Hello everyone

SilverScott · Posts: 10

Hi, I'm new here, just opened up a store yesterday. I sell handmade silver jewelry and have designed a pocket to hold guitar picks. I'm just starting out. Had a few sales of my rings at my local farmers market but need more sales in order to keep making jewelry and art designs and thought I'd try my hand here, also new to online sales. Any helpful hints would be appreciated.

MoonwishesStore · moderator Posts: 17389

Welcome. Your guitar pick holder brought back memories of my first boyfriend who could play anything. I would forget his guitar pick so he would borrow my bus pass. I haven't seen him for over 49 years but we ran into each other online 20+ years ago and he is my selling mentor. Small world.

There is no real reason to give free shipping since you will have to pay for it and that takes away from profits. Because of your prices, you will most likely need to add tracking as well as insurance - which covers you if something gets broken or destroyed in the mail. Many sellers have the idea that the insurance is for the buyer, but in reality if a problem happens, it is up to the seller to make the buyer whole. Anyhow, there is no problem with charging for shipping. It is your business and you can do what you want.

You don't have any electronic payment sources listed and that means that you will not be getting much in the way of orders as most don't want to have to mess around getting MO or cashiers checks, finding a stamp, etc. I would never take personal checks. We had a rental property for a time that one set of tenants gave us rubber checks way too many times. If you do take them, you will need to wait for it to get to you, deposit it, and then wait for it to clear before shipping.

I think, although it is early yet for me, that without electronic payments like PayPal and/or Stripe your listings will not be shown on Google. Someone else will clarify that.

I have orders to get out, but I will check on some other things later. We are always happy to help!

SilverScott · Posts: 10

That is a wonderful story, thank you for sharing. I love hearing that my creations bring back great memories. Thanks for the tip on paypal. I've since signed up and can now see myself in the marketplace. I've since changed names to Silver BanDrui. Of course now I am struggling with google attributes... keeps asking me for brand and upc/ean/jan which of course I don't have because I make all my own creations. I'll get there I'm sure. Very Happy

Thanks again.

MoonwishesStore · moderator Posts: 17389

No problem. I just noticed that I had said that I forgot his pick. More accurate was that HE would forget his pick. He should have given me a spare one to carry for him. But what a great guy he was. We met at a Halloween party which was my 15th birthday. 15 days later we were going steady. Never had a fight or a problem and then my family moved 3000 miles away and I never saw him again. Let's just say we both had a hard time coping. Still, a great guy and we talk all the time via email. He was one of the best things that happened to me in my life.

Good for you signing up for PP. I've had an account with them before they were even PP. When Google Checkout was discontinued, we got Stripe here. At this point, I have had over $10K worth of transactions using it without a problem.

For those Google attributes, the exclamation point may stay awhile, sometimes you have to give it a month to fall off, so don't keep picking at the attributes if you are pretty sure that you have corrected them correctly.