One Shop Two Ideas

[PotteryLodge]

Well Its me again. I know I always ask the weirdest shop questions but I have another one so please chime in with advice.

My friend and I (I already no what you're thinking about mixing friends with business) have came up with a great new shop name and slogan. The problem is the things we like to design are FAR left field from each other. I want to stay with my plastic art housewares/ceramics and she wants to make Texas inspired housewares/jewelry.

So we have a website name picked out that would direct people to our etsy shop. However I am not sure about mixing up my work with hers. I am not sure if it would look cohesive together. I no we can't both have the same etsy shop name (or can we) so what should we do? We will be attending craft fairs monthly and want a single site to direct customers to.

thoughts?

[WithLoveFromLucille]

I think this is one of those things that is completely up to you two and how you're willing to work it out.
Would you split the profits 50/50 or she collects hers, you collect yours?
That's where it can get tricky.

I have 2 niches in my shop, both by myself, I crochet and stamp metal, so I have them both in my shop, and both do equally as well at different times of the year [so far].

So essentially, come up with a business plan together and see if you can make it work.

Good luck!
And hey, her items could sell your items and vice versa, right?
:)

[Former_Member]

I'm actually, kind of in the same situation. A friend of mine does jewelry and I do hats. We have a website, it's themed around steampunk, I'd give you the url, but I'm not sure if you can post urls, on teams. We have a splash page that comes up from the url, but then it's split into different pages for the different merchandise. Not trying to have jewelry and hats right next to each other.

We each have indivdual Etsy stores. This site is really to put on business cards when we do Steampunk Festivals.

[PotteryLodge]

withlove- thats what I was thinking. our items could help sell eachothers. glad to see your shop with two totally different items and it still looks well put together. fyi I love your shop and will be buying some of those bearded crochet hats for my brothers birthday..love them!

[PotteryLodge]

Zanne- yes you can add websites..id love to see what yours looks like with two shops on it.

[Former_Member]

Hi Casi - My cousins and I went through the same struggle when we opened our collective shop last summer. I know there is a lot of talk about shop cohesion and selling similar items, but we feel we have had success despite our differences. We sell a mix of vintage clothes, housewares and handmade items and we have had 100+ sales since opening.

We try to make sure our photography is cohesive and sometimes it is a struggle in social media to figure out who we are marketing too, but overall it seems to be working out for us.

I don't fully understand why it is suggested that a shop sell only similar items, and we are inspired by many of our favorite brick and mortar shops that sell a variety of fun items. I would suggest doing what feels right for you and your friend and success will follow :)

Best of luck to you ~ Kristi

[Former_Member]

This is our website, it's still in it's infancy and needs alot more work.

www.steampunkmarketplace.com

[PotteryLodge]

kristi- thank you so much for your kind words. I actually agree with you..a lot of my favorite local shops sell a variety of items and it seems to all work together. I think I am going to take the plunge and go with it.

[Former_Member]

If you can pull of the shop looking cohesive, I'd say go for it. If you're not positive you could do two shops under the same-ish name. For example I have two different things I sell: digital products and photo props. Completely different niches so I opened two different shops. One is called Silver Daisies Studios (digital items), and Silver Daisies Prop Shop. I have a DBA for the second under the sds llc. That way both could link to the same main website, but each has a separate etsy shop, that's how I'm set up, it works well for me. Website+facebook+twitter is under the same name, but the shops are separate from each other to keep each cohesive within itself.

[PotteryLodge]

Zanne- how much do you pay monthly to host your website? did you build it yourself (looks really good)

[Former_Member]

My friend does that, she actually has 2 different sites running. http://www.jewelrybyalison.com/ and http://www.primordialfire.com/shop.html I think she bought a big block of space a while back and just host it with her other sites.

We are doing a large steampunk festival in May, so it's the goal to get this one in shape by then.

I'm frantically working on Victorian and Steampunk items to get ready for this.

[Former_Member]

im in with a friend on ours too (im lucky hes a coworker too) his stuff is different than mine but the same theme what makes our shop work is our main theme is sports so i have paper products and pillows in the sports line and he has jewelry. we are really left field of each other on our stuff but we seem to do well (his more than mine sometimes) i lucked out he really does not care about the branding looks like. The other thing we do is i take care of all of the etsy, twitter, and most facebook fan page stuff. He runs our 2 ebays (i cant handle ebay hes good at it lol) when it comes down to it we are one business. with 2 people making 2 different things to get us out there. I think you guys could do it even if you guys have a totally different product from each other just find that one thing that makes your stuff work together. (i started out making tshirt pillows and end with sports pillows and paper products) i think if your both making houseware that would be the one thing that could tie you in to each other.

Im sorry if this came out all crazy sounding i was having a hard time figuring out how i wanted to say it lol

[PotteryLodge]

loni- I love hearing all of ya'lls stories about working in teams. It is giving me the confidence I needed to move forward in this business adventure.

Im getting soo excited to introduce our new shop and items!!!! hopefully this works out!