Sewing for Cash - make money sewing

Gardening and sewing go perfect together

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Mon, 21 May 2012 19:18:00 PDT

This post brought to you by Whitney Farms. All opinions are 100% mine.

I am a multifaceted person like most of you are. I do love to sew but I am an avid gardener and orchid plant lover. I find that sewing keeps me busy during the winter months but when the first signs of warm weather hit I am in my greenhouse planning for my spring vegetable garden.

I have tried a dozen or so different products for starting seeds with various results. I have tried organic soil as well as potting soil with polymers for added moisture control. I have gone the organic plant food route in the past but had to resort to chemical pest control because one year the aphids just took over one section of the garden.

There is currently one maker of plant food and organic products that is offering a $3 coupon, they are Whitney Farms(R) With the price of potting soil and plant foods now over $10, $3 off sounds pretty good.

Today the weather is a bit cooler than it has been for the past 5 days so I will be going outside to add some cauliflower plants to the veggie garden. So far I have 3 kinds of squash, tomatoes, potatoes, broccoli and asparagus. Below is a photo of part of my garden. Most of the plants are just getting started.

I have also sewn some items that I use while gardening. I have a short pocketed apron that holds my hand garden tools and gloves when I am not using them. I also embroidered a few ball caps to wear - light colored ones so they won't absorb the heat when I am outside.

Well, I had better get off of this computer and put my gardening gloves on, got more plants to put in.

Making a celtic knot - a video

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Thu, 10 May 2012 09:16:00 PDT

The stunning heart shaped celtic knot is very easy to make and can be added to a variety of projects. Watch the video above and you will be making them in time for this coming Mother's Day.

You can now get Sewing for Cash on your Kindle. Just click on the link to take you there. There is a free trial period.

Video Lesson - How to sew a French seam

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 09:16:00 PDT

A French seam is another way to have the edges of your seams bound. Take a look at the 4 minute video below to see how it is done.

I personally would have skipped the first pressing of the seam open and just done the last iron step. To each their own.

You can now get Sewing for Cash on your Kindle. Just click on the link to take you there. There is a free trial period.

Business

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 22:05:00 PST

Guest post of the week by Deangelo Spencer

My kids grow out of shoes and clothes like it is their full time job! I used to get so aggravated because I would buy this whole wardrobe in one size for my son and before it was even the next season, he would outgrow that size. That is why I decided to open an upscale children’s consignment store in my hometown in Texas. It was a nightmare getting it up and running. There were so many little details to figure out. One thing I had to do was Get business electricity rates in Coppell. I also had to find the perfect location for the store and figure out a way to pay the rent the first couple months before I made any money. This is seriously the best job in the world. I get to meet so many moms and their kids. I really enjoy what I do and I love being able to get first pick on the clothes that come in the store in my kids’ size!

Backing up your digital files

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 14:11:00 PST

Last week I had my laptop screen die on me. While I knew it was going out (it had a pink tint to it at start up) I kept putting off getting it replaced. Then right when I had a heavy shipping and sewing day, the screen went out.

I would love to say that I backed up everything on a flash drive or used an online backup for my files but I did not. Yes, all of my embroidery files had been backed up but about 4 of them that were custom jobs for clients were still on the laptop and not backed up. So what did I do?

Well, I did not panic since the screen was the only thing that went and not the hard drive. The screen, while being very dark, still barely showed the desk top with a flashlight shining on it. I managed to get the files off of the laptop on to a flash drive. Locating the arrow from the mouse on a darkened screen was a PITA but I managed it.

The next step is to get an enclosure for the hard drive in the failed laptop and slave it to the current laptop so I can get to my other files.

While I would love to say that we should always backup everything everyday from our computers, it is not always possible or practical. I now use several flash drives to keep the files that I am working on at the time and work from those flash drives, just having the main program on the computer. It does save hard drive space and backs up my files at the same time.

Selling on eCrater - part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:59:00 PST

So now that you have opened an eCrater store, designed it and hopefully started to add products to it here is some tips on tweaking it so you can get more visitors.

Your title descriptions should include as many "keywords" as you can fit. Keywords are what people put into search engines to find what they are looking for. For example, say you are listing a red apron that fits a child. You would not describe it as simply a child's apron since that would not get you many views. You would add as many descriptive words to your title description as you can. You would add the color, material, length or an unique features that someone might be looking for. Additionally you would write at least 100 - 200 words in your main description of the item so that Google could filter those words into their search engine. Your goal is that your item will be indexed by Google and show up in searches. Yes, eCrater also sends your item listings to Google shopping but you need to do more to get more customers.

Use as many pictures in your listing as you can. Ecrater allows for many photos for each item so use those spaces. Your customers love photos and want to see as many angles as possible.

The more you list the more you can sell. The average sell through rate for me is 15 - 35 % each month. That means that if I list 100 items a month then I will sell only 15 to 35 of them. That is per month, not per week or day. So in order to sell more you have to list more. I find that if I list about 160 items priced from $8 to $24, I can sell about $20 worth of items a day. For a business that is not good, that is a very small part time hobby income. So to make more money, I have to list more items.

A word about listings. Google does not like identical listings and if they find them, they will bury them in their search engine. Each listing needs to be a different item. If you are listing items that are the same except different colors or sizes then you will need to make a listing for each color or size. You will need to change that listing title and main description to be different enough so that Google does not penalize your listings.

If you missed parts 1 and 2 of this series you can find them listed on my HOW TO page.

You can now get Sewing for Cash on your Kindle. Just click on the link to take you there. There is a free trial period.

Selling on eCrater - part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:00:00 PST

In selling on eCrater - part 1, we covered the basics of getting an account, naming your store and the items you will need to get going. Now I will cover designing that store.

Your bare store will look like this in your dashboard:

Here is where you get to pick a color scheme. Pick a good color that will go with your logos and storefront photo.

Next you will need a good logo that will serve as the button on the top of each of your pages to act as "home." When a visitor clicks on your logo, it will take them to your store front home page.

Please note that you are limited to the size of the logo you can upload.

You will also need to pick a photo for the home page (it will replace the photos of the wine glasses).

After you have uploaded and saved the photos to your store, you now want to put text on your front page. You cannot put any clickable links on any of the pages or your store items so you don't have to worry about HTML or any kinds of coding. You want to go to the "edit texts" link in your dashboard and edit "home", "terms and conditions" (where you will state your shipping policy, returns policy and anything else that will affect your customers transaction with you), and you might want to edit your "about us" to give your customers a little background about your store.

So have some fun and design away.

I'll have another installment of selling on eCrater up in a few days. Don't forget that you can see any of the other parts in this series by going to my How to page.

You can now get Sewing for Cash on your Kindle. Just click on the link to take you there. There is a free trial period.

Dealing with bad buyers on eBay

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:06:00 PST

If you have sold more than a few items on eBay recently then you are well aware of some of the nutty buyers there are out there. In my own experience I get one nut job out of every 30 sales.

Ebay does offer some great filtering settings to weed out some buyers such as the non-paying filter which you can set to filter out buyers that have had more than 2 incidents of not paying for items on eBay in the past year. What eBay does not filter is the scam buyers. Unfortunately I have gotten 3 of them in the past 2 months.

My scamming buyers operate like this:
They buy an item. They typically wait for about a week after they receive it to contact me with a problem with the item. Two of my last 3 have claimed that the item was not described correctly and they have a problem with it. One item was advertised as broken and it even had pictures showing the broken parts. The buyer wanted $10 or they would leave negative feedback. That is called feedback extortion and eBay will close accounts that are found to be trying that. I emailed the buyer back and told him that I would not be refunding any money and thanked him for suggesting the $10 as a pay off for not putting negative feedback and told him in the message that he was guilty of feedback extortion and if he did go through with leaving negative feedback - I would report him. I reported him anyway and added him to my blocked buyers list. He never did leave feedback.

The next buyer claimed the item did not arrive. The delivery confirmation showed it was delivered. I sent back this email which is a standard email for sellers to send out to "missing"deliveries

Dear, XXXXX
I am sorry to hear that your package is missing. First check with your post office, neighbors & family, and if you do not find your package, take the next steps below.

Since Delivery Confirmation was used, the Post Office will investigate why you never received your package, because someone, somewhere, has it. Mail fraud is a felony, and the Post Office takes these type of complaints very seriously. What to do if Delivery Confirmation shows delivery and you don't have the package, USPS can often deliver to the wrong address, or mark the package "Delivered", when it's still in the Post Office. The first thing to do is to contact USPS using this "Lost Mail" form and fill it out:

https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/contactUs/filecomplaint.aspx

This is the only form that will cause USPS to look for and trace your package and get to you. Choose "Delivery" then "Lost" from the drop down box. Using this form places a "Note" first on the USPS Delivery Confirmation tracking page. This will be important if you have to file a charge back with your credit card company.

After the investigation, if your package is not found, the Delivery Confirmation delivered will be changed to "Lost". When DC shows "Delivered", Paypal, or you credit card will not refund your money. Paypal or your credit card will not refund until you file this form and the investigation is complete. You can also call USPS Track & Confirm service at 1(800)222-1811.

If you suspect that it might have been taken from your mailbox, I do suggest filing a police report. Since stealing mail is a federal offense you may have to follow up with a report to the post office.

Thanks so much. Let me know how things turn out. Best of Luck.

After I sent that email to the buyer I get a "case" filed against me in eBay. It was plain that the buyer had no intention of looking for the item because not enough time had lapsed since I sent the email (just about 40 minutes), or she had indeed gotten her item and either wanted me to refund her money or send another one (which I did not have).

Ebay's case process has the buyer and seller message each other until one of them either gives up or tells eBay that there is an impasse. It was during the process the buyer admits the item was stolen and wanted to see if eBay's buyer protection would cover it. I did not want to say "sorry lady, but both eBay and the seller are not responsible for items taken from you after they are in your possession." Instead she closed the case and left me odd positive feedback. Her final words on the item were, "too much hassle for a $5 item"

My latest odd buyer bought an item she just didn't like. I told her that I would refund in full as soon as I got the item back...no problem right - wrong. She sent me back an email trashing the item and that she would not send it back. I was getting a feeling that she wanted a refund and keep the item too. I held my position because I know that if she filed a case with eBay, eBay would require me to refund, but I can add "on the condition of the return of the item" to the case. So she leaves me a negative ding. I do wonder if she plans on filing a "case" against me.

All 3 buyers are now on my blocked buyers list.

Now some advice to sellers. Use Toolhaus.org to check out your buyers. You can use that website to see what feedback they have been leaving for others. The buyers who are new to scamming sellers are nuts enough to leave negative feedback that shows what they are up to like "buyer would not refund money" only to have the seller leave a reply like "You are lying. Feedback Extortion Reported to Ebay." The buyers that are expert scammers usually do not leave feedback at all. They just move on to the next victim to extort money from.

You can now get Sewing for Cash on your Kindle. Just click on the link to take you there. There is a free trial period.

A quick cocktail dress to make

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:26:00 PST

Video below to show you how to make a very easy to make dress

You can now get Sewing for Cash on your Kindle. Just click on the link to take you there. There is a free trial period.

Selling on eCrater - part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 15:21:00 PST

Since I have had several stores on eCrater over the years (yes you can have more than one) I thought I would share with you some ideas on how to set up your own store there. This is part 1 of a series of blog posts devoted to selling on eCrater.

What is eCrater?
Ecrater at eCrater.com is a massive website made up of individual stores. It is totally free to set up and sell on there. They don't take fees of any kind, either before or after the sale.

They do have limits on what you can sell on there so you will have to read their terms. Most of it pertains to illegal copies, body parts (human and animal), live animals, drugs, weapons and stuff like that.

Each of the items listed on the website from each store is submitted to Google so they are included in the Google shopping section of their search. Often eCrater items are listed right up there with eBay items in search.

You have the option to use PayPal or Google checkout or both as your payment processing provider.

First step - sign up
You will need to enter your email address and place of business address when you sign up. The email address does not have to be the same one as email address you use for PayPal.

Pick a good user name
The user name you choose will become your store name so pick it carefully. Your store name will appear like this "yourstorename.ecrater.com"

After you sign up
When you sign up, eCrater will send you a confirmation email that you will have to open and click on to activate your account and store. While waiting for that, visit eCrater's forum found under their community section. There you will find many very detailed how-tos and tips on how to set up your store.

Things you will need before designing your store

a logo
a storefront image
an active PayPal or Google checkout account
a good camera to take pictures of your items

In a few more days I'll post the next in the series.
The links to this series of how tos will be posted on my HOW TO page so you can find all of them there

You can now get Sewing for Cash on your Kindle. Just click on the link to take you there. There is a free trial period.

How to sell on eCrater

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 12:47:00 PST

You have probably read that I have used eCrater to sell my items. To help you start your own store on eCrater, I have decided to take you step by step through the process of getting a store set up on there (all for free of course). I'll show you how to:

add items to your store
setting up how to get paid for your items
figuring out shipping charges
packing and shipping
promoting and marketing

So for the next series of posts on this blog will be devoted to the how to of eCrater. I will take you step by step on how I set up my own store and will show you how I promote it. So go take a look at eCrater.com and take a look around.

The first post will be here tomorrow with enough information to get you started on a whole new online business - all for free.

You can now get Sewing for Cash on your Kindle. Just click on the link to take you there. There is a free trial period.

How to make very easy baby blankets

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:18:00 PST

I found the video below on YouTube while looking for something else and thought that some of my readers would enjoy making some very quick blankets. Watch the video then I have a question for you:

Even though I have seen those types of blankets before, I have often wondered what is the purpose of the ribbons? Sure they are decorative but what about babies getting their fingers tangled up in them? I would love to hear your thoughts on that.

You can now get Sewing for Cash on your Kindle. Just click on the link to take you there. There is a free trial period.

Happy New Year 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 13:22:00 PST

It is now 2012. A brand new start to a brand new year. Are you planning any new projects or finishing up old ones? Any goals for this year? Let me share a few of mine with you.

In the new year I plan on writing more. I need to get another video made for YouTube. I will be starting a new online store for my embroidered items (more about that in the coming weeks).

I have decided to change direction on my embroidery business. I will no longer offer custom made items made to customers specs, I will make items that I get a kick out of. I will use my business to please my creativity. I found that I was not being as creative as I wanted to be when copying customer logos and digitizing them into embroidery as I would have liked. Now is the time to find that special state of happiness with my own business and really enjoy it.

So what are your goals for the new year? Leave a comment or visit my Facebook page and leave a comment there.

You can now get Sewing for Cash on your Kindle. Just click on the link to take you there. There is a free trial period.

You can now get this blog on your Kindle

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 18:35:00 PST

Amazon approved this blog in under 2 hours!! You can now get it on your Kindle. I think there is a 30 day free trial so you can try it first. I will be adding a link to the sidebar as well as a link at the bottom of every post so you can get it.

Now I have to write more often.

Submitted this blog to be published on the Kindle

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 16:07:00 PST

Some of my readers kept suggesting that I submit this blog to Amazon so it could be available for the Kindle. Well, I went and did it. It may take up to 3 days before I find out if the blog is approved or not. If it gets approved then it will be available for download on your Kindle.

Other news it that I have been posting more and more on Facebook, selling a few items on eBay and will be setting up a store for my embroidered items. While I do have a small eBay store for general items and do sell some of my creations there, I don't want to rely on eBay as my sole source of income. I have heard too many horror stories of eBay closing stores or limiting the number of listings that a person can list on eBay per month. So I will be diversifying my business a bit more than I have done in the past.

SEWING FOR A LIVING

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 10:19:00 PST

The Author of this post is Velma Baird

We looked into Wildblue deals and decided to get internet service at our house. I have really enjoyed having it and have actually figured out a way to make a little extra money. I have been sewing since I was a child. My grandmother taught me to sew when I would spend the summers at her house. I took a natural liking to it and have really developed great skills. Now, I have started to sell some of my creations on-line. I use a craft website called Etsy.com to find my client base. I have been surprise what a big need there has been for custom dresses. I have a bunch of vintage Vogue, Dior, and Victor Costa patterns that I have been collecting for years. I make all of my creations from vintage patterns and people seem to love it. They can pick the colors, patterns, and variations of the dresses that they order. Several costumers have ordered three different dresses at a time. If this picks up, I may have to quit my day job and pursue my real passion of sewing.

Are you ready for the after Christmas rush?

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 09:40:00 PST

There is a shopping phenomena known as the "after event buying." What it is, is the person doing the shopping did not get what they wanted for a gift and they are now shopping for themselves. They have also received gift money that is burning a hole in their pockets. They are the ones who will be shopping like mad in the first few days after Christmas. They are looking for those after Christmas sales and unique items that their friends and family did not find for them.

Are you catering to that type of buyer? Learn to write your online sales pages to appeal to them and not "would make a great gift" type of phrases. Appeal to their ego, stroke their likes and just plain keep them on your page or website until they buy something. Lower your online bounce rate and make the new year very profitable for you.

Etsy versus eBay

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 10:17:00 PST

I thought I would do an informal comparison between Etsy and eBay for those of you who are selling on either one or are considering switching from one of the other. First up is what they have in common:

They both -

charge fees to list
have final value fees once the sale is made
you have to be registered with them to buy or sell

I did some comparison on their fee structure and if you have Premium store on eBay and listed about 250 - 300 items and then listed 250 - 300 items on Etsy you would be paying about the same in total listing fees. The final value fees after the sale on eBay are slightly higher than Etsy.

How they are different -

Etsy only allows handmade, original artwork or vintage items to be listed. They also allow craft supplies but I wonder if I could list a computer with design software as a craft supply or how about a camera or video recorder?
Ebay has fixed priced listings as well as auctions and Etsy just has fixed priced lisings.
On eBay you can list almost anything as long as it is not illegal or prohibited by state or federal laws such as animal pelts from endangered species.
Ebay is the bigger more established website while most shoppers that are not crafters have never heard of Etsy

That last point brings up the most important factor of all - traffic (AKA visitors. buyers) to the website. Without large numbers of visitors your items will not sell. It is the difference from having a store at out skirts of town when all the shoppers are at the mall. I compare eBay (the mall) to Etsy (the craft fair at the fairgrounds) they cater to very different shoppers but eBay has the money to advertise on TV while Etsy relies of word of mouth. I don't know about you but I want shoppers in my store. If I am paying money for listings and FVF fees that are the same in each website I am going to go with the place that has more buyers - eBay.

The old adage "you get what you pay for" does not work in this case. While Etsy charges almost the same as eBay in the long run, they do not provide the traffic that eBay does.

A word about Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 10:01:00 PST

For the longest time I had no interest what so ever in joining Facebook. To me it was just another social network like MySpace and I never got much out of MySpace so I figured why join another one. It was only after several relatives had joined and bugged me to join, that I finally did. It took me about 2 months to get the hang of how to use it when I decided to make a page for this blog (you can see the link to it in the side panel). I now spend more time with updates and linking to other sewing pages on Facebook than I do here.

Yes I am ashamed to admit that I am now a Facebook addict.

Keeping your customers happy

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 19:09:00 PST

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Tassimo for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

If you have one of those small offices or stores that give a personal touch to your clients then you would know that making them feel comfortable when doing business with you will often seal that sale. One thing to do is offer refreshments to your clients while they look over your designs or talk to you about a proposal. I am not advocating you let them have food and drinks while wandering your store, no, I am talking about going over a design layout for that new wedding dress or looking at fabric samples for the new drapes they want made.

One nice way is to have a Tassimo Professional coffee maker at hand. It makes gourmet coffees and lattes. They have a wide variety to choose from. Better yet you can get a Tassimo Professional free demo at your place of business. The demo is for business demos only so if your business is home based they will turn you down. There is also an added bonus, since the office machines only use a special size coffee disk, your customers will not be tempted to take a few home with them. That alone will save you money in disappearing stock.

What you will really like is the ease of making those fancy coffees. You will just have to sign up for that free demo and see for yourself how the machine works and best of all taste test those wonderful coffees. If you go to the Tassimo website you can find a recipe sheet for blending the many flavors of coffee they have and make your own up. I like the ones with hot chocolate mixed in. Yes I am a chocohlic.

Words mean different things in different countries

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 09:47:00 PST

If you plan on selling any of your items overseas, even in other English speaking countries, you had better learn the different meanings of the words in those countries. England is so very different with words and slang that you can sometimes shoot yourself in the foot with puzzling advertising.

Take for example the word hamper, in the USA a hamper is something you put laundry in. In England a hamper is a gift basket. So if you saw the words food hamper it would be for a gift basket of gourmet foods not a place to dump your canned foods in. So sending someone a hamper in England would be the same as sending someone a flower or gift delivery here in the USA. Hampers in England come in a wide variety of occasions so to them the word hamper is synonymous with gift.

So if you were trying to sell laundry hampers to people in England and wondered why you got no sales, you now know.

Language terms can be tricky in advertising. What might seem to someone in the USA as a harmless word could be insulting in another country. That also works in reverse as well. So before you venture out into the world of international sales, I have some advice. Find a friend, either in person or online who lives or has lived in the country you plan on advertising to. Have them read your ad copy and give you their input. Ask them specifically about the wording of the ad and would it make sense to your potential customers in that country.

Making some fall decorations during my daughter's fall break

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:39:00 PST

Today we have a guest blogger

Guest post written by Anita Brewer

It's so strange to think that my daughter has only been in college for about two months. It seems like it's been so much longer to me. But maybe that's because she's my only child and we're so close that it's strange for her to be so far away from me. But she's home for fall break right now and we're clocking in all kinds of special mother daughter time during it.

We're both really big crafters, so I thought that it would be a great idea to work on some fall crafts while she's home. I looked online with my internet Clear to get some good ideas for it and came up with all kinds of stuff. Actually way too much stuff for her to do during her time here
.
I came up with this really cool wreath that we each made one of. I thought that it would be neat for her to hang up on her dorm room door so she's going to take it back with her to do that. I told her that her dorm room should be treated like her home, which for us means decorating it for the different seasons!

How I learned to be mean on eBay

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:53:00 PDT

I have been a buyer and seller on eBay since 2001. During that time I have sold thousands of dollars of items. I have been fortunate enough that as a seller I have only dealt with 3 non-paying bidders/buyers and filed a non-paying buyer grievance with eBay. All went well until I met the buyer from hell, or at least difficult.

I had a very inexpensive costume pattern for sale. It sold as a BIN (buy it now) transaction. Since I have set all my items to require payment within 3 days to enable my buyers to buy more than one item so they can save on shipping, I thought I would get paid via PayPal in a day or so. Within a few hours I got an email from the buyer wanting my address so she could mail me a check. I told her that all of my items require payment through PayPal and they clearly state that in each listing. Never mind that eBay requires all payments to be processed through PayPal unless it is a listing for real estate, cars or the item is pick up only.

So I emailed her back telling that I only will accept payment through PayPal and she went off in her email back to me. She went on that she always paid by check and never encountered a problem yet. So I went and looked at her feedback and yes she does have about 50 positive feedbacks......all from the same 4 people. I had a bad feeling about this and immediately added her to my blocked bidders list. I then suggested to her that we both cancel the transaction since she would not agree to pay via PayPal. Then the transaction was canceled. I thought that I had heard the last from her, but I was wrong.

About 3 weeks later I got my first and only negative feedback and it was from the b**** that would not pay for her purchase the way I required payment. I was under the false pretense that eBay would not allow feedback from non-paying buyers but there is a loop hole. If the transaction is cancelled (because I thought I was being nice about the matter) instead of a non-paying buyer grievance filed then the buyer can still leave feedback. I have learned my lesson and next time I will play the eBay game but no more being nice, I'll play by eBays rules and methods. Buyers that keep doing what that b**** does are removed from eBay.

I also filed a grievance with eBay about the buyer telling them that "she always pays by check" and offered to let them read the email from her. I want buyers like that gone from eBay.

For those of you who are wondering why I don't accept checks or money orders is the fact that I have gotten too many bad ones over the years. It is like someone coming into your store with a basket full of eggs and wanting to pay you with eggs instead of money. That would be great if the eggs were solid gold but businesses just don't operate that way anymore.

Using Facebook to make brief announcements

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 16:35:00 PDT

I am using my Facebook page to make announcements, share sewing and marketing tips and help promote the people who "like" my page there.

Come on over and visit me on Facebook, just click here

Don't forget to "like" the page and I might visit your page and find a sewing project on there that I can promote for you - free of course.

Should you buy a domain name for your little blog or website when first starting out

noreply@blogger.com (Jan) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 11:33:00 PDT

I am often asked if a domain name is really necessary for blog or small store when first starting up an online business. Instead of me saying yes or no, let me tell you about someone who started a blog on blogger as a hobby and then started making money off of it.

She was not selling anything from her blog but she wrote entertaining stories of her life and what she was making. Her stories and the photos of her items became a small hit on the internet. She soon had a few thousand visitors a day and sometimes the comments of each of her posts would be in the hundreds. The blog had the domain of herblogname.blogger.com and she started to get advertisers wanting to purchase advertising space. Then came the shock. One of the advertisers asked her which website would the ad appear? Would it be on herblogname.blogger.com or on herblogname.com? Since she only had the blogger name she looked at herblogname.com and found that someone had purchased the top level domain name and using a cheap website host was imitating her. They were using her blog to promote their own advertising. She was being ripped off.

Instead of her just forgetting about it, here is what she did:

She publicly told her readers what she had found.
She encouraged her readers to take action in the form of comment writing on the other "fake" blog
She filed a copyright complaint
Then she sat back and waited

Her readers found out that the other website was also selling t-shirts with her logo on it on several design it yourself websites. She contacted those websites and they immediately stopped selling them and revoked the accounts that had "designed" them.

Her loyal readers had managed to shut down the website so it only showed the domain as parked. At the same time she decided to purchase her own top level domain that she really wanted and let her fans know about it. I think it is still hosted on blogger but she might have her own hosting by now.

Now you decide if getting a domain name is for you or not.