My Etsy shop beginnings were rough. The products were of the amateur quality. The listings and photos were thrown together. The tags and titles were created with absolutely no intention or strategy. Thinking back makes me cringe, but I don’t regret jumping in head first at all. Especially since I made my first sale within 24 hours and went on to sell over $1,300 in my first month.
Rough Beginnings
In that year of selling on Etsy, I literally kept records of my finances written down in a notebook. I printed out the invoice for every order and calculated my profit. At the end of every month, I manually did a profit and loss report.
Nothing was automatically captured, calculated, or recorded – everything was on paper, either in my notebook or my file folders. This system took me tons of time to keep up with and stay organized. With no business background, I was doing the best I could to understand my bookkeeping.