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| The pic that is rapidly becoming my Forever Logo. :) |
James made it for me. I love it especially because James made it for me. He slaved over it, I'm not kidding. He took time away from doing his Own Thing to put it all together and I couldn't be happier with it.
Best thing about it? -- it's the easiest site in the world for a potential customer to find and use. There are no bells or whistles, no freaky Flash stuff to fight with, no annoying music, no little fluttering fairy icons that follow the cursor around. My own parents can go there and navigate it, as can my 'dial-up' friends. It's just a dream.
However, it could use all sorts of updates, MAJOR ones, not the least of which are a shopping cart and links to new work. And I have little idea how to do those things for myself.
James is the Computer Guy around here. He's done programming for as long as I've known him, and he still spends much of his work week glued to a monitor developing company software. I pretty much have to wait for him to find a convenient time to work on my site, but the last thing I want him to do when he comes home in the evening is sit down to yet another monitor and do yet more programming.
And in recent years James has begun doing creative work himself and has constructed his own site to maintain. No surprise, but it could use updates as well, and if any site deserves his attention more, it's his.
No, I take that back. BOTH our sites deserve his attention! But the guy's Free Time is golden; I'd really rather he spend it creating his art and promoting it instead of being my on-call developer.
So with that in mind I just keep telling myself that it wouldn't hurt me to learn how to maintain my own dang site my own dang self. James has taught me a few things, of course, because I asked him to. But it's not easy. In fact, it's close to impossible for me. So I still manage to let things slide until I can guilt James into doing them for me.
I'm still waiting for him to do them for me.
And the longer I wait, the less I care if the updates are ever made. In my head they make little difference, as in all the years my site's been up and running, I've probably only ever made half a dozen sales from it. Granted, I'd make MORE if it was current, perhaps. But still.... A vicious cycle.
Anyway, this all leads me to Now. And Etsy.
After days (okay, weeks) of tweaking, hairpulling, information overload, and -- I'll admit it -- FUN, Mayfaire's little Etsy shop is finally open for business.
And I did it all myself. I did it!
A million digital photos were taken, I swear. And I'd bet two million hours were spent agonizing over whether to crop them tighter or even use them at all. And pressing the 'Publish' button was enough to give me a hot flash, I was that nervous about it.
But then the stats showed me that my shop got an actual 'view.' Then two, then three, then a hundred! And before long I even got a sale. I kid you not, I did the Happy Dance all the way to the Post Office!
Who knows whether or not all the work I did to get the shop up and running will ever pay off for me. All I know is, when it comes to updating myself and my work online, I can DO this. And I don't need James to do it FOR me.
And that makes all the difference.
...
P.S. Shop my Etsy store at http://www.etsy.com/shop/MayfaireArt. It will carry those products that I don't normally post to my website. You can also visit my website at http://www.mayfaireart.com. Thank you. :)
Yay Delayne!!! I do love your Etsy store. So why not use Etsy instead of a web site?
ReplyDeleteI created my website (in 98 or 99??) via Sam's Club, but I'm not even sure that the cart works since I now use a different merchant service than I had in the beginning. The application is cumbersome to use compared to Etsy, I only get one photo, the layout is canned and not very inspiring, pictures are a pain to manage and upload, and I could go on. Plus I've never had a sale via the website. People do check it out because it has my show schedule and my phone number. Really all it does is provide a portal to my Etsy store and my blog. So I'm not sure what the value there is in having a website.
Congratulations Delayne! (as soon as I am done commenting here I'm going on over to Etsy to check out your wee store :0) I completely feel you on the updating the website frustration -- nothing makes me feel more like a nincompoop than all the many things I CAN'T do on the web -- and I could completely relate to the liberating sense of power in setting up your Etsy shop. What's amazing to me is the thought that maybe (traditional) websites are becoming obsolete in some ways as they're too static and don't move as quickly as social network sites/blogs/on-line shops...I read the above commenter with interest...More importantly: Congrats once again! Good for you for taking the bull by the horns!!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Laurel and Kate, for your kind and supportive comments! And what an interesting thought: that perhaps websites are becoming obsolete. It gives me lots to think about as I move forward....
ReplyDeleteMy big reason for even attempting an Etsy shop was because my Eldest kept suggesting it to me as a way of selling things I make that aren't available on my website, and I wanted to show her that I could set it up without her help. (I wanted to show James I could do it, too, as he's single-handedly developed my website and I think he was anticipating having to do the same for my Etsy shop. Thank goodness Etsy makes building a shop so easy!)
Also, I want to be the kind of granny oddmother who knows how to at least send an email and Skype to her grandbugs -- being an Etsy shopowner is just one of the things I'll have to know how to do so they'll think I'm capable and not living ENTIRELY in the Dark Ages. :)
Again, thank you for your comments, my dears! I appreciate you!
...delayne.