Thursday 16 January 2014

Sunday 12 January 2014

The Top 5 Social Media Tools for Your Etsy Business


So you've opened an Etsy shop, and you've taken some beautiful pictures of your products to show people what you make - now you need to get the word out!  Here are the best tools that I've found gets your word out and doesn't waste your time:

Wednesday 8 January 2014

Dun dun dun... US state takeover!!!

In what is comparable to stamp collecting, and just as nerdy, I'm very interested geographically in where I've been lucky enough to sell my jewellery to!  In past times I've looked through all the US states, marking them off and trying to complete the set.  Last year I played this game, and found 5 states that Coryographies hasn't sold to.


Well, I can tell you that I'm closer to completing the set by 4! That's right, I'm now only missing Hawaii, and then at least one person in each of the US states will be sporting some fashionable Coryographies jewellery.  That's so cool!!


So... come on, Hawaii. I know you guys like to read too!!


Sunday 5 January 2014

I'm back, and open again! Reflections on 2013

Wow - and I mean wow, what a crazy Christmas.  What started off as a bit of a slow Autumn turned crazy at the end of November, where I dove straight in to full-time Coryographies, and put my PhD studies on the shelf for a whole month, as these little earrings suddenly became my most popular product:
Stack of books earrings by Coryographies
Eventually I had to close my shop just so I could concentrate on the orders at hand!  I reopened my shop on January 2nd, and things seem to be back to normal now.  It was a bit hectic and worrying at times, but luckily all the orders went out on the days they were planned.  It looks like 3 orders to the US got lost in the mail and never showed, and 1 was very late but showed up right on Christmas eve!

All in all it was the most orders I've even done during the Christmas season, this being Coryographies' third Christmas.  I also reached a milestone - I sold my 1000th item on Etsy! That calls for big cheers. But since it happened in the middle of the crazy December, I didn't have any time to celebrate!

So now, I've finally recovered, and as I say, things are back to normal.  I can start going to the library again for studying, do my Etsy admin in the morning and make jewellery when I come back in the evenings. My husband, a fellow archaeology PhD, will be leaving for a month of fieldwork starting next week so I'll be all on my lonesome!  Luckily, that means you'll probably see more posts from me as I become bored and start posting more...

I've been spending the morning looking back on 2013 (and trying to make sense of what just happened in December!), and looking at the places I was able to send my packages in 2013.  Here are the countries I was lucky enough to send to, in a rough order of most to least:
  • United States
  • United Kingdom
  • Canada
  • Australia
  • France
  • Germany
  • Switzerland
  • Sweden
  • Ireland
  • New Zealand
  • Italy
  • The Netherlands
  • Finland
  • Russia
  • Czech Republic
  • Romania
  • South Korea
  • Brazil
  • Peru

Hooray! All that was pretty exciting - I thin the most exciting was Peru, which I had never sold to before and sent my first ever order.  I've always wanted to visit Peru after I read a book set there when I was a child, and when I was a child my family actually looked after a llama in our back yard for a couple of months.  A funny story for another time...  

Well I'm off to tabulate if I've finally reached my goal of selling to all 50 states in the US.  I know I haven't completely, as I've never sold to Hawaii.  So... if you are from hawaii and reading this... please have a look at my cute book jewellery and see if you'd like it!  Maybe I should make a unique discount for all Hawaiian customers?  What do you think, 50% off to Hawaiian addresses???