Selling on online craft stores

Since the start of my blog Rustic Modern Woman, I have been posting projects I've made for myself. Of course, the rock jewelry I sold at the Huntington Beach art walk last year. I loved making my cutting boards so much I made more that I know someone would want to buy for their own home.

Since one of my childhood friends has had success with Etsy, I thought I'd look into creating an online store. A quick search of "reclaimed wood cutting board" and there are a lot of results, of various prices and the first page is even personalized cutting boards. How am I supposed to compete with that? I made an online store, but I am not enthusiastic about getting any hits.

I found another site, Artyah and set up an online store there. It is $5 to start a store, and that's it. Etsy is 20 cents per listing which can add up since they encourage more listings to get higher on their search.  One of the important things about online selling is beautiful photographs. Pictures of your product in action but uncluttered and clean with nice lighting, is the key to getting people to look at it.

Now, another important thing I've learned is shipping. I didn't know then, but if I keep my cutting boards on the smaller side they can fit in a slightly cheaper shipping box. A postal scale is very handy too for exact costs. I know free shipping is in, but I have to raise prices if I have to eat the shipping cost. I might try it to see how it works, but right now I am charging for shipping, but making returns easy. The bad thing about Artyah though is it doesn't change shipping cost based on the buyer's location so I had to set the price at a USPS flat rate box cost which might be higher than it actually is to ship it.

I am under the name Peterson Studios because a last name and what the business does, does not require a DBA so I don't have to go through all that again for San Bernardino County.