It's June 1st. Summer is here and May is officially behind us. And oh what a month May was.
It was a busy month, both personally and professionally. May was the month of moving into a bigger spaces. We moved from an apartment into a house and we moved from a selling platform (Etsy) to our very own website.
Only today did I realize the parallel between those two things.
The transition from selling on Etsy vs. your own domain is very much like the transition from apartment to house. On Etsy you have your own shop name and you customize to a degree, but it's very much like renting. Your little unit is exactly like the next save from little touches, and what you can do to it is limited. There's a lot of noise from next door, and sometimes your neighbors are nice and friendly and sometimes they're a nuisance. Sometimes, unfortunately, there are even bullies.
Now, a house provides its own neighbors with related pros and cons, but you don't share walls with them. Walls that you may or not be allowed to paint, by the way.
Like an apartment Etsy has lots (and lots) of rules about how you can and can't occupy that space, the least complicated being what color the walls can be. Break one of these rules and you can get kicked out (it's important to be aware of the rules, but sometimes you can't help but miss something. In fact Etsy's rules are far more robust and complex than our rental lease.
The point I'm making is that it's possible to get blindsided even if you consider yourself vigilant. There are plenty of blogs and testimonials that illustrate the many different ways in which this can happen.
This can happen even if you're not doing any illegal or 'wrong'. That is because you do not own your Etsy store. Etsy can close your store for any reason. So renting a storefront on Etsy, and renting a unit in an apartment building come with the similar sense of "I don't own this space".
I've read plenty of blogs about business that rely's on Etsy for their main source of revenue only to get blindsided by something seemingly innocuous or innocent.
Just like we decided we wanted the security of owning our own home, we decided we wanted the security of owning our own storefront. We are all moved in to our house but we still have a lot of unpacking and decorating to do in order to make it our own.
Likewise with Graciebellemagic.com, we have purchased our own domain name and are making considerable progress on building our own site, but we still have a bit of work to do perfecting our listing descriptions, photography, titles, etc., before we're ready to fully transition from Etsy to Graciebellemagic.com. We'll probably leave our Etsy active for a while--though we have already scaled it way down and simplified it. (In fact, we may never completely abandon our Etsy business as it's an established store with over 200 sales and over 50 positive reviews, and can still be a viable source of revenue!)
By the time you're reading this, we'll have launched the site and be all moved into our new home. We thank you for visiting GracieBelleMagic.com ! Please message us with any questions at GracieBelleMagic@gmail.com