Thursday, June 10, 2010

Out With the Old, In With the New

As some of you know, I have a pattern/supply shop on etsy (http://www.LotsOPatterns.etsy.com) as well as my handmade shop.  I opened this shop because I decided to clean out some of my stash and get rid of some patterns I might never get around to doing. A couple of months ago I found a free selling site (eCrater) and decided to try it out. You can sell anything there--it's not handmade only--so I listed some books, some of my handmade items, and just a variety of things that I can't sell on etsy.  Since most of the items in my Lots O' Patterns shop have been there since I opened it, and obviously didn't sell, I decided to save a little money and list them on eCrater rather than to keep paying listing fees on etsy. So as things have expired in Lots O' Patterns, I've been listing them in eCrater. I only have a few items left and they should be expiring soon.

Now, I've been throwing around an idea about what to do with the extra etsy shop when it's empty of stock. One idea is to move my baby/children's items into it and make it exclusively a baby/child themed shop and to use my Lil' Bit Sassy shop for other items I make such as my purses, accessories, and household items.  If I decide to do this, I won't be able to use Lil' Bit Sassy as the name of the baby/children's shop, so I was thinking Sassy Bug for it and Lil' Bit Sassy for the mixed item shop.  AND if I go with this, should I get new business cards printed? Also--will customers lose me? I suppose I could always write a note in my shop announcement saying that if they're looking for baby/children's items or purses,etc. they are now at...and post a link.

So what would you do if you were faced with this? Any opinions or suggestions would be most welcome!