I have decided to begin selling online. It occurred to me that it could possibly be interesting to maintain a blog to loosely track my progress in this endeavor and in general maintain a log for future personal reference. Hopefully this may also serve as a reference to other people who wish to begin selling online as well.
So what has inclined me to sell online? Well this thought process has had a very interesting history. It began with my discovery of the Wealthy Affiliate University. At Wealthy Affiliate, I learned the basic theories behind online marketing of both products and services. They explained how to get visitors, how to convert visitors to buyers, and all that jazz. I tried it out and built my own website as an experiment. The techniques have worked to drive a steadily increasing amount of traffic to my website (though still no sales which is no doubt my fault due to my lack of aggressive sales drive). This all took place ten months ago.
Fast forward to the future. I have been monitoring my website on and off and thinking of working on improving it, but thus far have not had the time or drive to do so as my inspiration seemed to have faded. Then suddenly I had a girlfriend who likes chainmaille. She showed me a chainmaille bikini top on the internet that she has admired and wished to obtain for quite some time. I decided I ought to find a way to purchase it for her. However at 175 bucks, plus $20 more greenbacks for the glow-in-the-dark version, it was a bit out of reach. At some point one of our discussions turned to the chainmaille bikini and she mentioned in passing that I ought to make it for her myself. Now I had considered briefly making chainmaille a few times in the past for armor, however always dismissed it as too time consuming and cumbersome. However now I had incentive to please someone else (and not just anyone mind you, but my girlfriend herself!). So off I went to the local bead shop, Fusion Beads, to track down the necessary tools for the task and get a few rings to practice on. I've now mastered a few patterns and actually find the process to be quite enjoyable, though this mostly because someday, when I get good enough I can surprise my girlfriend with a variety of gifts.
I am not sure exactly how I realized. It was no doubt while I researched concepts for my girlfriend that I realized that I could sell chainmaille online. That got me brainstorming. If I could make and sell chainmaille, I could totally recoup the costs and expenses of this new hobby in addition to providing myself with plenty of practice, some additional money (which will come in handy as I shall soon be graduating from college and have upcoming loan payments). So the plan is to use all the tips and tricks I learned through Wealthy Affiliate to drive traffic to my products, make sales, and generally just learn how to make quality chainmaille jewelry while having fun!
Keep tabs on this blog if you are curious about my progress. I wouldn't mind having a few followers to post my updates for, though this is also going to be a good practice for me as I try to begin selling. If anything big happens I'll let you know!
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