As some of you know, I've had a Love-Hate relationship with Etsy. The things I love about etsy are the ease with which you can open an online shop, the assistant tools etsy offers to help you get started, and the encouragement and love shown to etsy sellers on a regular basis. What I don't like about etsy is that so many sellers sell their wares so DANG cheap. I think this practice only serves to cheapen etsy's reputation as a whole. I lose faith in etsy sellers on a regular basis when I see something I know takes an hour or more to make, and the seller is charging $10.00. Now that makes no sense to me.
As an artist and craftsperson, I work hard to price my items according to the time I spend making them. I quit my job working for someone else where I was paid handsomely for my time. In order to make ends meet by working from my home studio, I've had to think long and hard about what I'm worth, about what to pay ME! Believe me, when I take into consideration the materials I've bought and the time spent shopping, the label that goes onto the finished product, the business card hangtag, the marketing, let alone the actual time in making the product, AND the time it takes to take a few reasonable photos and then list the product on Etsy... How in the world could that ever be done for a $10.00 sales price, and, more importantly, how could I ever feel good about what I'm doing, that I'm even making what I'm worth???
This lesson was brought home to me this week when the etsy designer I "hired" to design my logo, business card, product tag and labels suddenly closed up shop, and hung a closed sign on her etsy shop door. No forewarning, and no concession to the fact I'm in need of a few more designs. Just a response of "Closed, and no more using your design because it's my 'art' and to do so would be copyright infringement". No reasonable response to my offer of buying the rights to my design. Okay, I know... pay peanuts, get monkeys. I guess I'm guilty of my own foolish pleasure here. I was so thrilled to get my design for such a deal... now I'm really paying for it because I lose out on something I love.
So, the moral here is to spend a little more and get the quality you deserve. If you pay bargain basement prices, expect to be treated like a bargain basement shopper. Pay for quality and get quality. Let me tell you that if you spend the money for one of my products, you will get something that's completely unique, beautifully made, with exquisite attention to detail. And, if I were to ever close up shop, I'd never shut the door in your face. My integrity is more important to me than that...
