing.

Does anyone have an Etsy store? I have a few questions.

P.S. Also, if any of you are great miniature or model painters, ping me. I may have an opportunity for you.

 

[shortylickens]

GOOD LUCK! Etsy seems to do quite well for a lot of people.
When you finally start, give us a link.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I always forget about Etsy, might be better than Amazon as they probably won't rip off your idea then sell their own version. I have a product in mind myself but I'm not even in development stage yet let alone manufacturing. I will either just sell it myself off my own site, or use something like Etsy. I'd probably only sell it in Ontario though, I really don't want to have to deal with all the tax jurisdictions. Unless a site like Etsy can handle all that?

 

[highland145]

$500 for 40% of your business plus my free advice and random ponderings.



Good luck.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I always forget about Etsy, might be better than Amazon as they probably won't rip off your idea then sell their own version. I have a product in mind myself but I'm not even in development stage yet let alone manufacturing. I will either just sell it myself off my own site, or use something like Etsy. I'd probably only sell it in Ontario though, I really don't want to have to deal with all the tax jurisdictions. Unless a site like Etsy can handle all that?

Etsy supposedly will "help" with international shipping and the custom forms, but I'm not sure how much. The issue is that I have many people overseas wanting my products and I'm not sure how to handle it, as I don't want to mess with international shipping. I've been thinking about finding partners who would handle it. I know of one in the UK but he'd charge much more for my product than I would.

 

[sdifox]

Etsy supposedly will "help" with international shipping and the custom forms, but I'm not sure how much. The issue is that I have many people overseas wanting my products and I'm not sure how to handle it, as I don't want to mess with international shipping. I've been thinking about finding partners who would handle it. I know of one in the UK but he'd charge much more for my product than I would.

if you already have a client base and can depend on word of mouth, I would just sell direct. Customs declaration forms are pretty easy to fill out. Just stick with USPS so that you only have to deal with 1 form. Just create an account with USPS and go from there. Or call them and inquire about small business account.

Small Business | USPS

Small businesses: Save money on shipping and direct mail marketing with promotion discounts and other USPS business rate and product options.

www.usps.com

 

[Johnny Ringo]

Take this for what it is worth, as I do not know if this will apply to your business or not, but selling things to people in the EU, and if any data is hosted by you might be worth doing some research if you go with the direct form of selling via a website hosted by you. There are alot of issues that most people do not realize about Ecommerce (with me being one of them...)

I am a SQL DBA by trade so I follow this guy as he is brilliant. He has a small business as a SQL consultant and he indicates that doing business with EU customers can be very tricky...

This is an older post, but he has updated it recently that it is still a very tricky area...

 

[sdifox]

Couldn't you use encrypted client side cookie to store all that info and you just have a GUID (or whatever unique ID you want to create) on your end? Just record each instance the user consents to realase that info to you for the transaction, you do not store the actual data. Hell, default to not saving the data at all.

 

[Johnny Ringo]

Couldn't you use encrypted client side cookie to store all that info and you just have a GUID (or whatever unique ID you want to create) on your end? Just record each instance the user consents to realase that info to you for the transaction, you do not store the actual data. Hell, default to not saving the data at all.

I think that you would store some data just to do business with someone(name, address, email address, etc)--so it is a bit trickier on the dealing with EU laws, when being in the USA and not keeping up to date with their laws. Not a deal breaker from a technical perspective...but something to be mindful of, and most people would not realize that it is not as straight forward as one would think to do business with anyone in the EU.

Once you store the data...then you are obligated to come up with ways to delete the data, and have an auditing mechanism that you have deleted their data if they ask you to. Either way, it is just additional overhead that someone has to think of when doing business in the EU that if they are from the US, would not think about.

 

[SaltyNuts]

Awesome thread, so, so in. Might want to sell some potassium nitrate on Etsy.

 

[sdifox]

I think that you would store some data just to do business with someone(name, address, email address, etc)--so it is a bit trickier on the dealing with EU laws, when being in the USA and not keeping up to date with their laws. Not a deal breaker from a technical perspective...but something to be mindful of, and most people would not realize that it is not as straight forward as one would think to do business with anyone in the EU.

Once you store the data...then you are obligated to come up with ways to delete the data, and have an auditing mechanism that you have deleted their data if they ask you to. Either way, it is just additional overhead that someone has to think of when doing business in the EU that if they are from the US, would not think about.

Some of the examples in the link....

"
We used to sell online training to the EU.

We’re a small business based in the US. We sell consulting & training for Microsoft SQL Server.

You wouldn’t think that would be a big deal – but you’d be surprised. For example, students send us information about their databases all the time as part of asking questions – and they often send it unsolicited, through unencrypted email channels. That information ends up all over the place: our mail server, our desktops, phones, laptops, search indexes, etc. I’m not really worried about us maintaining the confidentiality of that data, but now we’d have to add in new audit-able tracking.

See, under the GDPR, if someone asks us to delete their data, we not only have to delete it, but we have to audit that we deleted it, and maintain those records for EU authorities. And then respond to EU requests for that documentation."

My point is you do not store any of those data other than the guid on your end. Just save a big encrypted cookie client side. Op is selling a product and not a service, so it can be less complicated. Even if you accept CC, you just need to embed CC proccespr's one time payment frame in your site, no CC data was ever visible to you.

 

[sdifox]

Awesome thread, so, so in. Might want to sell some potassium nitrate on Etsy.

Quiet. Adults are talking.

 

[SaltyNuts]

Quiet. Adults are talking.

Shut your pie hole dork.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Etsy handles the payments, so I wouldn't be storing any of that info.

I'm going to try to outsource my manufacturing but I may have to do it initially.

 

[Ajay]

I know nothing about Etsy, aside from my wife buying items there. Seems legit. Good-luck!!

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I know nothing about Etsy, aside from my wife buying items there. Seems legit. Good-luck!!

Thanks. My biggest fear is the possible demand, as early interest seems to indicate I may see 300-1000 orders this year.

 

[MrSquished]

Never had a store on Etsy but have ordered products from there for many years. Many have come from overseas. My sister has as well, they have a really cool LED light fixture hung over their dining room table from somewhere in Europe. I'm pretty sure from Eastern Europe. The number they have hanging on the front of their house is from a shop on a Greek island. Etsy is a great site from our experience.

 

[deadlyapp]

Thanks. My biggest fear is the possible demand, as early interest seems to indicate I may see 300-1000 orders this year.

Just develop a plan for scaling as needed. The worst thing you can do is just start making a handful and then when demand ramps up you frantically try to scale and fail. This is one of the biggest issues with kickstarters but no different for something done on Etsy.

Have a strategy around storage and warehousing, staffing for packaging/shipping, how you will package/ship and the goods to do so, if you'll need to maintain inventory (especially if manufacturing overseas and it's extremely challenging to get it stateside), etc.

If you plan on selling outside the US, and at high volume, it might be worth looking into freight forwarders or local distributors in-country, that way you just have to ship one big shipment to them and they coordinate all the rest.

If you do outsource the manufacturing plan on spending a substantial amount of your time making sure you are doing inspections on every item in the first couple of runs and then random inspections (or like 1 every 10) thereafter. Nothing tanks businesses faster than a poor quality good and having to deal with returns and negative reviews.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Just develop a plan for scaling as needed. The worst thing you can do is just start making a handful and then when demand ramps up you frantically try to scale and fail. This is one of the biggest issues with kickstarters but no different for something done on Etsy.

Have a strategy around storage and warehousing, staffing for packaging/shipping, how you will package/ship and the goods to do so, if you'll need to maintain inventory (especially if manufacturing overseas and it's extremely challenging to get it stateside), etc.

If you plan on selling outside the US, and at high volume, it might be worth looking into freight forwarders or local distributors in-country, that way you just have to ship one big shipment to them and they coordinate all the rest.

If you do outsource the manufacturing plan on spending a substantial amount of your time making sure you are doing inspections on every item in the first couple of runs and then random inspections (or like 1 every 10) thereafter. Nothing tanks businesses faster than a poor quality good and having to deal with returns and negative reviews.

You've got some good points. The demand won't be big enough consistently for me to hire warehousing and staff to handle it. It's several lines of custom action figures for some older, niche franchises. This will never be big enough for me to do full time, but should give me a nice chunk of additional income. When I say as many as 1000 orders, I am anticipating that number over the course of 6-8 figure releases this year and some of the feedback I've gotten. 1000 is probably a high number; I think 50 each is probably a more realistic number. I have a few options at my disposal for handling orders:

1. I may spread the orders out over a longer time by staggering the action figure release schedule. Just as orders start trending down for one figure, I'll release a new one. Based on survey data and run rate for already released figures, I'll probably also build an inventory cushion before any new releases. The actual cost of manufacturing the figures is pretty low - maybe $1 each when all is said and done. I haven't computed my own manufacturing capacity yet, but I believe I could manufacture in the ball park of 30-40 per day with current equipment and maybe even 50.

2. In terms of scaling up manufacturing, I could add additional printers at $500/printer, but I think I can tap the community to have them manufacture the figures for me and save a lot of time, effort, and mess on my part. I'm going to be posting a survey on two of the fan groups for these figures with the chance to win free figures as an enticement for people to complete it. Assuming I get enough responses, that will probably be a good indicator of how much inventory I should build in advance, whether I should buy additional printers, OR whether I should more seriously consider outsourcing the manufacture of the figures. If I could find someone who could mass produce the figures for $5 each, I would jump on it.

The other option is to give up on manufacturing them and just sell the 3d print files. That would likely have lower overall sales and would result in people stealing my designs and selling printed figures as their own. My plan is that once the figure sales start dwindling to a low steady state value, I would post the files to get additional revenue from the army builder crowd. If someone steals my designs and tries to sell at that point - no problem, as I would've already sold to the majority of the market for these niche figures.

And you're absolutely right - I would definitely inspect the manufactured product. In all actuality, I would probably have the manufactured items shipped to me first and then I'd inspect and ship onwards rather than drop shipping direct to customers. Yes, it will add cost, but at least until I'm confident that the manufacturer isn't cutting corners, I'd need to do that.

 

[Captante]

Thanks. My biggest fear is the possible demand, as early interest seems to indicate I may see 300-1000 orders this year.

Just keep in mind there's a bit of "AliExpress" potential in all Esty dealings.... use caution! (and good luck!)

And def post a link when its up and running .... I MIGHT even buy something!

 

[zinfamous]

I'll do $650 for 35%, plus I'll toss in highland's mom.

 

[highland145]

I'll do $650 for 35%, plus I'll toss in highland's mom.

OP, she's damaged goods. Besides being a bit cra cra, she just had the same hip fixed twice in 8 weeks.



Wait, forget that. She's awesome. Cooks, cleans, sews...looks like Marilyn Monroe and is RICH.


No refunds, no returns.

 

[Captante]

OP, she's damaged goods. Besides being a bit cra cra, she just had the same hip fixed twice in 8 weeks.



Wait, forget that. She's awesome. Cooks, cleans, sews...looks like Marilyn Monroe and is RICH.


No refunds, no returns.

Dibs on your stuff.

(assuming she doesn't burn it or toss it in the river!)

 

[highland145]

Dibs on your stuff.

(assuming she doesn't burn it or toss it in the river!)

Why do you think we stuck her in assisted living and took her pistols?

 

[deadlyapp]

You've got some good points. The demand won't be big enough consistently for me to hire warehousing and staff to handle it. It's several lines of custom action figures for some older, niche franchises. This will never be big enough for me to do full time, but should give me a nice chunk of additional income. When I say as many as 1000 orders, I am anticipating that number over the course of 6-8 figure releases this year and some of the feedback I've gotten. 1000 is probably a high number; I think 50 each is probably a more realistic number. I have a few options at my disposal for handling orders:

1. I may spread the orders out over a longer time by staggering the action figure release schedule. Just as orders start trending down for one figure, I'll release a new one. Based on survey data and run rate for already released figures, I'll probably also build an inventory cushion before any new releases. The actual cost of manufacturing the figures is pretty low - maybe $1 each when all is said and done. I haven't computed my own manufacturing capacity yet, but I believe I could manufacture in the ball park of 30-40 per day with current equipment and maybe even 50.

2. In terms of scaling up manufacturing, I could add additional printers at $500/printer, but I think I can tap the community to have them manufacture the figures for me and save a lot of time, effort, and mess on my part. I'm going to be posting a survey on two of the fan groups for these figures with the chance to win free figures as an enticement for people to complete it. Assuming I get enough responses, that will probably be a good indicator of how much inventory I should build in advance, whether I should buy additional printers, OR whether I should more seriously consider outsourcing the manufacture of the figures. If I could find someone who could mass produce the figures for $5 each, I would jump on it.

The other option is to give up on manufacturing them and just sell the 3d print files. That would likely have lower overall sales and would result in people stealing my designs and selling printed figures as their own. My plan is that once the figure sales start dwindling to a low steady state value, I would post the files to get additional revenue from the army builder crowd. If someone steals my designs and tries to sell at that point - no problem, as I would've already sold to the majority of the market for these niche figures.

And you're absolutely right - I would definitely inspect the manufactured product. In all actuality, I would probably have the manufactured items shipped to me first and then I'd inspect and ship onwards rather than drop shipping direct to customers. Yes, it will add cost, but at least until I'm confident that the manufacturer isn't cutting corners, I'd need to do that.

Seems to me that you've got it pretty well thought out for your specific use case. If you do short runs, you run into less likelihood of bootleggers figuring it out. I would definitely hesitate to post the 3d files once you've created that IP - if anything, you could keep those items posted for sale and for the random chances that someone does want them further down the line, you could print on demand. If you do bring 3rd parties in to help you, get an ironclad confidentiality agreement tied to the IP just in the off chance that something does go off the rails at some point, it's good to have the protection to fall back on (even if you don't actually enforce it).

Just recognize, that since you're looking at a potentially competitive market (what's to stop someone else from seeing you garner interest and printing them themselves), you should stay relatively tight lipped and a few steps ahead so you can take advantage. It would suck to do all this work, only to find out that someone else beat you to market just a little earlier based on all the research you've already done.