Quilting for a Cause

I was just over at the Crazy Mom Quilts blog looking for a little inspiration. I discovered that it is her 3rd blogging anniversary (congratulations!) and in honor of it, she is giving away 3 quilts to Margaret's Hope Chest. That donation will get them a little closer to their goal of receiving 400 quilts.

Coincidentally, today I volunteered to help our school work on a pledge quilt for the Climate Quilt Campaign. We're planning on collecting old button-down shirts in the spirit of being green, and then having the children write their pledge on each 6 1/2" square. The pledges are simple achievable things such as "I pledge to take shorter showers," or "I pledge to turn off the lights when I leave a room." The kids get to learn more about how to help their environment, and they'll get to see a little about the art of quilting. A great combo in my book.

I believe the deadline for this project is coming up as they want to present it at the Copenhagen UN Summit, and they're looking for experience quilters to help out. Please visit http://www.climatequilt.org/getInvolved.html for more information.

I'm excited to help, but I'm also excited to get sewing again. And it's all for a good cause.

Random Thought of the Day

My 8 year old had a sleepover birthday party this year, which she has been desperately wanting to have since she turned 7. We had lots of family meetings to plan the party to make sure everyone would have fun. Of all the things the girls did - designing your own goody bag, games from the American Girl sleepover book, pizza and cake, whispering to each other in the dark - they have all told me that the best part of the party was the sewing projects. Who knew?

Spontaneous Shopping

My older daughter was in tears tonight because, among other things, she doesn't want me to get a job "like daddy's." She told me she liked my old job better and more importantly she misses all my fabric. I told her I miss it too, but it just wasn't the right job for me at this time.

The conversation went on an on about how she had plans to make a doll out of fabric and then make clothes for the doll.... I let her know that we live right near a wonderful fabric shop (Purl) and we can always buy the fabric she needs until my stash comes out of storage. She came back with "but it's not your fabric, I really loved your fabric." She really knows how to break my heart.

I'm hoping my spontaneous purchase of wool felt can keep her happy until we get our stuff back in December. It's not doll making, but I'm going to have everyone in the family make a Christmas stocking of their own design. Even my 5 year old can sew felt together now, so I think I can sell to them as a fun family project. Wish me luck with the distraction!

Home

We start renovating in 2 weeks, finally. I've been waiting for 6 weeks for it to start, and now I can't wait until it is finished. I know some of you are curious, so here's the before picture. I'll have to post the after in December when it's all done. The kitchen photographs well, but in real life it is very handmade - in a bad way. Kind of a bummer, but easy to fix.

Yes, the ceilings are that high, and we have 4 of those awesome columns in the main space of the loft. We're so happy now, and will be even more happy when it's finished. Enjoy!

Random Thought of the Day

I've been a knitting fool lately. Socks in particular. They're so much fun, especially when you make kids socks. They're so finishable - always an important thing in my book. I've been knitting a lot because I haven't been able to sew. All of my fabric in storage right now and it will remain there until the end of December when we finish our renovation.

I finally have some free time to myself lately. I would love to spend it on constructing all the quilts I dreamed about making when I had all the fabric in the world to play with but no time play with it. Of course, when I finally have the time to do what I've been wanting to do, I don't have the resources to do it!

Oh well, I guess I'll have to keep on knitting for now and start quilting again in the new year.

Your Own Web Shop - Part 2

For me, the 2 biggest issues to consider when building your eCommerce website are Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Usability. These things are really quite dependent on each other. To build your customer base you need to easily found, but to keep those customers you have to have a site that is easy to use. I always harped on the importance of Web Usability, but having never worked in online retail before, I didn't realize how important SEO was to the success of a site.

SEO:
Unfortunately I'm not an expert on SEO, so I can't advise on how to improve your existing shop. But I can say that if you're starting from scratch, it's important to interview your hires about their SEO experience. It will only benefit you to make a good hire in this department, even if it costs a little more. What you'll save in monthly advertising expenses will be worth a little more money spent up front. Trust me on this one. I spent months trying to get my fabric found in Google searches, and no matter what I did, it all came back to issues with the coding of the site.

Usability:
I'm a big fan of usability. There is a fantastic book called "Don't Make Me Think" which basically explains how visitors to your website will spend more time on there if they don't have to think about how to use it. For example, if your customer has to think about how to add something to their shopping cart, they might not make that purchase. If your customer can't find a coordinating print to the one they fell in love with, they may not purchase either. You may have the most visually beautiful website out there, but if it isn't easy to use, you may not make the sales you are looking for.

When designing my shop, I kept going back to all the things I like about other sites I've shopped on, and thought about how I shop for fabric in brick and mortar stores. I love the color wall in quilt shops, so I wanted to make sure that you could sort the fabric by color on my shop. When shopping online it always frustrated me how many clicks it took to add a bunch of fabric to my cart, which resulted in my Quick Shop. It was important to me that you didn't have to go back to your shopping cart every time you added a new fabric - especially with the Quick Shop - so I designed an overlay that opened up to display the cart and then automatically closed.

From the feedback I have received, I think I had a pretty usable website. I never had complaint about how to find something, even though I didn't have a search function, and the only issues that ever came up were because of a glitch with PayPal. My checkout process needed work, but overall in the usability department, I think I was a success.

When designing a shop from scratch, it is important to ask how you think your customers will expect to shop on your site. Don't make assumptions such as 'they'll find it' or 'they'll figure it out' because they won't, or more importantly, they won't want to. There are other shops out there that may be easier to use. Make sure that if you get that customer to your shop, you keep them there and encourage them, through usability, to make their purchase with you.

I have been busy working on a few projects outside of the selling fabric world. One of these is a usability project that I'd love your feedback on. But before I post about it publicly, I want to get permission from the sites owners. Get ready to do some clicking around and note taking. I'm hoping this exercise will gel the importance of having a usable site.

Random Thought of the Day

I am loving my new neighborhood. So many new shops to visit, restaurants to eat at, and places to grab a cup of coffee. I'm actually not a coffee drinker, but since my sisters-in-law opened a cafe in Berkeley last spring, I now pay attention to these kinds of things.

Being in New York, I obviously can't visit their cafe, Local 123 on a regular basis. This morning I found a place that reminded me of their cafe, offering local, organic and sustainably farmed foods. It's the kind of place that when you shop there you feel good about your purchase.

It made me come to the realization that while I can't support my sister-in-law's cafe on a regular basis, I can support one just like it locally, and in doing that I am supporting their business. I'm supporting a place that has a similar philosophy, a similar business structure, and most importantly individuals who are taking a risk to make a living doing something they love.

Summer Break

I didn't mean to, but I guess I took the month of August off!

Before the big move, I did manage to finish up not one, but two colonial style dresses. The first one was quite a bit of work, and when it was done my younger daughter said, "I want one too! Will you pleeeease make one for me too! In pink?" So I did.

You can see our boxes all stacked up in the background. Packing and sewing, a great way to end July.


I had been meaning to post about my little pattern trick months ago, better late than never.

I use architects trace to copy patterns. It is the perfect weight, see-through, comes on long and wide rolls and isn't too expensive. I used this sketch paper daily when I studied architecture in school and almost always had a roll in my hand. When I got back into sewing after so many years of not touching fabric I made the connection and pulled out an old roll.

Anyway, enjoy!

Your Own Web Shop - Part 1

How do you know if it is time to move on from a venue-type online storefront? If you answer yes to any of these, it may very well be time.

- Have you started paying hundreds of dollars in advertising each month to generate the amount of sales you need to stay viable?

- Do you want some flexibility in the look and layout of your online shop?

- Are you already marketing yourself daily to the point where you feel like you are driving most of your sales yourself?

- Are you comfortable enough with HTML to make small edits yourself, or do you have someone who can make small changes on the site for you.

If you answered yes to any of these, it may very well be time.

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Once you've made the decision to go out on your own, you have several options of how to get a shop up and running. They range from the basic and affordable to the extremely expensive. Every additional feature you want on your site is going to cost you, so keep that in mind when shopping around.

Step number 1. Register your own domain name. If you haven't already done this, take a break and go do it now. Go Daddy or Register.com are places I've used. It doesn't cost a lot, and it keeps you the owner and in control of your URL.

Step number 2. Decide what ecommerce solution is right for you.

This post will briefly discuss the "all in one" ecommerce solution. It is based on templates, fully functional without much work at all and often will cost a monthly fee.

Yahoo! shops is one example of this type. They have a one time set up fee (in Yahoo!'s case $50.00) plus a flat monthly fee ($39.95) plus a transaction fee (1.5%). So if you're making sales of about $5000/month - your fees to Yahoo! are about $114.00/ month. *** Those are fees to your host/provider only. You will also be paying a monthly merchant account fee.

An advantage to this type of set up, it's quick, it's easy and it really doesn't cost much. If it is a tried and true package, it may have good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) which will help reduce your advertising expenses in the long run. It is an important question to ask before committing to a provider.

Another "all in one" solution is Volusion. Their pricing is based on the number of products you sell. An important thing to consider if you're a fabric shop. You may start out with 400 bolts, but when some of them don't sell and you buy more you'll find you're quickly at 600 then 1000 in the blink of an eye.

There are many more of these types of solutions out there - feel free to name your favorite in the comments. The two I've named are the ones I'm most familiar with. When looking into these kinds of solutions, it is best to figure out your own needs first. For example, if you want to sell fabric by the quarter yard, can they accommodate that? What is their administration panel like - is it easy enough to add products? Do they have gift card options? Newsletters? Is the shopping cart/ checkout easy to use? You get the picture. Make a wish list and start doing some research!


Next up: Your Own Web Shop - Part 2

Benefits of Your Own Online Shop

I have a lot to say on this topic, but very little time this week. I'll save the recommendations part for next week.

Pros:
- You are in control of the site design, web functions, branding, messaging etc.
- Setting up your own shop allows for flexibility. (Do you plan to expand your offerings? Want to highlight a sale? Arrange items next too each other that coordinate?)
- If you are selling full time, your merchant fees may be less than selling on a venue.
- You can sell more than one thing at a time without having to go back and forth with your customer multiple times.
- Your customer has the ability to shop how they are used to shopping online. For example, you will have an integrated checkout system.
- All advertising dollars direct customers to your shop, not a place where they can find the same item in someone else's shop.
- You can offer gift cards/ gift certificates that integrate with your shopping cart.
- You can create a community aspect to your shop.
- You can include newsletter sign ups directly on your site.
- Your average transaction price will be higher.


Cons:
- You need to market yourself and drive traffic to your shop.
- There is no built in customer base.
- You will need some capital up front to get your shop up and running.
- You may need to hire a developer to make changes to your shop.
- There is no community aspect, unless you create one yourself.

If selling fabric is your full time job, I personally think the pros outweigh the cons. When I left Etsy I felt freer. I no longer spent my days trying to drum up business in my Etsy shop, stalking the shop hoping for one more view to be posted, and chatting in the forums. I spent my time developing my brand, nurturing my customer base, and more importantly, filling bigger orders.

I guess the question you need to ask yourself is this - If you are selling on a 'venue' site, are you happy there? Is is working for you? If not, it's time to start looking for other solutions.

Next up: Recommendations and options for starting your own online shop.


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For all of you who have asked recently, the reason I closed my fabric shop is not because I wasn't doing well - I was doing just fine. I was going to expand to make the business even more viable. But instead of doing that, I decided to liquidate my inventory to help purchase a new home. I plan to go back to working as a web consultant to help pay the bills on the new loft. I am not sad about this decision - I was for a while - but now I am looking forward to fixing up and moving into our new place.

If you'd like a new wonderful online fabric shop to buy fabric with, please visit my sponsors. :)

Far Far Away on SALE one day

ONE DAY ONLY, Heather Ross' Far Far Away is on sale for 30% off ($12.00/ yard). All yardage is listed in my Etsy shop, please check the quantity in stock for availability.

At midnight I will be putting my Etsy shop in 'vacation mode' because it is time for me to pack everything up.

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Most of that went really fast! Thank you! I still have some lovely Snails left. They are much cuter in person, really they are.

Also available - Sweets in mint green - half off, $7.50/ yard. 3 yards left.

And my last 2 Heather Ross Fat Quarter bundles. :)

Etsy Tips and Tricks

I've been thinking about this for the last few hours, and it turns out - I have none! Etsy has changed a lot since I was selling there full time, and I'm not sure how to best be viewed on Etsy anymore.

This is what I've managed to come up with:

1. Don't pay attention to what your competition is doing. You can't control them, so there is no need to waste your energy thinking about it.
2. Don't stalk your Etsy shop. The views there are meaningless. Don't spend your day refreshing your browser hoping that one more person has viewed your item.
3. Don't put all your eggs in Etsy's basket. Try other venues as well. Etsy Bitch has profiles on all of Etsy's competition. You never know - your style might work better elsewhere. Your items might be found more easily on another venue. You might end up selling more outside of Etsy. You'll never know until you try.

Why do I say this? Because once I opened up my own online shop, I stopped spending my whole day waiting for sales to pop up and started using my time to market myself and enjoy the life I set up for myself. There are so many free ways to get your name out there. It takes some work but is well worth it. I mean, you're here reading this right? Shows that I've done something right! :)


If you do sell on Etsy, I will refer you to the following resources:

The Ultimate Newbie Guide

Secrets of Savvy Etsy Sellers

Etsy Hacks. The number one thing you can do to improve your time management of selling on Etsy. If you haven't downloaded all of these hacks, spend your next hour doing so. You'll thank me. Really you will.