I opened CandiMaker Stickers on January 13, 2023 and had 8 orders that first half-month. In February, I had another 8 orders. Then in March I had 22 orders including my first two multi-quantity orders totaling over $10. April was slower with only 16 orders...most of which were at the beginning and the end of the month. I also got my first orders for the custom name stickers that I'd added. :) And then in May, I had another 22 orders which included several multi-product orders including magnetic bookmarks AND a repeat customer (other than my sister). Her first order was ten 2" rare disease awareness stickers and then less than 2 weeks later she ordered three different 3" stickers and my first magnetic bookmark sale! And four days later, someone else ordered two more magnetic bookmarks, which prompted me to revamp my magnetic bookmarks packaging to match the vendor/wholesale packaging that I have for my stickers. And now I've already had several orders for the start of June. As of today, I'm at a total of 81 orders and 96 sales. Make that 82 orders and 97 sales! I literally just received another sticker order. :) Oh, and "sales" means the number of items sold...although an order that has multiple quantities of the same item only counts as 1 item for some reason. So the order above where she ordered ten of the same sticker, that results in only 1 sale. But her second order for three different stickers and a magnetic bookmark...that one counts as 4 sales.
Ever since I started CandiMaker Stickers, I've paid a lot less attention to my other two Etsy shops. CandiMaker Designs has slowed significantly. I still had several orders between January and March for my He Is Risen design, which has been the most popular since January 2022. Then I sold a few other designs in April...but it's been pretty dead since then. I've also not uploaded a new design since I opened my sticker shop...which definitely has an effect on sales. And then in CandiMaker Transfers, I get about one order per month. I made a lot of changes to CandiMaker Transfers this year. My prices in that shop were pretty low to start (but pretty much on-par with my competitors), because I hoped that it would encourage multi-quantity purchases (since shipping is a flat fee regardless of how many items are ordered)...but that wasn't the case. So what I did was increase my individual pricing and then offered a far more deeply discounted rate for 10-packs...which has been working out a lot better.
I've been thinking a lot about whether or not I want to continue offering sublimation transfers. If not, I can switch my sublimation printer back over to a pigment printer...as it prints larger pages and is a lot faster than my current pigment printer. But I didn't want to do anything until I used all the brand new ink that I'd just put in my sublimation printer. Since I haven't been getting frequent orders, that's taken awhile. :P BUT...yesterday I got an order for SEVENTY total pages of custom 11x17 and 13x19 transfers! I got them all printed today and dropped them off at the post office before they closed. I'm taking this large order as a sign that I should keep my sublimation printer going...at least for now. :)
However, I do think I'm going to switch back to combining my digital download and printed transfer Etsy shops. It will be easier from an administrative perspective to maintain two Etsy shops rather than three...especially since CandiMakerDesigns and CandiMakerTransfers products are so closely related. So I'm going to be working on that this week.
However, I do think I'm going to switch back to combining my digital download and printed transfer Etsy shops. It will be easier from an administrative perspective to maintain two Etsy shops rather than three...especially since CandiMakerDesigns and CandiMakerTransfers products are so closely related. So I'm going to be working on that this week.
In other news, we will hopefully soon have a riding lawn mower! My parents found one at a garage sale that needed a battery. So if my dad can get it going, we'll finally have a riding lawn mower! We have a fairly large lot so it'll be a lot better than the push mower, that's for sure. Hopefully we'll have good luck with it...our house tends to be the place where lawn mowers go to die (even if brand new!). :P I think we've had, like, 6 different lawn mowers in the last 10 years...two or three of them we bought brand new. So we shall see!
Bozley turned THREE years old on June 1st! He's been doing really well. He's eating a lot better lately, too! He would rarely finish his entire bowl of food and I'd have to try to get him to finish it again later...but this week he's been eating it all! We still feed the dogs twice a day...and Nova still tells us whenever she's ready to eat. ;) One morning last week when Johnny had a doctor appointment, we got up earlier than usual. Nova was ready to eat right away so they had breakfast. Then I had a headache so I laid down while Johnny was gone. Well...when we got up she wanted to eat breakfast again. LOL. She didn't get another breakfast...but the rest of the day she kept trying until it was finally dinner time. ;)
We finished watching Manifest this past weekend. They released the final 10 episodes of season 4. It was pretty good. I was SO tired of the Angelina storyline, but I like how it all eventually played out. I really liked the ending. Actually...it's kinda funny because the short story that I wrote in 7th grade (based on a recurring dream I had as a child/teen) was basically the same ending. I can't really go into much more detail though without spoiling the ending. ;)
I've also gone back to watch Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. I loved that show when I was a kid. I think a lot of kids get their ideas about relationships from watching Disney movies and other fairytales...but I think the Dr. Mike and Sully relationship was the fairytale relationship in my mind when I was little. ;) It's amazing all the social and political issues that show touched on that is still relevant today...like banning books. :P It was one of my favorite shows as a kid. That was back when you watched cable TV and could record shows with a VCR...and my mom recorded every single one!
Well...I think I'm going to get back to work on CandiMaker stuff. I hope everyone has a good week!