As a woman that quit her full time teaching position to try a totally new way of life I took a two year vacation. Then I suddenly had a small business and I was an Etsy maker and seller.
Not really!
I was learning how to plan, drive, explore, and be a full time/off-grid RVer for a couple years. I also started a little rental home business with my husband.
In September of 2020 I officially began my Etsy business, UpcycleThreadsShop (now called Upcycled by Lara). I wanted a way to be creative and als re-home the objects I make. I find sewing to be a fun way to express myself.
Background: Our RV Life
A few things to know about how we live which will give further context to the selection of Etsy over the other platforms available to makers and sellers.
First off, we have an official address which we use for our vehicle registrations, to receive mail, and vote. We do not ever live at that location.
With no intention of living in sticks and bricks again in the near term, so we sold and gave away everything except our photo albums that my parents are very kindly keeping for me.
Andrew and I also live “off grid” as often as possible. This means living on forest land or other public lands normally 20-40 minutes from a post office or town.
I Started My Selling Life
When I began by selling on Etsy. I knew NOTHING about sales, selling, etc in stores OR online. NOTHING!! So, I bought an Etsy course that was going to help me get up and running, and by doing what she said I’d easily get traffic to my Etsy shop and wouldn’t need to pay for advertisement.
I bought the course for over $500 (I do believe in learning from those that know) and did everything she said; reworked what I listed as I practiced and got better at the listings.
I earned only a couple sales that were made thanks to my lovely friends. This seemed like it was not going to be a business model I could depend on. I decided to make my own site. Upcyclethreads.shop (now, Lara.Earth) was born!
I followed a few people on YouTube who promised an easy store for selling. Then, I built a sort of functioning and not very attractive site. Finally, I added the WooCommerce plugin which worked well once learning the secrets of listing.
Unfortunately, again, I saw no sales except for my friends from Facebook. I am very grateful to my wonderful friends! I finally decided to only sell on Etsy. That’s another long story you can read about here!
What Are Other Options?
Shopify, Facebook Marketplace, Instagram, EBay, and other Etsy “like” platforms are available.
I looked at each of them. My friend has a website, an Etsy Shop, and uses Marketplace on Facebook. She gets many sales from Facebook and so I looked into it.
As of the last time I looked, January of 2021, Marketplace wouldn’t allow me to ship my items. I could only sell locally. I don’t have a “local” so Marketplace is not an option for me.
Another consideration was changing my location as we traveled – to be local where we were. Also not a possibility. There was no way for me to change my location from my actual mailing address. Another downfall of FB Marketplace is that they do not collect and remit sales tax.
What about Instagram and Shopify? Nope, these are not a great option. I do not make enough money at this time to pay $40ish a month to Shopify to be on their site. I do not have enough followers to access this new online selling team up between Instagram and Shopify, either.
The worst part is they DO NOT collect or remit sales taxes!
Selling on Instagram through my feed would be possible and a lot of work. I would need to deal with sales tax every quarter on my own. This might be an option in the future… but not right now.
What about Ebay? I don’t think that’s the right market for upcycled and handmade items. Although, it might be a place I consider in the future because they do collect and remit sales tax.
Sales Tax
Here is the bottom line about sales taxes and online businesses as I understand it (I am not an accountant).
As of 2017, Congress put in regulations that say if you sell stuff to people in your state or other states you must pay the sales tax to the state where the purchaser is.
State sales tax is paid quarterly. That means four times a year I would need to sit down, go through my sales, and send checks to any state where someone purchased something from me.
Let me be honest about my ability to pay bills on time. When autopay was first offered in the early 2000s my husband and I immediately made use of this service. This is probably the only reason we pay all our bills on time. I want to be good at the business side of Upcycle Threads Shop (now Upcycled by Lara), but I have to be honest that I focus on the moment. I focus on being creative and enjoying what I’m doing. Paying bills is not something I enjoy so it is not something I would do well.
I also attempted a WooCommerce page as a part of this website. The platform also made me responsible for taxes.
Etsy does all the tax work for sellers. They calculate, collect, and send these taxes to the states on my behalf. They do take a cut of each sale I make, and I do pay $0.20 per listing, but I don’t get into trouble for not paying sales tax on time!
Bottom Line
For now, I am an Etsy seller. They are keeping track of the money I make. They help me with income and sales taxes.
I want to create with fabric! Also, I want to sell my makes. Over time I want to get good at making content. I want to make enough to pay myself back and begin donating money to Give Well!
For now, Etsy is helping me do this in an honest and stress-free way. I am beginning to get sales through Etsy, from people I don’t know!
Yay!!
This may mean I was too impatient (one of my many character traits) and that becoming a successful seller on Etsy takes time.
