This is A VERY LONG article but answers MANY questions about selling online in general and about selling through your own Main Street Boutique in particular.

Background material...

As you may have read in my Bobbin-Buzz posts in January 2009,  Holly and I are very concerned about the general economy of America and our members.  Unemployment is up and the general economy is down.  But one thing I realized is that statistics are not an accurate picture of what really happens in a recession.  When the statistics say "the unemployment rate is 7.8% as of last Tuesday", that really means nothing to individuals.  Because if you are part of the 92.2% that are working, it's just bad news on the TV, but if you're part of the 7.8% that are out of work, it's hitting home. 

Our idea is to help as many of you as possible who want to own an online business to get started now.  If you are still fully employed then you can look at your online business as a hedge against future downturns and as a supplemental income.  If you're already layed off or not working your normal hours then it's not a future situation, it's a present one.  Either way, we're glad your doing something now.

Sellers fall into two categories... those who want to sell digital products and those who want to sell physical products.  We have sold both and know the inside details on both these business types. 

What we're doing...

We have opened up a new service within ATW called  "Main Street Boutiques".   Members who want to own an online store will have their own "Boutique"  (a special type of photo gallery) where they can list thier products for sale.

Most people reading this are already familiar with how our ATW photo galleries work, but a "boutique" is a special type of photo gallery we can create that includes  "Link To" field.   When a shopper clicks a thumbnail size photo, they see the full size photo.  If they click the full size photo they are taken to your Paypal payment window where they can purchase the item they just clicked on. 

In addition to the Boutique page, each boutique owner also has a special page where only you can upload items to your boutique page.  And as a boutique owner, you will also be able to advertise your items in our Daily News.  In fact, I'll ask that you DO run ads there as well as advertising in Yahoo groups.  I'll cover this in more detail later. 

Six steps to selling online...

First there is the prep-work...

1) Create a website where customers can see and buy your products.  As a boutique owner, we will do that for you - you just add your products to your sales page)

2) Make a way for the customers to purchase your products. (I'll show you how using Paypal)

3) Set up a method for delivering your products to your customers.  (For digital products I've made a tutorial for how to deliver automatically. For physical products, I can coach you through the steps if you need help.)

Then there is the on-going work in order to make sales...

4) Add new products to your offerings. (See below for details)

5) Notify your potential buyers of your new (and existing) products. (Use our Daily News AND other advertising places we'll talk about shortly)

6) Deliver your products to your customers. (Digital product must be auto-delivered when sold in our boutiques / physical product must be shipped)

Repeat 4-5-6 then

Repeat 4-5-6 then

Repeat 4-5-6 then

Repeat 4-5-6 then 

You see, owning an business means continuing to add new products, advertising them, and delivering them to your customers.

Chances of success...

Let me be frank with you... (even though my name is Larry!)  As you may already know, most small businesses (2 out of 3) do not last through their first year.  And 9 out of 10 fail within their first 5 years.  Most close because the expenses exceed the income and the owner runs out of money to fund the business or realizes that it's a losing proposition and quits before he does run out of money.  The upside to owning a Main Street Boutique is that your expenses should be nearly zero.  The downside is that there is then no pressure to succeed.  With no pressure, many times people lack the motivation to do the work required to for success.  (See 1-6 above)   That may sound harsh but I've seen it happen dozens of times.   

If you are a digitizer and are selling designs, I can ALMOST guarantee you that you will be successful if you use our Main Street Boutique system, meaning you follow the steps I outline.  I say that because we have been selling designs for many years and have helped others to sell their designs.  We know exactly what it takes.

If you are selling craft items, I can tell you that it's a lot harder but you will have an above-average chance of success here.  Why is it harder?  If you've ever set up a table at a craft show you know exactly what I'm talking about!   Here are some of the challenges to making a successful craft business...

1) Many people look at your craft products and think "I can do that myself, why would I pay for one of those!" and off they go with a new project in mind. 

2) Many people look at your products and think "That's too much money, she must be crazy to think anyone would pay that much" and they won't buy it.

3) You find that the only price point you can get sales at works out to 50-cents an hour for your time to make the item.  Eventually, you get tired of working for nothing.

4) Many people never see your products because they are not used to looking online for craft products to buy.  They look instead at stores, craft shows, etc.  They look online for information.

That said, I still encourage you to PURSUE YOUR CRAFT BUSINESS IDEA ANYWAY!   One reason is that it's your idea to make and sell craft items.  If that's what you want to do, then do it!  Another reason is that you have nothing to lose here.  With nearly zero expenses for this on-going craft show, you may be able to make your craft business profitable. 

Some people DO make money in craft businesses.  It's just a lower percentage than in some other businesses.  Take heart though, at least you're not opening a restaurant.  :-) 

 Statistically, a restaurant is the least likely to succeed business that a person can open.  It's also the dream of millions of people to open a restaurant!  A friend of our is a CPA and restaurant consultant.  He says there is a standing joke in that business... "How do you become a millionaire in the restaurant business?  Start with two million!"   Yet some people DO succeed with restaurants, so don't be afraid to give your craft business idea a try!

If you're a "craft business owner", let me give you a tip that could turn your whole business idea upside-down and make you much more successful...  

While you may be successful selling your craft products, you may be MORE SUCCESSFUL selling a TUTORIAL on how to make your craft product instead! 

You're probably thinking "Why would I give away how to do what I do?  I'd have more competition!".   To which I would say, I didn't say give away, I said SELL.  And if you re-read those items 1 through 4 above you'll see why I suggest this alternative.  If you figure the time you spend on making a product, and the materials that go into the product, and the costs to pack and ship the product, and your bottom line profit and dollars-per-hour,  it may be way more profitable for you to instead show other people how to make their own. 

Remember the reasons I outlined in 1, 2, 3, and 4 above?  This idea eliminates all four of those problems. Instead of buying materials, assembling the product, and shipping it to your customer, you can create a tutorial that is automatically delivered to your customer without you ever touching the order.  You collect your payment and the tutorial goes to your customer. Period.  No inventory. No labor.  No shipping.  You spend your time making up your next tutorial and advertising your products.

As I said before, many people looking at products in a craft show are already thinking "I can make this myself" or "That's too much money".  So why not help them make it themselves or let them find out how many hours of THEIR TIME it takes to make a whatzit.    

What's in it for you...

Obviously you can sell your products.  You'll have an e-commerce site here ready for you to stock with your items.  We do not charge you the huge fees that other sites charge for selling space. And we take NO COMMISSION on your Boutique sales.  Unlike Ebay, Etsy, or other places, we're not taking a percentage of your income.  And by using our site, you will already have an audience that's already interested in what you make and sell.  

How much are the fees...

Monthly fees for boutique sellers are $30 a month and that includes the ability to advertise in our Daily News which is normall $25 by itself.  In other words, it's just $5 a month more than the cost of using our advertising system.  And, there is no long term commitment.   

Let me say that again so it's clear...  The fee for advertising in the Daily News is $25 a month.  If you own a boutique then your monthly fee is $30 and that includes advertising in the Daily News.  In other words, the boutique costs you $5 a month more than charge for advertising in the Daily News.

We do not sell boutique space without including the advertising privelege.  While you could put up a boutique and not run ads in the Daily News, it would be foolish to do so because the advertising is what brings customers to your boutique to make purchases.  Without the ads, you wouldn't have any sales.  Without sales, you wouldn't keep your boutique for very long and I would have spent the time setting up your boutique for you only to have you quit a month or two later due to lack of sales.  

Let's talk more about the "Daily News"...

As a Boutique owner, I will ask that you advertise in the Daily News.  Why?   Because the one thing we don't want is a Boutique that fails due to lack of freely available advertising.  I know that the Daily News is one of the best places you can advertise.  And it costs you nothing!  So advertising in the Daily News is one way to show that you're serious about success.

But the Daily News is only half of the advertising equation!  The other half is to reach out to the readers of Yahoo groups.   Advertise your Boutique page in the appropriate Yahoo groups and you will not only boost your own sales, but those of all the other Boutique owners as well, because one of the things you'll notice when you look at our sample Boutique page is a "popover".    

The popover will only come up once per day regardless of how many boutique pages a customer visits.  I know most people hate popups of any type, including me.   Technically, this is not a popup, it is a "lightbox".  But what's important about this is that whatever you call it, it works!  The popup will get customers onto our Daily News mailing list where you will then have a much better chance of selling them your designs or craft items.  So each time you get someone to visit your Boutique from your Yahoo advertising, you are building the daily advertising list that we all advertise to in the Daily News.  And each time another Boutique owner adverstises in a Yahoo group. they are building your sales too!  So that makes everyones ads in the Yahoo groups a VERY valuable addition to sales in all of our boutiques.

Most customers will visit several boutiques on any given day.  They will see the popup only on the first boutique they visit for the day. After that they won't see it.  On some days your boutique may be the first one they visit so they will see the popup on your page that day.  On other days your Boutique may be the 2nd, 5th, or 10th one they visit.  They'll only see the popup on the first boutique they visit.

You may notice that the popup actually does two things...

1st... it tells the buyer to CONTACT YOU  (not US)  if they have a question or a problem with an order they place with you.  We already know that some of them will buy from you then contact us with problems, but we're trying to head off as many of those as possible by reminding everyone who buys from a Boutique every day that they are buying from YOU instead of from us and we can't help them with order problems.

2nd... It asks the visitor to join our Daily News mailing list!  This is the same mailing list that you will be able to advertise to every day.  Right now there are more than 8,000 people who read the Daily News every day. By bringing new people onto your Boutique page from Yahoo group advertising we expect to see our list size double or triple over the next few months.  And THAT'S the reason the popup is there.  Because every time anyone visits ANY of our Boutique pages and gets onto out mailing list, THE SALES POTENTIAL FOR ALL BOUTIQUE OWNERS GROWS!

What am I asking of you as a boutique seller?

I ask that you be serious about doing what it takes to make an online business work for you.  I can put the tools in front of you and I can answer questions,  but only YOU can do the work of creating your products, listing them in your Boutique, and advertising them.  

If you are not using your Boutique, adding products to it, and advertising them, then I will close your boutique and delete it from our Main Street listings to protect those who ARE using their Boutiques.  If a customer comes to browse through the Main Street Boutiques and finds several "dead stores" with no new products then they will give up on browsing our member's Boutiques.  That hurts everyone's business.  It's like going to a shopping mall where 2/3 of the stores are vacant.  It's disturbing and people won't shop the remaining stores. 

If you know you are not going to be able to post new products and advertise your Boutique for a while, please please please tell me as soon as you realize that you're going to be out of business and I will TEMPORARILY HIDE your Boutique for you and suspend the monthly charge for owning a boutique.  When you are ready to come back and pick up with the work of selling online (repeating steps 4-5-6),  let me know and I'll un-hide your Boutique.    But don't just leave your store "unattended" without telling me what's going on and make the entire Main Street look dead! 

What to do when you start... 

1) Get your products added to your Boutique quickly so we can open up for sales on March 1st.  You don't have to add ALL your products, but at least get as many as possible up there for sale.

2) Set up the delivery process so you are ready to handle the orders when they start coming in.  If you sell digital products, use the automated delivery system I've shown in the tutorials.  If you sell physical products, be prepared to ship your customers orders out when you start receiving them.  If you are STUCK on how to do either of these then TELL ME ASAP that you need help.  (But please read the tutorials first and try to follow the instructions found there!)

When you have enough items added to your boutique to open the doors, just let us know and we will add your logo to our Main Street Boutiques page here... http://www.artisticthreadworks.com/public/department329.cfm 

3) Advertise in the Daily News.  Be sure you place an ad or two or three in the Daily News.   You can place up to 3 ads per day and you can place ads up to 2 weeks in advance.  I normally spend about 30 minutes once a week placing my ads in the Daily News for the next 8 days.  You can place ads up to 14 days in advance or the night before the ad will appear.  I like to get mine in and off my to-do list once a week but others like to wait until the last hour so their ad will appear close to the top of the ads.  It's your choice how you do it, but DO place ads.

4) Advertise in the Yahoo groups.  Find the Yahoo groups that allow advertising and run ads for your boutique.  I will have a couple articles about how that is done available to read.

The Yahoo groups is a KEY ELEMENT to sales growth here!  We need people to advertise there.  I am going to ask you to please make a commitment to advertise in the appropriate Yahoo groups on a weekly if not daily basis.  If we have just 30 Boutique owners each running just one ad per day in one Yahoo group per day then together we will have 900 ads per month in the Yahoo groups.  If each ad brings in 10 customers, then together we have generated 9,000 new potential customers for all of us.  About 1/2 of them will join our Daily News mailing list.  You can begin to see the power in numbers when all of us do just a little advertising for our own store.  Imagine the results if we all advertise to 3 (or 4) groups per day and if we have 100 boutique owners doing this! 

100 owners x 3 groups = 300 ads per day.  If each ad brings 10 customers to the boutiques then we have 300 ads x 10 customers x 30 days per month or 90,000 customers visiting boutiques in a month JUST from the Yahoo group ads.   And if 1/2 of those folks get onto our Daily News mailing list, then we soon have a HUGE mailing list that we all advertise to by placing an ad in the Daily News each day. 

Sample Boutique Pages ...

Before you click into the sample pages below...  There is a fictional character I've created named "Jackson Pike" who has just started his own Boutique selling embroidery designs.  These design probably look familiar to all of you!  LOL! 

There are a couple things I'll point out about Jackson's Boutique... 

First, It's a "work in progress".  The pictures are a bit funky for a reason.  I use them in the tutorial to show you different effects you will get when posting a picture.  The "Jack Spratt" and "Bamboo Alphabet" pictures work best in both thumbnail and full-size mode.  The others each have "issues" that are discussed in the tutorial.

And second, the tutorials were created for sellers who are offering embroidery designs or tutorials, but they are just as applicable for those who want to sell craft items.   I'll make changes to the tutorials or add an entirely new one for physical craft item sellers if needed.

Sample Pages And Support Pages...

Main Street Boutique main page...

Sample Boutique sales page...

Sample Boutique Owners Product Upload page...

Tutorials page...

Boutique Owners Forum...

Now that you know more about Boutiques...

If you want to sell your own products in your own boutique then here's what to do next...

Email me at webmaster@artisticthreadworks.com  with the following info...

Your Name / Address / Phone Number

Tell us what you want to sell.  Not all products are appropriate for a Main Street Boutique.  We are looking for embroidery, quilting, sewing, and craft items, as well as products that will appeal to our audience.  We do not allow anything inappropriate for "G" rated audiences.  We reserve the right to deem what is or is not appropriate on our pages.

We will email you back with additional info.