Starting my own side hustle: month two (with stats)

July was kinda a funky month!

Things started off slow then BAMB…
I made a few sales….

Then BAMB again….
My Glowforge Pro broke 💀💀💀

Pro tip: If you are running a laser engraving business, ya gonna need to have a working laser engraver.

Side note: I am upset that my Glowforge broke so quickly but they are sending me a brand new one and support has been helpful. It does show the need to put money aside for a backup laser if I am to continue to grow this business.

Let’s take a look what happened in my Etsy store for July 2021:

• On July 24th I turned off all ads
• On July 27th I put my store on “Holiday Mode” as my Glowforge stopped working. It isn’t fun just stopping a business you are excited about. This does show me the urgent need for a backup machine if I am to grow this business.

My Etsy Stats:

If it wasn’t for the Mountain Wall art sale it would have been a pretty sad month.

My life time Etsy stats:

What Created With Us did different last month

• Raised our prices to be part of Etsy’s Free shipping guarantee to the US. (It is suppose to give you priority spots in the marketplace)
• Promoted a few ads on Pinterest
• Added 8 products to the store
• Started a pattern site
• Shut down completely for the last week of the month

What steps are we taking in August to grow CreatedwithUs.com

I’m kinda on hold until my new Glowforge arrives. Hopefully it is here soon and I can continue to hustle.

Hope your side hustles are doing well

Sincerely,
Lesley – Sad cause she can not any fish right now. 😦

Advertisement

Starting an Etsy store. The first month.

Last month I started a little side hustle for myself. Createdwithus.com I always wanted to start something that was mine but kept making excuses as to why I couldn’t.

I pulled the trigger a few months back I invested in a Glowforge.

When it came I was super excited. My plan was to start both a Shopify store and an Etsy store and run them at the same time.

Starting with Shopify:

• I started building a website on Shopify.
• Researched some designs that I could sell.
• Then made some products and started to upload them.

It was so confusing, I got really annoyed and the cost per month from all the plugins I needed was going to start adding up.

Then building my Etsy store:

I had watched videos on YouTube that originally kept me away from Etsy because they talked a lot about the high fees on your sales. How Etsy closed their store and other horrifying stories.

BUT….

Now that I’ve started my own store the platform is so good that the fees make sense.

http://createdwithus.com

• Adding a listing is crazy easy
• The ability to add different prices for variations easily
• No extra plugin pricing
• They promote your store
• I didn’t need to pay for a plugin to do personalization

So I closed my Shopify store and moved everything to Etsy on May 26th.

Time to make some sales…or not

On June 2nd I made my first sale Etsy sale. It was a logo sign for someone I had never met.

Then nothing…

I started to get nervous so I googled “How long to get sales on Etsy.” and came across this thread in the community.

So I told myself “I would give it three months before I started to freak out.”

To be honest the one thing I hate about Etsy is that it shows how many sales you have. Even though I had just opened my store I became self-conscience that no one had bought anything.

What I did this month:

• I worked on my store listings.
• I added products to createdwithus.com.
• I dropped the quantity available of my higher-priced items in my listing.
• Posted a few photos on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
• I gave a 30% discount to friends that asked if I was selling something I had posted.
• I did max $1 a day in Etsy Ads
• I ran a $15 Instagram Ad for 3 days of earrings.
  

How it turned out:

I ended up making 5 sales this month with a total revenue of $299.44

• 3 sales were from traffic I sent to Etsy
• 2 sales were from Etsy
• I didn’t sell any earrings
• I only sold one custom product

My top seller this month:

Large Mouth Bass Layered Wall Art with 4 sales.

I royally messed up on this one. I should have had this up for sale before Father’s day. At least it is ready for next year. 🙂

Here is a screenshot of my stats.

Next Month Goals:

• Add 4 products.
• Design at least one of the products myself.
• Run Instagram ads for the this month’s top seller.
• Start on Halloween products.
• Build my Instagram Account.
• Make at least 1k in revenue.

P.S. I know there is still a few days left in the Month…but next week is going to be a busy week.