Gardening Analogy – Essentials for Etsy

Etsy seller and blogger Bobbie, from the shop avisiontoremember and the blog Iamonly1woman, recently published a post titled “Essentials for Etsy Selling Success and a Gardening Analogy.”  Bobbie was kind enough to share her thoughts with the HandmadeMarketing.org team:

“Selling online for me is like growing a garden,” Bobbie writes.  “Get the seeds (your product, your time that you devote to selling, your links to your shop and other places online, advertising, etc). You don’t want to just plant potatoes in your garden, then you won’t get a good variety but also what happens if that potato seed is not good. You won’t have anything grown.”

After you have your “seeds” ready to go, Bobbie says the next step is to plant them.

“I like to plant my garden in a nice row, with all the different seeds planted in their own row or place,” she writes.  “I don’t just throw the seeds around and hope they grow. Some seeds need to be planted deep in the ground, others can be barely under the surface. Planting your seeds is like setting up your shop and starting to link to your Etsy shop.”

After planting the seeds, Bobbie says it takes a lot of work, energy, and care to produce a result.  “You can’t just walk away from the garden and come back in the morning and have a ton of produce for you to enjoy,” she tells other Etsy sellers.

For her own garden, Bobbie said she has to water several times a week, fertilize it, remove the weeds, protect it from the elements.

“This can all be likened to continuing adding items to your shop, taking out the items that are not helping your Etsy shop, promoting your items so they don’t get lost among everyone’s stuff out there,” she writes in her blog post.  “Then, after a ton of work and effort, you will start to see the fruits of your labor.“

Bobbie tells us she has been working hard on her Etsy shop for over a year, and is just now seeing her hard work being rewarded. In fact, she now has so much to enjoy, she is focused on preserving what she can.

“I am preserving whatever I can from the garden by canning the tomatoes, making salsa, digging the potatoes and storing them properly, and on and on,” she writes.  “That way, I can enjoy all that hard work during the next year. Same thing with my shop. I still have to maintain it. I need to preserve the hard work that I have put into it so that all that work does not go to waste.”

Bobbie cautions other handmade sellers to remember that not all the produce will mature at the same time.

“I canned beans several months ago, the corn about a month ago, but am now taking care of the onions, tomatoes, and potatoes. Different parts of your shop/garden start to reward you at different times,” she says.  “That has helped me keep going to start seeing my hard work actually produce something.“

Having a hard time with your Etsy garden?  Bobbie shared helpful tips for Etsy sellers in another HandmadeMarketing.org article “Etsy Checklist – Tips to Sell More.“

What do you think of Bobbie’s thoughts?  What helps you grow your Etsy garden?  If you are new to Etsy, what are your challenges right now?

Share your ideas and thoughts with HandmadeMarketing.org!  Submit your article for publication here or tell us your thoughts via a comment below.