Official Success Celebration Thread!

[#1]

This team is dedicated to sharing business advice in a supportive environment. From the day you first set up your shop to the day you think about quitting your day job, there's so much to learn. Luckily, one of the best things about selling on Etsy is the support and encouragement from other sellers.

Whether you’re brand new to selling on Etsy or you can count the years on both of your hands, you probably have some milestones that you’d like to celebrate with all of us. Post your milestone in this thread. Every month, we'll highlight some of our favorite posts, so join the celebrations!

Please also introduce yourself in your post if you’re new to the Etsy Success Team—describe what you sell and how long your shop has been open.

Here are some examples of milestones (but remember that all personal milestones big or small are worthy of celebrating!):

• You made your 1st sale / 1st international sale / 1st custom order
• You reached (x) # of sales
• You added (x) # of listings in your shop
• You have (x) # of views / favorites / admirers
• You received positive feedback from a buyer
• Your shop was featured in the press or in social media
• You recently opened your shop
• You’re celebrating your Etsyversary

[StudioAvai]

I have had over 900 views, added French as a language, now have over 40 items and made three sales in my first half year.

Happy celebrations to all of you. Wish you more sales.

[Former_Member]

Celebrating the opening of our shop! Can't wait to add more items and become the one-stop event shop we strive to be!

[jmaryleathers]

Celebrating sales in general, just happy to be creating and selling is FUN TOO!!!

[Former_Member]

I made it over 50 items this week! Yay!

[Enchanticals]

Love this idea. Very positive. Way to go, girl!

Marsha

[Former_Member]

Inspiring thread! Hope the next time we post here will be about a success of our own :)

[Former_Member]

Started a facebook page this past week - my first experience with Facebook ever!

[Former_Member]

Even though my shop is far from perfect, and i don't dedicate much time to it, I had my 40th order, and over 51 items sold, and I had 10 sales in the month of Feb.

These were all beginning goals for me, and now I am on to 100 orders, 16 sales a month, and/or 130 items sold.

Yay!

[Former_Member]

My milestones:

November - 1st sale
December - started to receive google traffic
January - started to receive facebook and pinterest traffic
February - had my most profitable month to date!
March Goal - beat February!

[Former_Member]

I got my 2nd and 3rd sales last night!!

[grumpyoldgoat]

I had over 150 views yesterday. That is huge for me.

[AvantCarde]

Love the focus on success ;)

We've been enjoying more consistent sales lately; however, it has taken quite some time to reach this pace - since there are 3 of us involved, I pulled out of the creative end to focus on the business side of things and to see what a dedicated marketing effort would do - it has definitely helped but I understand this type of commitment wouldn't be possible by everyone (ie. single person doing it all) - my advice would be to focus on trying to do just a little 'something' every day to keep yourself out there - ie. each day you can:

(a) post a new item
(b) pin an item to pinterest or post one to wanelo
(c) help out a fellow team member
(d) join a new team

Just some ideas - I think it helps tremendously and doesn't need to take up your entire day ;) - Julie

[Former_Member]

One of my items was featured in this great blog post!

http://thecollectcollective.blogspot.com/

[Former_Member]

1st Sale!!!!! wow...took a lot of work and I have learn a lot. I think I still need to learn more....

[Former_Member]

Congratulations Jennifer! The journey of a thousand miles starts with one step, you know! There's always more to learn, even after 3-4 years I learn new things all the time...

And... I'm celebrating my 2000th sale as of yesterday! I couldn't imagine it three years ago, when I'd only had a few dozen sales in the first year. But when I saw other artists with big numbers and saw that they had been at it for 3 or 4 years, then I started imagining it and saw the value of persistence. I'm a big believer in visualizing and intention-- and I'm grateful to all those who led the way by example here on Etsy! ::-)

Thanks, Etsy!

[Former_Member]

i was feeling soooo discouraged this week... i opened my shop in january and i had a couple sales at first, but hadn't had one in almost a month. my views were down and i had lost some favorites, so i was getting really bummed... then, last night, i finally made another sale! and it wasn't from someone i know, so it wasn't just a pity sale, haha... i know this isn't a big deal compared to some of your incredible successes, but it made me feel really good!

congrats to everyone on all your successes, big and small! :)

[Former_Member]

I got my second ever sale yesterday (The other three were trades) and it's from my first international customer :)

[Former_Member]

I don't know what I am doing wrong and what all of your are doing right. I know I don't have much in my shop and I am really trying hard to make, make, make but it is a long process. If anyone can help I would appreciate it. I would love to at least 10 items but I am at a loss. I sell on Ebay, Amazon too. I have sold more on Ebay then here what am I doing wong on this site?

Monica

[Former_Member]

Today I reached 70 items!:D
I want to reach 100 by the end of April and I hope to be more visible! I ready to shoot about 15 objects, but the real trouble is in the promotion!XDXD
I had only 6 sales...I don't know what is wrong.Maybe my jewels are too fanciful?

Monica, maube you have a few items in your shop?Maybe I've seen bad but ome pictures seem distorted!

[Former_Member]

I finally made my first sale of a necklace today - hoping to get a few more soon with all of the new things I'm adding to my shop.

[aliciawatkins]

I just want to say that I LOVE getting custom orders. It makes me feel competent and useful when people look at my shop and think "hey, maybe she could make me what I want" -- and competent and useful are even more important to me than cool/clever/whatever. I know I'm cool and clever, but that doesn't make as much difference in other people's lives (even if all I'm ultimately doing is stitching some stuff for them!).

I didn't know how lucky I was opening just before Christmas, but I ended up with a custom order right off the bat (the garlic cross stitch, which I'm right now making variations on, because WHO doesn't love garlic? ...other than vampires?), and while my work has been varyingly successful in my own eyes, all my customers have said "it turned out better than I was imagining it!"

That's so great to hear. And it's spurred on my business, sometimes even more than my own ideas do. A lot of my very best selling items were once custom orders. How great to have buyers telling me precisely what they want! And how nice to hear back that they're satisfied when I'm able to make it for them. : )

[philosophiacreations]

I'm always happy and grateful for each and every item view, shop or listing heart and sale that I have. I do work very hard to draw people into my store and so I feel that all I've accumulated at this point has been earned. Right now I'm very much hoping to reach the 100 sales mark in the near future. I don't have a specific goal in mind in terms of how long it might take to get there, but I know I'll celebrate somehow when that milestone is reached. Otherwise I had been working towards reaching the 200 listing mark and did get there recently - the problem isn't so much building inventory for me (I have a lot of pieces made already - several hundred for certain). Rather the problem is finding time to photograph and list everything, since I'm also a student. Now I'm planning to reach 250 and then 300 listings soon.

Congratulations to everybody, by the way, in relation to the achievements you're celebrating!

[Former_Member]

Reached the 300 sale mark! Pretty happy with that!

[Former_Member]

I'm New, my shop open in less than a month, with 3 sales. Its that normal? I hope I can celebrate 10 sales milestone end of this month! :) Congrats to everyone here who making pretty good sales so far!

[Former_Member]

I just wanted to celebrate hitted the big 100 yesterday with someone. Yea!!!!! On to 200.....