Happy Birthday to Pasque Flower Creations!

My Etsy shop, Pasque Flower Creations, is three years old today!  Time flies when you’re having fun. 

It’s been an interesting journey –a learning and growing experience. 

Here's a brief Etsy biz retrospective.

I started as a clueless Etsy newbie.  I’d never heard of SEO (search engine optimization), and I relied on my hubby to upload and edit photos because I hadn't a clue how to do that.  I went months before I made my first sale.  Thanks to Etsy Newbie Chats and the former Lost In The Crowd Team, I survived that first year and had 88 orders by the end of 2011.

In my second year, as an Etsy toddler, I began to find my own shop identity.  Like a good two year old, I learned to say “NO!”, increased my shop inventory, improved photos, and I embraced a new logo that more accurately portrayed my shop’s vibe.  I almost tripled my prior year orders, with 260 sales in 2012.

Last year I toddled off to record sales with a clearer sense of direction for my Etsy business.   In a webinar I attended on February 19, 2014, hosted by Melanie Duncan of Entrepreneuress Academy, I learned that 50 to 70 percent of start up businesses fail within the first 15 months.  But I’m still here—alive and kickin’!!   Although my sales in 2013 increased only 15% over 2012, my revenues grew by almost 33%.  I learned to cut my costs of goods sold and shipping costs without sacrificing quality, and I increased prices.  I ended last year with 301 sales.

As I enter my fourth year, I’m now a preschooler, anxious to learn more about photography, marketing, and product development – skill sets that will help me progress (I hope) to 1,000 sales before the end of 2014.  (I’m at 778 and counting.)  And I continue to seek out ways to monetize scraps.  So far this year, despite a rather sluggish February, my revenues are 15% ahead of where I was at the end of February 2013. 

My Etsy shop is not growing at warp speed, but I’m trending in the right direction, and I’m having a lot of fun and making new friends along the way.  

TTFN

LeAnn