I started selling my work online in July of 2005. Etsy was brand new and I opened a shop as soon as I heard about it. In those early days Etsy was a lot clunkier than it is today – creating a new listing required entering information on five different pages – but it was…
When Quilt Market is Really Worth It: Vintage Door’s Crochet Edge Bias Tape
“It was my daughter’s brainchild,” says Hazel Rimmasch of Vintage Door, the crochet edge bias tape business she co-owns with her daughter, Arlene Cook. “Three years ago she was looking through some of the things my mother had sewn and admired the bias tape she’d used. It had a crocheted edge. She found a few…
Sewing Goes to Silicon Valley: Elizabeth’s Journal #3
Elizabeth Caven is the founder of UpCraft Club, a company she’s hoping to build into the leading online distributor of digital sewing patterns (in the same way that Audible is the leading distributor of audio books). In order to achieve this goal, she’s spending four months in a startup accelerator in Silicon Valley called 500…
A Discussion of Pattern by Etsy with Danielle Spurge
On Wednesday Etsy launched Pattern, a new ecommerce option for sellers. Pattern is a clone of your Etsy shop, but in the skin of a stand-alone online storefront. For $15/month sellers now have the option of quickly and easily adding a Pattern storefront to their Etsy shop and for an additional $16/year can purchase a…
Etsy Unveils New Shop Look
Yesterday Etsy emailed it’s 1.6 million sellers to announce that April 5 shops will have a new look. “We’ve redesigned the way shops look on Etsy to put you in control of your creative business and brand,” Etsy Administrator Shadi Jurdi said in the Etsy Seller Handbook post explaining the redesign. “The new design brings…
Sewing Goes to Silicon Valley: Elizabeth’s Journal #2
Elizabeth Caven is the founder of UpCraft Club, a company she’s hoping to build into the leading online distributor of digital sewing patterns (in the same way that Audible is the leading distributor of audio books). In order to achieve this goal, she’s spending four months in a startup accelerator in Silicon Valley called 500…
Sewing Goes to Silicon Valley: Elizabeth’s Journal #1
A few weeks ago I got a call from Elizabeth Caven, the founder of UpCraft Club. She told me that the following Sunday she was heading off for an incredible adventure. She’d be spending four months living in San Fransisco to be part of a startup accelerator program called 500 Startups. Elizabeth lives in Iowa….
Update on VAT
If you sell digital products like sewing patterns or ebooks online then Christmas 2014 you were likely stressed out about the EU’s changes to the Value Added Tax (VAT) law. Beginning January 1, 2015 all sellers of digital products have to collect VAT from their EU customers. There’s no exemption and no threshold so even…
How to Set Up and Manage a Black Friday Sale
My Black Friday sale is just wrapping up as I write this. I’ve spent most of the last three days processing orders and I have 21 more to pack. I’ve been selling crafty things online for 10 years and it’s taken me that long to have a truly successful holiday sale. There were years when I…
Why Handmade at Amazon is Etsy’s Dream Come True
Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson released this statement on Thursday, the day Handmade at Amazon launched: We believe we are the best platform for creative entrepreneurs, empowering them to succeed on their own terms. Etsy has a decade of experience understanding the needs of artists and sellers and supporting them in ways that no other marketplace…