Shop Class: Is It Worth Selling on Etsy?

I got this email a while ago from Natalie, who has one of my current favorite shops on Etsy, funretro:

You seem to dig the industrial metal look like me, so I have a question. I picked up a chocolate brown two-drawer filing cabinet. I noticed that there are no other ones on Etsy, but do you think it is worth listing? I sell my metal stuff very quickly and thought it might be something cool, perhaps even more so BECAUSE there are no other ones on here. But obviously I don’t want to list it if it’s never gonna sell.

Any advice?

I wanted to reprint it because I think it’s a question many Etsy sellers ask themselves: will this sell?  If I’m not sure it will sell, should I list it?

Listing an item on Etsy is so easy it only takes a few minutes — and your listings stays up for three months for just 20 cents.  (Compare that to eBay, where you pay like, $2.20 to list items that stay up a mere week.) So my short answer is YES, no matter what it is, it’s worth putting in your shop. For 3 reasons:

1 – The more items you have in your shop the more likely someone is to find your shop based on a search. In Natalie’s case, someone may search for “brown cabinet” and end up buying this fabulous First Aid box from her store after browsing. The more listings you have the more likely you are to get folks in the door, favoriting your shop, and buying.

2 – Each item in your store further defines your aesthetic. I call this the “H&M parachute pants rule” (and yes, I just made that up).  H&M probably knows these parachute pants won’t exactly fly off the shelves, but by including them in their inventory H&M is saying, “We’re so uber-hip, we’re the store that sells parachute pants.”  So the next time you think to yourself, “Where can I find something affordable and fashion-forward?” you think? That’s right: H&M. But they probs took a loss on the parachute pants.

Similarly, Libby probably knows not every casual browser is going to jump at the chance to purchase this mink stole (below), but you know her shop is the place to get overly realistic, wearable taxidermy and other creepy chic items. And that’s worth a 20-cent quarterly investment if you ask me.

3 – Twenty cents for 3 months — that’s a little more than 6 cents a month. I’m hard-pressed to think of anything that isn’t worth 6 cents a month, especially if it’s drawing visitors to your Etsy store (and if it’s the only one of its kind on Etsy, I bet it is). Even if it never sells. Think of it as a loss leader.

And just hope it doesn’t end up here.

4 First Accounting Steps for Vintage Businesses

I recently got this question from a reader in response to a comment I wrote on Vintage + Goodness = Happiness, when Mitzi was considering closing her antique booth after a string of profitless months.  You can see the original thread post (and my comments) here.

Here is the email I received:

This morning I was searching for info on accounting for antiques/collectible booths and I saw your comment.  You discussed continuing your booth at loss.  I have had my booth about 6 months, rent is $200, most months I’ve come close to making rent.  How do i find out good info on filing taxes for this type of business?  You stated in your response some people run at a loss for years…

Ah yes — dreaded taxes.  If you’re selling vintage at an antique booth, at flea markets, or online, you should be paying taxes on the income you’re making.  Even if your profits are still relatively low, you should get in the habit of tracking and reporting them.

Read the IRS description of a business versus a hobby to help clear up confusion on whether you should be paying taxes on your vintage business.  As a rule of thumb, if you’re making more than $500 in any given year on a side venture, you should be claiming the income.

But you should consider this to be good news!  Why?  Because it means you can deduct your expenses.  Things that now fall under the category of business expenses when you start claiming your vintage income:

• A portion of your internet and phone bill.
• Mileage to and from estate sales.
• Rent on your antique booth or vendor fees at flea markets.
• Research material, like books on collecting, or design magazines that keep you up-to-date on trends.
• Postage and office supplies.
• Classes or seminars on business or antiques.
• Your domain name and web hosting.
• All your eBay, Etsy and Paypal fees.
• A portion of your monthly rent for space used as office or storage.

If you claim profits you make on buying and selling vintage items you can now start treating your hobby as a business, and that sometimes gives you the freedom to try bolder things.  Travel to Indiana to pick up a Craigslist item because you can now deduct the mileage.  Rent a van when you check out a loaded estate sale because you can deduct the rental fee.

Even if it means you’re cutting into your profits it’s okay — you don’t have to make a huge profit, or in some cases any profit, to be considered legit.  In fact — and this is our little secret — the less profit you show on your business (i.e. the more you can deduct) the less tax you have to pay on business income.

But it all sounds so complicated!  It’s really not.  Here are four things you can do to get started in tracking your vintage businesses.

1. Get an accountant.

I used to hate it when people recommended getting an accountant because I thought it was too expensive.  The truth it — it’s priceless.  And it’s not that expensive anyway.  My accountant charges under $200 for tax prep to figure out my vintage business stuff.  He also answers brief questions I have throuhout the year as I run my business.   Best decision you’ll ever make.  Do yourself the favor!

2. Keep track of your inventory.

You can choose to keep track of your inventory on a database all year round, and I highly recommend using a Google Docs spreadsheet to manage your items and track sales.  But if you’re not keen on keeping track of each single item, you should still track your inventory twice a year.  Starting on January 1st (or whenever you officially start your business), make an inventory of everything you’re selling and keep it in a database and print it out.  On December 31st, do the same.

3. Track and record your expenses and revenue.

Keep all your receipts and write down your expenses. Keep track of all your revenue.  You can do it in a spreadsheet, but I also recommend a website called Outright where you can track simple small business expenses and revenue online.

4.  Relax — it’s not an exact science.

Don’t worry so much about making a mistake.   You don’t have to be perfect.  Everyone who runs a small business has a different system.  So use a system that works for you, that you’ll keep up accurately, and that makes at least partial sense to an outside party (i.e. your accountant).  And remember, the IRS isn’t going to come after you for a $32.55 accounting error.  Just be as accurate and consistent as you know how, and use your accountant’s advice to fill in any questions, and you’ll be fine.

Essentials: Art Gum Eraser

Do you have one of these?  They are life changing.

They are essential if you buy and sell used stuff because they can get rid of any pencil markings, smears, smudges, erasure marks, even some old ink pen or ink stamp markings, without any sort of visible damage to the paper surface you’re cleaning.  I’ve used these to clean wood, art, painted surfaces… anything with a mark you think might be removable but that might smudge if you use a sub-par eraser or, worse yet, a wet sponge.

They are: art gum erasers!

SEE them in ACTION!

Pesky pencil price –>

Now… removed!

Not a trace.

How to Get Featured in The Storque: 16 Steps

1. Arrange to hit this hot rummage sale.

2. Hit said rummage sale.  Find linens room in church attic.  Find the only thing in the room that isn’t white.  Try to buy it.

3. Get yelled at by Winnetka church ladies that I’m standing in the wrong line to buy it.  Go stand in the right line.  Buy it.

4. Hit another estate sale on the way home and buy $55 worth of metal bookends.

5. Keep spoils of both sales in “guest bedroom” (seriously, who am I kidding?) for over two weeks.  Masking tape price tag still on wool blanket for entire time.  Make keeping cats off said blanket becomes new hobby.

6. Come home too late from some Saturday activity and curse waning light in living room on day planned to take photos of new Etsy items.  Take photos anyway (an amateur’s mistake).

7. Curse blanket. How does one take artful photographs of a scrap of fabric 9 feet long?

8. Curse all random crap sitting around my living room that has to be moved around in order to take artful photos of blanket: 3 copies of Real Simple, 2 coffee mugs, almost-dead plant, coffee table book not about Mark Rothko.

9. Close mini-blinds to thwart direct sunbeam shining on blanket, ruining possible photos.

10. Get 5 good shots, despite everything, including increasingly bad attitude.

11. Upload at dining room table while husband checks fantasy football stats.  Learn valuable lesson about measuring blankets: fold them in half or quarters to measure, then multiply measurements, rather that extending entire blanket over floor to collect dust bunnies.

12. Wonder why writing product descriptions can be so difficult even though I majored in journalism.

13. Remember no one reads product descriptions.  Photos, tags = more important.

14. Refer to go-to list of item tags to increase amount of exposure for blanket.  Include “rustic” and “cabin” in list of tags.

15. List item.  Continue to work and generally live life for two more weeks, including working full-time job, maintaining Amazon.com listings, keeping Etsy shop stocked with 100+ items, wife it up, take some hot photos to promote Vintage Bazaar, take a time out for kidneys, recover (I think).

16. Appear in Storque (note use of words “rustic” and “cabin”).

It’s rpattz-tastic!