Jilly, a fellow Zibbet seller and owner of the Zibbet shop 'Jilly's Stuff', is featuring assorted Zibbet sellers on her blog - and today it was my turn!
This is the first time I have been featured on a blog, and I am thrilled about it.
I want to add a picture here, so this is my favourite thing from Jilly's shop:
One of my most successful venues is the New Zealand based, handmade-only website Felt.co.nz.
Recently the grand and beautiful city of Christchurch - located in Canterbury, in the South Island of New Zealand - suffered dreadful damage from an earthquake that measured 7.1 on the Richter Scale.
Extraordinarily, because the earthquake struck at 04:35 (local time), most people were asleep in bed, with the result that, despite the severity of the quake, there were no direct human fatalities. Nevertheless, the beautiful and dignified city of Christchurch suffered terrible damage (and at the time of writing this post, aftershocks are still occurring). Sewers were opened, water lines were broken, buildings (many of them historic) and other property destroyed, and people and animals injured.
New Zealanders take pride in their willingness to help each other (perhaps a remnant of our colonial heritage, when neighbours were forced to rely on each other for survival), and the crafters and artists of Felt.co.nz were quick to come up with a way to help: FeltAid.
To every artist, entrepreneur or blogger who has ever struggled; who has ever experienced poverty; who has ever wept with frustration and desperation over their career; who has ever heard the words, 'You're crazy - you can't do it - it's impossible - give up before you go bankrupt - you're an embarrassment - grow up and get a real job' ...
The relaunch of Silverlight Jewellery, with a new look and new designs, took place yesterday (Monday the 13th). The Silverlight Jewellery shops on Felt, Zibbet, and ArtFire were given their new banners, and I started listing the new jewellery designs.
It doesn't sound like much, does it? New banners and new jewellery designs.
Yet there were months of preparation: new branding, new business cards, banners, and stickers, new designs, new photography style, new shop announcements ...
To be honest, I'm now feeling a bit flat. It will be weeks, if not months, before I see any sales from this brand. I had only just managed to get 3 pages of listings into my Whiteleaf Felt shop (the Whiteleaf Zibbet shop is still rather empty), and now I have to pour my energy into the Silverlight brand and hope for a return some weeks down the track.
This 'running your own business' thing ... it's hard work.
That's so glib, so easy to say; so clichéd. But it is. Seriously hard, emotional and mental labour.
What you see in the shops, and on this blog, is the tip of a pyramid of labour. Every decision is important. Every piece of jewellery has to be perfect. Every photograph has to be attractive.
I am Atlas, holding up my own little world of a business, and sometimes it gets rather heavy.
I have been flat out preparing new designs and new photographs for Silverlight Jewellery's big relaunch in - argh - four days' time.
As promised, here's a preview of some of the new designs.
Zibbet.com relaunched today, with a new front page, a sleek new look, and an improved search engine.
It is stupidly cool. As a buyer, I would be hooked on sight. As a seller, I am thrilled to have such a sexy venue for my wares. I feel as though we now have a visual indicator that Zibbet has raised the bar for itself and is openly competing with other such beautiful venues as Etsy and Felt.
Here's a link to Zibbet's new front page.
And ...
to celebrate the relaunch, Zibbet is offering a free sixty-day trial to the first 100 people who sign up for Premium Accounts. The normal cost of a Premium Account is $9.95 USD per month (unless you got in early like I did), which is cheaper than ArtFire!
To obtain the 60-day trial, click on the image below, which will take you to Zibbet, then click 'sell' in the top left-hand corner and sign up for a Premium Account using the coupon code '60FREE'.
Easy.
