My Etsy Journey

You must have heard about Etsy. It’s a huge online marketplace with high-quality products. Artists and makers sell handmade items, vintage goods and digital products.

The need to put food on table and the recent success of selling arts in Facebook and Gumroad, encouraged me to open an Etsy shop too.

I was struggling with passwords. Then I learned I had an account from long back. I had an old account from 2016, but I had barely used it. By coincidence, exactly a decade later, I returned to it. Setting everything demanded a lot of tech-savviness and patience.

So, I crafted the account, step by step, controlling my frustrations.

After the basic set up, I had to create the shop. As I explored a bit, I found a tab called Shop Manager.

It needed my SSN. One must always be cautious with such information, but Etsy is reputed.

Then there was the need to connect to Plaid. I didn’t know what it was. I only knew Stripe from before, and the two sounded similar. I assumed both were banking tools. After reading a bit, I learned the difference. Plaid is a secure bridge that Etsy, Gumroad, or Stripe uses to connect to your bank and ask for permission. We already know what Stripe is.

After that came the request for photos of a valid ID and a selfie for verification. I must say, it took time and a fair amount of technical expertise. An artist without this kind of tech literacy can easily feel frustrated and lost.

Anyway, after a few blunders and moments of disappointment, I finally set it up.

Then came the $29 setup fee. I am follower of frugal life philosophy. I think about every penny before I spend. My spouse does not mind spending on pizza, fried chicken, dessert and Amazon deliveries, every other day, but I can’t. I follow discipline in spending.

But hoping for a source of earning, I paid.

And then I saw, I already had two listings. Maybe I had uploaded them back in 2016, when things were different. Maybe I had not connected to bank. Back then, I was afraid to deal with banking stuffs.

Much water has flowed under the bridge in these ten years.

I have run a biotechnology lab alone for fourteen years, navigated complicated pregnancies, driven an SUV, figured out chemicals as allergens, wrote above 5,000 articles on diverse platforms, published 13 Amazon books, set up my laptop and it’s technical requirement by myself, sold arts on online platforms.

All these experiences added to the confidence. I am bit sad that even before earning a dollar, we have to pay $30. With hope, I continue.

Anyway, after two days, I made two sales! Two days after creating an account. The joy of seeing a sale. Customers seem like angels.

It may seem small, but for me, it meant something big. It improved my confidence. It told me that my art is being accepted. That the money I invested, is not just disappearing into the void.

A Medium reader followed there. That's the beauty of online writing too. We create relationships of trust. Thank you, Lauri Novak. 

I am doing my part by pinning the art in Pinterest and sharing in some Facebook groups.

I even decided to run an ad, spending $2 per day. I'll run it for five days to see whether it works or not. I have to be cautious. I want to understand people psychology and find my target audience.

When you're building something new, you need all the help you can get, right?

Now my next step is to find a print-on-demand partner, a company who can print the art and ship it to the people who want a physical version of my art. I have read that some popular US-based services include Printify and Printful. I have to explore them.

I am taking pride in creating and building a business by myself. Though I am not that tech-savvy and never showed interest in marketing, even an artist needs those skills to survive. I am learning. It's difficult, and also fun.

I hope, you learned from my experience.

Have you ever tried Etsy? Anyway, here is my Etsy shop. Its name is ArtsforHealingGifts.