You can't sell from an empty shop!!

I was reminded of an old rule of business this past week - You can't sell from an empty shop! Or, to paraphrase, you can't sell from a shop that has nothing new to catch your regular customers' attention.

It seemed I just couldn't get motivated to produce new products for a while there. Oh, I came up with ideas and sketched them out but when it came time to actually sit down and begin painting, it seemed I always found something else that really "needed" to be tended to right at that very moment. Then, it seemed my sales were slowing down some and, some weeks, they were practically non-existent. I decided I needed to promote. I looked in the shop and discovered there really wasn't anything new to promote. That woke me up!

I immediately turned to and started painting. I'm now in the process of adding items to my Etsy shop and stock-piling for my next show. (Yep, I stopped procrastinating and went ahead and got those applications in, too.) I even got a box of new merchandise out to one of my brick and mortar shops! They got them in this week and have already sold some of the new items. Sales are great motivators and I'm now plugging along at a respectable pace again.
Thought I'd share a few of the new things with you. Above, the crabby outfit is one of my oldest designs and one of my best sellers. It's almost summer and, around here (being the Chesapeake Bay area), that puts folks in a "crab" mood. I've now built up a stock of these in the full range of sizes for the upcoming show. (This one often sells out at shows.) Another axiom of the craft business: Try not to run out of your best items!

And here are some of the newer designs:

All of these will be listed in the shop by the end of the weekend. (Some are already there!)

Check them out at http://www.splashin.etsy.com/

Some have designs on both the front and back!

I have more new designs that will be going in the shop next week (and, hopefully the week after that and so on and so on...) I'll be sharing them along the way, too.

Don't forget Part VII (the final segment) of the Marketing Series on Craft Shows will post tomorrow.

Hope you're all out there working on your crafts or at least doing something creative.