Anyone have experience selling on Etsy?

fignewt74

My SIL lives in India and wants me to help her sell Indian (mala) jewelry on Etsy.  I told her "yes!  sounds great!" but now am worried I am getting in over my head.  I already work 2 days per week, and somehow my other 3 weekdays seem to fill up very quickly with errands, classes, playdates, etc.  I pick up DS1 everyday at 3:30, and I really can't get much done then because I am outnumbered until DH gets home.  Then its dinner, homework, bath, bedtime, etc...you guys know how it goes.

Anyway, I said yes to my SIL, but now am worried about how much time this is going to take because I really don't have much spare time in my life as it is.  My spare time is from 9pm until I go to bed, but I cherish that hour or two to chill, watch TV, and reconnect with DH.

Anyone have any idea of how much time it would take to set up a storefront on Etsy, and then sell?  I am not sure if we are talking about packaging the items and shipping them, or if I would just be in charge of reconciling orders and cash flow...

Puck1182

I used to make jewelry to sell on Etsy, but I haven't done it since DD was born because I already have two other jobs. For me the biggest time suck was photographing the jewelry, editing the photos and creating the listing. Processing orders didn't take too long and the financial end wasn't too bad either.

But I wasn't doing it as a primary source of income, it was more of a fun, income-generating hobby thing. Anyway, if your SIL will be handling photography and creating the initial listing, as long as her sales volume isn't too crazy I think it would be doable for you to handle order processing and financial stuff if your only other outside employment has you just working two days a week. If she expects you to create all the product listings from scratch, that might take up more time than you'd like if she's planning to have a lot of unique, one of a kind items.

lbonga1

I agree with puck and byebyebooze. I used to sell cloth diapers on Etsy, but I stopped because they took too long to sew when I was working full time. If you do end up doing the shipping part of it too, I would suggest getting a small scale (kitchen scale works fine), and some poly mailer bags. That's the cheapest way to ship.

ohlordy

Agree with everyone ... All the little bits that make a whole etsy shop are all very time consuming. Creating listings, taking photos, editing, uploading, posting the listings, sales, shipping, all that jazz. It was fun, but it was a ton of work for one person, not to mention I was sewing all of my orders myself (I did oven mitts, pot holders, aprons). It's not anything I would even consider doing as a side-gig now because of how much time has to be invested. If you're only in charge of a small portion, definitely doable!

JumpAroundBucky

I currently have a store with storenvy (similar to etsy, but no fees). It's a LOT of work. I actually had to cut down what I was doing and go completely digital. I was shipping products, and now I just have them available for download because I couldn't keep up. If you're just in charge of the site though, I'd say that's a lot easier. The packaging and shipping and everything was a lot more time consuming.