Grand Opening ~ Rivermist Clay Etsy Shop

Slow but surely we are listing items on our Etsy shop ~ Rivermist Enterprises . It's actually harder than it seems. My husband, Ken purchased a book as a Christmas gift this past year which explains how to make Etsy profitable, and there is so much more to it than just throwing a listing out there. First comes the photography, which is why I built the DIY light box.

I want my photography to stand out, plus I want to show every detail that makes our ceramics and pottery unique. This means taking several photos of each item, picking out the three to five best photos. Then comes editing in Adobe Lightroom to make certain that the piece is represented in true colors.

Each mug has to be measure for fluid ounces, then comes the listing.

Coming up with a catchy title, description, and tags takes some brain power. I want to make sure that the person looking for a Lord of the Rings mug will find mine!

Then comes shipping. As someone who has fiddled with selling items on Ebay, I know what it is like to sell an item only to realize that I hadn't charged enough for shipping. Just recently I sold and antique collector's book written in 1781 on Ebay. For whatever reason, Ebay limited the amount I could charge for shipping to $8. The actual shipping cost when I added signature required came to $11.50, so I ended up eating the rest. I've tried to guestimate what these items will cost to ship, but I'm not so sure I'm in the right ball park, which means I need to go to USPS.com and try to figure out what the cost of shipping will be, which is also time consuming.

Next came the decision to ship internationally or not. I recently joined an eCommerce Facebook group, so asked some of the seasoned veterans what they think about international ship. I've heard horror stories about chargebacks due to a customer claiming they hadn't received an item. The consensus was pretty clear that shipping to Canada, Great Britain, most of Western Europe, and Australia was pretty safe. I was surprised at the advice to stay away from South America, but not surprised about avoiding selling to places with unrest. At this time, just to make things simple, I'm only shipping to the U.S. until I can get a good picture of shipping costs to other countries.

We sold four items yesterday after I announced on Facebook that the store is open. So then the question arose between my daughter an I about reproducing our best sellers. Here is the deal. This is handmade ceramics and pottery. When you purchase ceramics made in a manufacturing plant, every item is pretty much identical. The reason for this is that the items are made in a mold. More than likely a machine glazes the piece. While the item is pretty, what it is missing is the artistic quality that makes a piece unique. When you purchase from Rivermist Clay, no two pieces are exactly alike. So yes, we can make recreate a piece similar to what is shown in a photo, but there will always be variations. Rachel and I decided that yes, we will recreate pieces but in our listing we will make it perfectly clear that the product will have some variation from what is pictured.

Then came the question of whether or not we wanted to offer a customer a choice of colors. We are still tossed on that one, and haven't come to a conclusion.

Like I stated, this is a time consuming endeavor.

In any case, the store is now open and here are a few of our listings. Check out the entire store for more!

Triquerta Trinity Celtic Knot Mug