Sunday, April 26, 2009

There's No "Spur of the Moment" in Buisiness

I learned this the hard way.
I have had a shop on Etsy for over a year, and it's doing very well....I'm happy.
However there's always that little thing inside you that wants you to do something different than you normally do. For me, it's these little drawings of girls with kind of big ears (inspired by myself and my daughters that all live proudly with this trait). I wasn't, and still am not sure what to do with them, but I've been fiddling around with the idea of opening a second, completely different shop to put them in....whatever form I end up trying to sell them as.
On Saturday I had a bunch of time to myself and on the "spur of the moment" I went ahead and opened a second store. I had come up with a name, checked Etsy and it was available. While I was registering it, I decided on "the spur of the moment", to change the last letter from an s to a z. Much cooler (probably not cool anymore actually) that way, and I figured it would be uncommon that way.
I went to photoshop, made a banner, and even listed my first 3 items...cards. I felt accomplished.
For about 5 minutes.
I don't know what made me do it, but I googled my cool new shop name with a z, and .....HOLY CRAP!!! There was a boatload of listings....books...and other things. I guess this was the name of a character I had never heard about before.
Nothing to do about it, but empty my new Etsy shop and ask to have it closed. Which I did.
Lesson learned..research first. Spent the rest of the day eating chips.