January Goals and December Lessons Learned

[Former_Member]

A new year is happening! Ahhhhh!

So if you want to post your new year goals, you have my permission.

My Goal for January:
Finish my blog design

December Lesson Learned:
I had a zillion sales. I wish I had made a LOT more stuff in bulk for sure.

[Former_Member]

Goal for January:
To have five sales, get up to 40 listings, and retake some of my really, really bad pictures.

December Lessons Learned:
I need to be more ready for holidays, and if the item is popular and able to be duplicated, make several at once instead of making one, selling it, and trying to make another quickly, sell that one, and on and on. Also, even though people have been telling me this for months, it finally dawned on me that the more items you have, the more chances you have of being found by customers.

Goal for 2013:
To double the sales that I had this year, and be able to start paying myself a small salary.

[Former_Member]

Goal for January:
REACH - Get to 400 sales [currently at 351]
CHALLENGE - add five new items
DOABLE - conceptualize and list Treat of the Month program for sale
EASY - blog once a week

December Lessons Learned:
-Give yourself an earlier deadline than you think you need for holiday orders. Then you'll be able to surprise people by saying YES to a few last-minute purchases!
-It's stupid not to list new items before the holiday season. I kept saying 'I don't have time', but there's plenty - I just sometimes suck at prioritizing!
-Even if you don't think you'll have much of a holiday rush, order extra packaging and shipping supplies in early November. It SUCKS to have to pay too much money for a small quantity mid-December when you could have planned ahead!

[organicmountainwoman]

Hi all! Congratulations on your successes and grrrrreeeaat luck in the New Year!
My goal this year was to reach 200 sales. I actually didn't realize I'd done it as I was looking at the number of orders, not the actual sales. Happy mistake! :) I also wanted to reach the lower 48 states. I'm missing four, but I did get Alaska (twice) and Hawaii (two or three times). (And Canada too!)Yeah!
Things I learned:
-I agree with Gena--when you think you're prepared enough, prepare some more!
-Don't be a Stats slave...time is much better spent producing, tweaking shop photos, going on Pinterest, etc than staring at your stats saying "What the heck is going on today?".
Goals for this year:
- Have sales in all 50 states (and at least one other country which is not attached to us)
- Be more prepared, Work daily in small increments instead of cramming everything in at the last minute (bit of a procrastination problem...)
- Take it a little less seriously and remember that while this is a business, it's fun too! Sometimes I get a bit caught up in the "have to" and the perfectionism of it all and I lose the joy.
-Update the blog. It's really not very hard...I just keep pushing it to the back burner.

Happy Happy Merry New Year to everyone!

[SantasSockCentral]

Lessons learned:
- Lots of items sell before Christmas. I sold socks that I had there for a year.
- Next December I'd love to be able to handle more orders, if I had the stockings half knit up before. I'll see if I can get a few done over the summer.
- Giveaways aren't so great for me at the moment.
- Knit all the time and your family and friends will think you're crazy.
- Knit all the time and you get a backache.

January goals:
- Well, have to clean the house, focus on the day job, eat healthier etc, all the things I didn't do in the last few months.
- Work on the waiting list
- Start a little book or spread sheet for my sales, i.e. item/ price/ cost/ time/ shipping charged to customer/ actual shipping paid/ weight/ profit margin
- Get item no. up to 50 and keep it there (for winter anyway)
- Possibly change my profile picture, since Christmas is unfortunately over now...
- make 2 more 3 arm sweaters in red and blue and list 4 in a row in my shop, that will look cute, I think.

[Former_Member]

Lessons Learned:
-Most people will shop earlier, prepare for it.
-Search ads were not good for december. But adds on Facebook, and twitter are a good way to advertise.
-Add more wearable items for gifting.

January Goals:
-31 one sales. One for each day in January
-Add 10 more new items to the shop.

2013 Goals:
-Get to 500 sales.
- Have 5 full pages of listings

[rusticcraftdesign]

January Goals----get some valentine's day engravings done to take some pics for some personalized v-day stuff.......and then i guess just stock up for wedding season! =)

Lessons learned....hmm...expect to be super busy...righhhhhhhhhhht up until christmas....then expect NADA for a week straight! =)

[CelesteCraft]

January- I'm slowly working on the cohesiveness of my shop. So big goals!

* Make samples of my custom items in the materials I intend to keep offering.
* Take wonderful pictures and make the listings consistent with each other.
* Charge a "business" price for the items instead of a "hobby" price,
* Let items expire that don't meet my long-term vision.

Lessons learned-- when I'm too busy to take care of my shop, it doesn't take care of itself! Be more involved and "on it" to make my goals a reality

[Former_Member]

January Goal: Make listings oriented to Valentine's day.

December lesson: Spending one week with my husband and closing my shop during that time was worth it and well-deserved!

[Former_Member]

January goal: list more stuff, take more photos, take better photos!
December lessons: see above

[wildwomanbeads]

Lessons learned:

What seems to me like a long time in the future isn't for a lot of shoppers so revise my tags waaay in advance of big selling occasions.

January goals:

Promote, promote, promote for Valentine's Day!

[Former_Member]

Valentine's Day is around the corner! I'm glad it made it to the goal list. Also don't forget Mardis Gras and St. Patrick's Day.

[doyourememberwhen]

Happy New Year everyone!
I would love to make Etsy my full time job.
Start a blog
Find new ways to promote my shop, other then a blog.
Take better pictures, some came out really dark.
Work on more of my made by me items.
Make more sales.