Hello. Holiday shopping going all right so far? :)

I've noticed there have been some late stragglers, so although it is already impossible to have our international orders arrive before Christmas by the usual registered mail means, I've extended the cut-off date for Singapore packages to the 19th, which is this Sunday. I know the holidays snuck up on me this year too. I kept thinking there was still loads of time but the other day I saw someone's status update that there were only "10 days till Christmas" - 8 now, OMG - and that kind of kicked me back to reality. I guess I've not been feeling any festive spirit this year either. Dread going to any mall, dread even hopping on a train to go out. I've done some online and casual shopping for friends and the sister, but I prefer to get my parents stuff they need as opposed to extraneous or expensive things they're not likely to use. Finally got mum something yesterday, but the hunt continues as my Dad is a secret Spartan.

Now that I'm done with sorting out custom Christmas orders (I'm so dying to post pics but I think I'll wait till after the event in case any surprises are ruined), I've temporarily closed my online shop and embarked on a path of no return: a shop revamp with a completely different web platform and backend. I have grand dreams of an integrated experience but have nothing on paper to date (I like working straight off brain dumps, LOL) and wonder how long I can actually procrastinate on this. Wish me luck.

Meanwhile, all (or most) available jewellery pieces have been moved to my ArtFire studio, while the Etsy shop continues to um, yeah... exist. And as always, updates will be posted on this blog, Facebook and/or Twitter (yes, I usually do try not to be too repetitive or spammy).

Just a bit of what I've been up to lately...


Nothing spectacular, a remake of the Caliente set I did nearly 3 years back, plus a couple of Swarovski cascades: the Astral Blaze and Sorcielle earrings. I won't deny I was slightly entranced by how sparkly and absolutely perfect those crystals are. If only natural gemstones were that way. But Mother Nature likes to spit in our cereal most of the time :)

Actually I'm quite amazed that to this day, people have been asking for remakes of past pieces, some of them going pretty far back (2006/07?!). And sometimes it's doable, sometimes it's not. There's a reason why I like to work in tiny exclusive batches: I prize individuality over most other things. So while you may find similar pieces made by others (and well, occasionally I make generic things or stuff that could be similar to others'), I'm content enough to know that there were only ever X pieces created by my own hand. I've avoided the wholesale route so far, and regrettably when Trunkt went wholesale-focused, I all but abandoned my account.

And now I need to get out of the house before I die of carbon monoxide poisoning from the nearby truck that's been pumping it out for the past 2 hours...

Email I just wrote to a supplier:

Hello,

I am writing with regards to a recent order I placed, with the invoice no. #####.

Frankly, I was speechless at the USD74.28 shipping charge. It was sent expedited shipping by international courier, but: a) I did not have a say in whether I really needed it expedited and b) couriering is not cost-effective at all for a small, non-fragile package whose contents were around USD200.

What's worse is that at no point during the ordering and checkout process was there any indication of how much shipping would cost. Nor in your FAQs or shipping notification email. It was a shock to only see the invoice (and also my credit card bill because I just could not believe it) upon receipt of the package. Having clear information on shipping is an e-commerce fundamental which you have sadly missed out. And yes, I do frequently shop online and even used to build e-commerce websites for clients. Had it not been for the fact that I have an order history with XXXXX, this lack of transparency would've been a big warning sign.

Your international shipping used to be about USD20 and the merchandise came in a global priority flat-rate box. May I know why this option is no longer offered? Or any other options, like regular parcel post (non-expedited)? I have shopped with other jewelry supply companies that are able to offer reliable international shipping at a fraction of yours, with about the same transit time. I also note, according to the return messages received and with some degree of sadness, that your order handling system has not been updated, enhanced or improved in the past 3+ years. I can only surmise that worldwide online business is not that important to your company.

I don't have a problem with your merchandise - unfortunately, I am extremely disappointed with this level of online competency and will not be purchasing anything from XXXXX any longer. There are similar offerings out there with more reasonable shipping policies which work out to be more affordable even at retail rates.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for the ride.

Seeing that most of my customers are American, and given that tomorrow is Thanksgiving, I just wanted to say a few things about what I'm thankful for:

• Family (of course) - who are still ever so understanding about me not having a Real Job, whilst letting me sponge off their kindness, generosity and food. Without them I would probably have been able to generate some electricity by now from continuously running in the giant hamster wheel.
  
• Repeat customers - you know who you are, you rawk and are totally appreciated. Without you, I think would have completely given up long ago. I'm sorry I haven't been very productive lately.
  
• My nerdy web & PM background which has proven quite useful in DIY design/e-biz/marketing situations.
• Yoga for keeping me sane. I am so guilty of not practising often enough.
  
• That I actually don't have to rush out to buy, stuff, baste and roast a turkey or any other fish or fowl, vegetarian or otherwise. Yay.
  

Things I am not thankful for (you knew this was coming, right?):

• That the USD continues to suck shit while I have an unprecedented amount festering in my Paypal balance that I could so spend on other things that would make me happy right this minute.
• That Etsy continues to repeatedly promote their own pet favourites and add features we don't need whilst conveniently ignoring the valid requests sellers have been making over the years.
  
• Copycats. All kinds, not necessarily those who only replicate designs. Shame on you.
  

For those (yep all 3 of you) who are curious about tellurus packaging, here are some of the current iterations. I've struggled for a while because I really hate excessive packaging because it adds to shipping costs and is unfriendly for the environment (I'm rather worrying about what to do when my existing stock of free hand-me-down bubblewrap runs out). But in the case of fragile goods, I'd rather have shipped it in a box than have to deal with damaged shipments. I'm also struggling with branding and identity (sheesh, to hear myself say this after all those years dealing with ad agency fools) vs keeping costs down.

So if I'm shipping a rigid/cluster-style item, multiples or one-of-a-kind piece, it'll come in a plain black or metallic brown box secured with ribbon. This gold and black striped design is one of my favourites, unfortunately this is my last one - I hope I can find some more. The tricky thing about finding boxes here in Singapore is that it's usually kiddie-inspired pastel colours or tacky glued-on fake ribbons (with the glue still visible, horrors!) galore.


And if your purchase is structurally able to lie flat without taking damage and is (relatively) replaceable, you get it in the brown (or white) paper package tied with a bit of gold-edged chocolate (or cream) ribbon. Of course, there's layers of protective bubblewrap and all my pieces come with a ziplock baggie which, really, is the best way to keep humidity and other tarnish-inducing agents out.

After more than two years of waiting, Etsy has finally given us statistics. Google Analytics, to be exact, which they actually call "Etsy Web Analytics" in our shop setup management. Roll eyes.

So right now I have about 3 days' worth of stats in there and obviously, what interests me most as a seller would be how people actually find my tiny little shop and/or listings on teh interwebs:

Under "referring sites", there are blogs, shops and other websites that I know I've never advertised or been mentioned on (and I did go visit them to make sure), the most amusing ones being "referrals" from competitor jewellery shops.

Under "keywords", I've discovered that people supposedly ended up at my Etsy shop after they googled stuff like "pillow boxes", "ebony wood rose earring" and the very exclusive "mei-tai baby carrier brown damask". For some reason they also found me while they were searching for other jewellery designers whom I am aware also have shops on Etsy.

I have 4 other sites using GA and they work fine. I like to look in the list of keywords now and then, and although the results can sometimes be hilarious, I know they're accurate because there are indeed pages on my blog, for example, that contain those precise same words together. All my fault anyway.

Etsy is being its typical Etsy self about this, even though it was brought up during beta testing. They decided to roll it out to everyone anyway, saying that GA is a complex third-party tool that they have no control over, and that the "signal-to-noise ratio will settle itself out". Well, maybe they'll take another 2 years to sort that one out. In the meantime, the stats are next to useless - to me anyway.

It all just reeks of half an ass... thank you for nothing, Etsy.

Most of us have moved on, but Etsy still can't get its act together. These things are still stagnant and are really bugging me:

Still no stats. Etsy is using Google Analytics as well as their own internal tracking codes passed through urls. So why are sellers still not privy to these stats? Single item views are not enough - and even then, unreliable - the view counts have gone broken many, many times since I've been on. We want to know where viewers and buyers are coming from and this really is basic information. If the powers that be are too lazy to do anything about it, at least just let us put in our own Google Analytics codes.

Expired items. It makes absolutely no sense that we can't edit or delete them. The only thing we can do is to renew them. I'm not going to pay $0.20 to delete something! And besides, Etsy must think they have unlimited disk space to be keeping all that data indefinitely.

Pay our bill using Paypal. I'm glad I didn't hold my breath. What's so difficult about this anyway? Do you know how annoying it is for international sellers to use credit cards when we can tap into our Paypal balance??

Organise favourites. I'm reaching 200 favourite sellers and god knows how many individual items. It is painful to even go through them for springcleaning so I've stopped. Can't we at least be able to sort sellers alphabetically, or by most recent listing? Group favourite items of the same seller together? Geez.

Forums. I stopped skulking around a long time ago but I noticed one thing still hasn't changed. After you submit a response, you are taken back to the first page of the thread. I mean... what kind of user experience is this?!

Shipping profiles. Yes, Etsy introduced this so that we could make batch changes. But you know what? It isn't good enough. I am still unable to effect a mass change without a lot of roundabout confusion. When I change Shipping Profile A, I expect every listing using Shipping Profile A to be updated with the changes. But no. I have to go into batch update and re-select Shipping Profile A. On which items? I guess I have to memorise them because the default display is "no change". Am I missing something here or does Etsy think we all have loads of time to waste?

Rearranging product photos. So now we have a visual method of shifting them around. But instead of the more user-friendly drag-and-drop method, we have to clickety-click little arrows. It's so... yawn.

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I shan't even go into the ever-persistent cruddy search, blatant mistagging, and same old sellers on front page and gift guides.

Instead of attending to all this, Etsy's gone and fiddled with things like Treasury, Time Machine, Storque, Pounce and whatnot that don't even necessarily make the buying experience easier.

P.S. Two years is about the time I have been selling on Etsy. And 2 calendar years is like 6 years digital/online time. When you really think about it, what has Etsy been doing all this while?

As I was busy finding and adding my favourite bands, brands and other stuff (dismayed that not all are available yet, zzzzzz) to the "I am a Fan of..." application on Facebook, I also found that we can create a page for our business. There's basic info on what you're about, and you can have photos, videos, discussions, list events and send updates to fans. Stuff you add to your mini-feed can also appear in fans' News Feeds, IF they so choose.

Then theoretically, your fans add you, their friends see the activity, their friends' friends as well... etc. Well, increasing online presence and brand awareness is usually not a bad thing if you do want people to find out about you. There also seems to be a whole targeted advertising programme but let's not go there for now. I hate being spammed with ads myself.

So join me, or get started on your own page here!

Guess what? About a year after I originally launched my website under the name tellurus, here I am with a revamp!

We (myself and Mr T) have been busy for the past month working on a clean, new design that incorporates some new features as well as my own online boutique.

What, am I closing my Etsy shop? Noooo, both sites will remain committed to bringing you handcrafted jewellery, but my new shop will be housing the exclusives and one-of-a-kind items as well as promos that are currently not possible with Etsy's system. So... do check it out and tell me what you think :)

And of course, I will also be updating my blog shortly, so stay tuned. Why, oh why did I ever choose purple?? Mmmpphhm.

I only made about 25 of these, but it took longer than expected. They will be travelling to a fellow Etsian in Cornwall and will hopefully reach visitors at her local craft fair.


Attached to the business cards are self-printed mini catalogues containing a selection of my jewellery along with a rubber-stamped bit on the back page on being handmade. This sprung to my mind as the best way to showcase my work.... for now.

Singaporeans are tough... the vast majority of customers so far has been great, but I noticed the ones most likely to have "issues" would be local. Perhaps I should just keep this to myself for now...

I don't quite know how to say this but so far this year, I've been questioning what I'm doing more and more. Not in the sense of why I am on earth, but why I am still pursuing an interest that I find increasingly hard to sustain. It is, of course, nice to have one's peers appreciate one's work (I think/hope they do anyway), after all words don't cost anything, but it's different from someone actually liking your thing enough to buy it, use it and share with their friends.

Maybe I have never had to want for anything bad enough to be able to dig deep and push myself to get it. Maybe it's my complacency and procrastination. Think it's time to find out how thick my skin can be... but I don't have the time right now.

I feel so sleepy. And I feel like closing my shop early since I won't be around till mid June. Not that I expect anything exciting to be happening during my absence. When I'm back, though, I'm gonna look through my older jewellery that hasn't sold and decide which ones to dismantle.

Things I want to do in no particular order:
redesign my blog // take lotsa photos // read // eat more pizza // get on with my Italian lessons...

Sorry for rambling.

Some stuff from last week:


From L-R, top to bottom:

Mini Neoterica Turquoise - I was asked to do a remake of a promo piece I made last year for Crafted With Love. I've not worked on this style for a while because I got quite sick of seeing so many different variations of it on sale these days. I'm undecided on whether to bring them back with new stone accents, as the thought of repetitive hammering and filing is rather mind-numbing, but we'll see.

Blue Bulbs - Another remake of one of my favourites (along with Pomegranate Spice). I love the contrasting shapes and colours, and the end result has a rather otherworldly botanical feel.

Island Hopper - Yes, the labradorite here is from the bunch of gems in this pic. I hoarded a lot of it in different cuts, but I think it's time to use them up so I can move on with life and, ahem, buy new stuff. Based on the alternating design, this bracelet is a little on the large side, so of course I'd be happy to resize it if anyone wants.

Nordic Halo - Most of the blue onyx around is brightly and unnaturally dyed but this light, translucent version is hard to come by. In a shade of icy cool blue that goes perfectly with brushed sterling silver. (They also feature in my Blossom Splash bracelet!) But I have to say I really like my earwires. Heh.

That's it for now. I can feel a dry spell coming up... the lethargy, indifference and distraction are all settling in nicely, even though I have a ton of new supplies to play with.

P.S. I also signed up on iCraft.ca, a global crafts showcase based in Toronto. I have no idea what will become of it because it's obviously new and, since they don't take a commission, that might translate to a lack of outside promotion. But ah well, since I don't pay a cent for a whole year while they're running this limited-time-offer (ends 31st March Canadian time!), what the heck.

This morning, a kind soul alerted me to this particular thread (which has now become extremely heated) on Etsy Forums in which it came to light that a 3rd party website called Polyvore is allowing its members to upload other people's images and manipulate them to create collages online. Without permission from the creators/owners. Yeah, and they even let you remove watermarks if the original images happen to have them.

Apart from being lame, it only encourages intellectual property theft by perpetuating the misconception that everything on the web is free for all. Well, technically it could be, but whatever happened to original artists' rights?! Polyvore users continue to be sadly ignorant.

Yes, I can see how the idea empowers any wannabe fashion editor or art curator, but wtf is the point of these collages anyway? How could they have come up with such a disrespectful idea? Not a single Etsy seller is being credited on all the images uploaded, and I feel really bad for the visual artists whose work, not just photos, has been ripped apart, defaced or altered in any way.

Here's what a Polyvore admin had to say:

Polyvore is an online community for creating collages made from images sourced from the web.

Polyvore is not about stealing anyone's copyrighted images.

The images, which are always imported by individual Polyvore members, are stored as low-resolution copies which are not suitable for making prints or sale, etc...

We also always make a point of linking back to the source so that if someone becomes interested in a item, they can go back to the original to find out more and perhaps make a purchase. We believe that this is a form of free, extra exposure for your work.

However, If you are unhappy about your images being included in Polyvore, you can send us a DMCA notice. When contacting us, please make sure to tell us exactly which items we should remove.

Anyway... go have a look. I'm sure you'll spot many Etsy artists you know. Fuck Polyvore.

Update at 4.36PM:
Polyvore responded to my Notice of Infringement within 10 minutes. They've removed the offending items. Thankfully they are taking note of the furore within the Etsy community and are remedying the issue. However I still don't support or agree with their raison d'être and the execution of their business model. If there is one.

So I was doing some accounting for Oct/Nov, and I've noticed that as of this month, Singapore buyers have finally outnumbered American buyers on my shop. A breakdown of transactions is as follows:

By end May 2007, out of 51 transactions, 33.3% were from Singapore vs 58.8% from the US.

By end Nov 2007, out of 226 transactions, 41.6% were from Singapore vs 39.8% from the US.

I've yet to calculate percentages in terms of dollars spent and other such interesting stuff, but I'm not really so interested in that as I am in this revelation: I used to have to tell people that my customers were mostly from the US. But look at how the US percentage has fallen! (humph... like their weak dollar) Well, yeah, 6 months is a long time to play catch up, and I've had several return customers, but I have done nothing for advertising, unless you count listings in local shopping directories. And then again, there are sooooooo many kiddy blogshops springing up all the time selling way more affordable stuff than I am. This month, instead of listing or renewing items during the US morning or night as I used to do, I tried it at different times of the day, hoping to be visible to other markets. I mean... the likelihood of being in the first 10 pages or so is much higher this way (oh, this is sad).

Yay, me. Now can I say the majority of customers is local?

The rise in number of items listed under the Jewelry category has been phenomenal. Well over 1,000 new "jewelry" items are listed every 2-3 days. I don't mind so much if it were all beautiful jewellery because I like to gawk anyway, but I'm seeing more and more mistagged items!

What business do beads, buttons, jewellery boxes, earrings stands have in placing their first/main tag as "jewelry"?? It's already annoying enough having to add "not supplies" to the end of my searches (not to mention looking through small, dark and blurry photos).

Is this the so-called festive crunch? I don't know, I was completely oblivious last year and I don't think there were quite as many sellers as there are now.

On a related note, I think it's about time I started looking out for Christmas presents. I can't possibly give people jewellery that I made yet again (if they wear it in the first place). What with possible postage delays and such, it's always better start early if I'm buying from overseas. And it's already November! *meep*

Update at 5.50PM:
OK, now I am looking through Journals and I have found gift tags, rubber stamps, vintage wallpaper and bookmarks when there are already Tags, Scrapbooking, Paper and Bookmarks categories on the same level, and vintage supplies is a whole different thing. BAAAAAAAAAAH.

Remember how I was drooling over larimar and some larimar rings? Well, I did try to order the Marah Lago ones but they wouldn't ship to Singapore. Some stupid USPS regulation that prohibits jewellery from being sent here via post. So I ordered 2 rings direct from a Dominican Republic seller late August - and they took a darned long time to arrive. I thought they'd been lost and had already emailed the seller to report that I hadn't received them after a month. But the postman finally rang my doorbell with them yesterday morning and I immediately wore one out when I went to do my hair!

Here's a pic - the 2 rings I got are actually the same design anyway, just different sizes so I can wear them on different fingers. Yes, I am that crazy about it. The out-of-this-world colour is something like I've never seen, not even on the prettiest Sleeping Beauty turquoise (which tends to look flat anyway). There are subtle markings on the stone that give it a mysterious depth and an unexpected organic feel. I'm seriously considering buying a strand to make stuff with but, apart from being quite costly, it's not a very well-known stone. I don't know how it would be received. It's definitely harder, though not impossible, to sell pricier items. I could always keep the pieces for myself though. LOL. I need to have job benefits too, right?

See, this is something I struggle with sometimes. I normally buy stones I like and make things that I like from them. I don't really bother much about what people might or might not buy, or whether they have the same taste as I do. (That's why each person who tells me they like my work is giving me a little self-esteem boost, and I'm especially grateful for that!) I'm afraid I don't make a very good businessperson after all. I mean, I can separate very clearly what my head and heart are telling me, but usually the head consciously lets the heart win. I wouldn't be able to answer to myself otherwise. Am I even making sense??

OK, so it's official - I have just had to file my first claim for a lost package.

Someone bought and paid for something which I sent out in June, but all this while, she hasn't received it. I'd been keeping in touch with her and then requesting Singpost to trace the durned thing, but apparently once it left Singapore for Sydney, there's been neither hide nor hair of it. Strange that, because my shipments to Australia and the UK usually take only about a week if they're going to a major city. And the postal administration took a ruddy long time getting back to me too!

I've refunded the payment and am so thankful that this customer has been super patient and understanding the whole time. Instead of flying off into a rage or something, she even apologised for causing "trouble". Hmmm. I do feel bad, because I can imagine being disappointed at not receiving something I wanted so much that I bought it. What I don't understand is how these things can get "lost" though. They can't disappear into thin air. Someone probably misplaced or stole it! *mutter*

Moral of the story - always use registered post.

Now that we're entering the fourth and final quarter of the year, I think it's really time for me to stop goofing about and really get down to my (Etsy) work. The thing is, the more yoga I get into, the less stuff I create, and vice versa. I'm so torn between the two.

Anyway, for the month of September, some of you might have noticed that I didn't list very many new items. I actually tried a different approach:
I renewed nearly 4 times as many new listings as I made (previous renewal rate was pretty much the inverse, or lower);
I had only one Showcase spot in the entire month; and
I abstained from bead-buying!

Money-wise, September was surprisingly the second-best month of the year, and loads better than the pathetic excuse that was August. Obviously, I don't know whether there's a correlation here. I wish Etsy would offer sellers some useful statistics so we know where our buyers are coming from. Nevertheless, since launching my own website in mid-August and updating most of my published URLs to point there so that people go through it to get to my Etsy shop, at least I know a bit more about where people find me. Heh heh.

I was updating my accounts today and realised *sniff* I'm not making a good enough profit margin. No doubt, with experience and such, I'm doing better than when I first started, but I'm far from being self-sustaining at the moment. And the market is just so, so saturated and competitive. That's why I resisted buying any more new beads. If I don't look, I wouldn't be tempted.

I'm often asked what exactly it is that I do, since I don't have a full-time job and am perceived to be spending all my time on crafting. Here's a list:

- check out books/magazines/shops for inspiration
- source for materials and supplies
- catalogue these materials and supplies when I receive them
- sit down and make stuff
- take photos and prepare them in Photoshop
- figure out the costing for each piece
- write up the listings
- be online to list them at different times of the day
- check out forums and other online communities
- manage convos and email from buyers
- wrap and package items when they are sold
- create address labels, fill in customs and registration forms
- go to the post office (registered mail must be handled at the PO)
- do all the accounting nonsense because I am self-employed

And as you can tell, I do next to zero promotion. Part of me just doesn't feel like creating extra work for myself. But that's something I might want to think about for next year, perhaps. If you take into account the fact that I don't do collection-style work, sometimes it can be quite challenging to be constantly creating new and different things. Should I move away from this? I don't know... but I do know that it would certainly make things more efficient.

So... the bottom line is, if you see a parent - or even better, a parent with a day job - who also manages a crafting business, well, you know you're looking at a hero! I really have to take my hat off to them.

As some of you might know by now, I've given my line of jewellery an identity, tellurus. It is also my business name and it comes from a variant of Tellus, the Roman goddess of the earth, and the equivalent to the more well-known Gaia.

But why? The short answer is that I love nature (and of course, "beakee" is my online nick and has nothing whatsoever to do with my work and I didn't want to be stuck with it). The long answer is that I'm attracted to and inspired by colours and textures found in the world around us. Mostly natural, but possibly some man-made or enhanced. Also, I love working with gemstones and metals. There's something so primaeval about them.

After dawdling about for far too long, and with the help of dear T, we finished the final tweaks over the weekend, and I've started using http://www.tellurus.com/. The entire exercise reminded me of the good/bad old days of launching a revamped website, most notably of having to update existing things in a specific sequence.

Some good folks at Etsy also drew my attention to Indiepublic, an(other) online community of independent crafters and artists. So I signed up of course, and have been tinkering about with my page. There's something really compulsive about setting up as many different online profiles and personas, and the slew of new networking sites just doesn't stop...

A perceptive cousin told me he felt that the name tellurus conveys a mythological yet techie, sci-fi feel. I love the contrast; I think that's a really cool combination!

What do you think?

Here are 7 tiny pairs of earrings in my favourite style of the moment: the Neoterica Minis with (clockwise from front left) aventurine, African turquoise, turquoise, lapis lazuli, onyx, tiger eye and rhodochrosite 4mm gems.

I created them last weekend as promos, to be packaged with press releases from Crafted With Love. I never knew how tiring and repetitive it is to "mass produce" things, coz this isn't the way I usually work. As with all hand-forged earring components I make, the hardest and boringest bit to get through was the filing and rounding off of wire ends. Anyway - I'm quite happy with them and it'll be interesting to see what happens...