Source & Sell Locally : Emotionally & Financially Rewarding

Okay, this has been a several months in the works. I just wanted to share my experience with my Spring Collection.

Things that were right decisions getting started from scratch:

- Source Locally : The way I kept costs down was using other artisans in my area and seeing how I could hire them to do work for/with me. I found a girl with a laser machine that engraved the wooden tags for my canvas & wall hangings. It made my products have a more personal high quality touch and helped her small business. Win Win! I also used a local fabric printer business a few hours away to print my designs so I could sew tea towels. I don't love sewing so I will likely outsource that task to stay at home moms soon when I get too many orders to keep up. Keeping fabric manufacturing local helped keep my hands in the creative process and gave me a much better result than getting it done at one of those "print on demand" sites. (which I had tested and the quality was awful.) I get regular prints done quite cheap at my local print shop. I have to ensure colors with samples and batch print several at 1 time but it's worth it. I also found a local artist that was willing to do the giclee - archival prints with her fancy printer. It's great for her and it's great for me to offer that nicer product to my clients. Although a lot of regular people don't care about it so don't get caught up in the idea that you HAVE to have those.
- Get Connected : Got involved in a local art Co-Op where I can sell my products in a shop. This is great monthly income for very little effort on my part other than volunteering my time to watch the shop a couple days a month.
- Sell Wholesale Locally : I did create the digital pdf catalog but didn't want to keep updating it ever season with new collections. So I need to figure out which products I want to keep year round and focus on those for wholesale. My best method for getting clients was to literally go there and show them what I had. Some were unavailable because they had already purchased their "spring" decor earlier in the year but were interested in future seasonal products which I didn't have at the time. Try to offset these purchasers about 6 months if not more. Just ask them what season they are looking for at this time of year. I was able to sell products to some local farms & had interest at a couple boutiques.
- "Launching" my spring collection. Sending out daily emails & posting on social media for about a week talking about different aspects of my spring collection and launching the shop 2/3rds of the way through those emails. It was doable for a beginner and someone very inconsistent like me. I used my social media to recommend people to sign up for my seasonal email list. **VERY** valuable to reinvest in the people already interested in my work. Makes marketing a lot less stressful and more personal.

Things I would do differently.
- Don't bother with Etsy. I already had my online shop set up but thought I would get more organic traffic through etsy. Spent soooo much time researching keywords & all the things. It was exhausting and a huge waste of time. I was getting lots of looks but no purchases. All my sales came from my email list anyway. Would have much rather just kept everything on my website's shop. Also have had SOOO much frustration with their basically non-existent customer service. Will never use them again. It's much more useful to input that energy into my own website & building my brand/style over time with real people.