Keep Your Day Job - A Farce...Or Not

When you first started selling on Etsy, did you have dreams or goals of eventually quitting your day job?

It started as a hobby, a way to support my crafting habit, but then I saw Etsy as a stepping-stone, a way to work towards running my own business. The community was so encouraging in that regard and every where I turned I was told that that’s what I should aspire to.

Apart from creating things, what do you do?

Oh, I don’t have time to create things anymore. I spend all my time on the Etsy forums in promotions. I also relist 35 times a day, but I can’t tell if it’s helping my views.

How long were you selling on Etsy before deciding to switch over to Etsy full time?

It wasn’t a conscious decision. I found myself needing to renew items, respond to emails, and track the status of my items constantly throughout the day. With customers waking me at 9am because they couldn’t tell if they had paid for their purchase, even after I had worked all night and gone to bed at 6am*, it was a necessity rather than a choice. I even have a friend helping me answer emails and ship and it’s not enough*.

What made you decide to keep your day job?

I have to pay my Etsy bill somehow. Unfortunately, constantly checking my email at work gets me into trouble.

How have you promoted and marketed your Etsy business?

I spend about 4 hours in the promotions section bumping my own thread, but it’s better to bump others’ threads. It looks less greedy. I also set my alarm for an hour before the treasuries open up so I can get one of them or when ad space spots are going to become available. Littering business cards where people will find them has actually worked out better than any of these techniques, though. So now I spend several hours a day dropping them from random places. The $4,700 in listing fees* I spent last year can hire a plane and I get a larger audience by dispersing them over the county.

Can you walk us through what a typical workday might entail?

Sure. I put on the coffee, turn on the computer, and check my email. I then sacrifice a walmart smiley in effigy to the Etsy Gods. Before going to work, I check to make sure what’s going out that day is ready for the mail carrier. I go to work for 8 hours, come home, and get orders ready to go out the next day. After comparing the Etsy and paypal addresses on every order* that came through I send a convo thanking the customers. Once a week I have to make time to call my credit card company to make sure Etsy hasn’t double charged my fees.

What goals have you set for the next few months and year?

To set up my own website with a shopping cart that’s fully integrated with Paypal*. I figure it’s a step up, and cheaper, than my current situation.

Do you foresee quitting your day job anytime in the future?

No, I’ve already had to sell my cat’s toys as supplies, take out a second mortgage, and take on a second job as a phone sex operator to pay my listing fees and advertising costs.

Any other thoughts?
The biggest problem I face with Etsy is that people think that because I'm the individual artist I will bend my policies, or prices. They see people that will do work for between 1-5 dollars an hour. So when you charge a mark-up on supplies, and charge labor rates above slave labor, people take offense.


Thanks to a Bitches Aux for the last quote, which, unlike Etsy's Day Job series, is not bullshit.
*Inspired by true events, unfortunately.