So I said that I was going to concentrate on learning more using Instagram and Pinterest but something really interesting popped up in my journey. In our local Etsy group that is now renamed “Columbus Handmade”, the members have been looking for other ways to promote our items online that are more cost efficient and can be found easier by people online. Etsy is just so big that it’s become really hard to get your brand known.
There have been other sites mentioned but, for me, the monthly fees involved are not an option. I like FREE. One of the girls discovered that you can now set up your own online shop using Square. We all just used their credit card reader to take payments. The set up is free and the only charges are their normal 2.75% fee when you make a sale.
So for the past two days I have been working on my site. I already had created my account on their main site because I wanted my items listed when I took payments at an art show. Much easier to just select the item my customer was paying for. But I had to a little more work to add extra pictures and descriptions. You can also add search tags but I haven’t gotten to that yet. My main goal was to embed my store into my blog website. I wanted a one stop site. I did a few items and I think I did the best I could do with what my blog site allows me to do.
So please, check out my page that says “Direct Online Store!” It’s just in the experimental stage but I would be interested in everyone’s thoughts!!!