Splitting A Shop In Two

[Former_Member]

Hi All. I've recently returned to Etsy after a 2-year break & put a lot of work into rebranding the shop, but now I'm finding that my collection of items is just a little *too* eclectic to work as a cohesive whole. So I've decided to split into two shops: "Ruby Tombstone" (the existing shop) will retain all the really quirky stuff, including the horror and novelty pieces. The new shop "Ruby & Swank" will have all my vintage clothing and my new handmade lines (which are mainly based around repurposed vintage fabrics).

*Has anybody else done this before? Got any good advice for me? Are there any common pitfalls for people trying this?*

Off the top of my head, I'm a bit worried about how to maintain the networks which are based along horror/gothic lines, when my screen name will be linked to the new shop. For example, I am a member of several teams with horror themes. If I post in their forums, they'll click on my shop name and see a bunch of frilly pastel vintage frocks!

Anything else to be careful about?

Thanks
Ruby

[Former_Member]

I spilt my shop into two when I realised my items did not match well.... jewelry, and instant download embroidery patterns.... of course advertising two shops is hard, and you have to make two seperate business cards, etc....

the hardet is losing customers/admirers from the original shop.... you can post as much as you want on facebook, twitter, etc... but you will lose some either way. The best advice I would give is to not delay splitting the shop if you are serious about it, it would be silly to have people like an item and then ' poof !' it's moved to a new shop......

[Former_Member]

Thanks for that. I had thought I'd do a double business card, but that may not work if the branding is too dissimilar.

I've been thinking long & hard about the Facebook thing. It's hard enough maintaining one shop page there the way mine is set up (e.g. having to swap between profiles all the time). I definitely don't want to be stuck with two separate Shop Pages on FB. I can't see any other practical way of doing it than to have one central FB page, posting for both shops.

I hadn't thought about what happens to all those "likes" I've already gotten, especially for the vintage stuff which has been really popular. Is there no way to migrate the existing listings over to the new shop?

[Mzcarley]

I am leaving for the summer to take a job as camp counselor. I will be closing my store for the summer. When I return I am going to totally rebrand my store too. I am kind of in the same boat too

[TheTangledCat]

As far as I know, there is no way to migrate listings from one shop to another. Oh how I wish there were...and if someone knows of a way, please let us know!

I now have two shops (#1 shop - hand painted ornaments, #2 shop - artwork/digital coloring pages). I have several "best sellers" that I duplicate-list in BOTH shops. Here's the funny thing. As an example, in a shop #1 listing, I clearly identify and recommend going to shop #2 for the item (it's even a bit cheaper in shop #2). But I continue to sell it in BOTH shops. It's a nice problem to have (selling the same item in both shops), but at this rate I'm never going to be able to fully migrate the artwork to shop #2!

Bottom line, 2 shops is a pain! But if the items you sell are not cohesive, it's best to make the multiple-shop option work.

[Former_Member]

I started out with my original shop, Bertha's, selling crocheted stuff but then decided to start selling my favourite yarn and knew they wouldn't look right together so opened a second shop.
It is a bit of a pain having 2, I wish I could run them both from one 'back office' as invariably the more successful one gets 99% of my attention and the other one tends to be a bit neglected :/