Tab A in Slot B: Getting my Shop Together

So as of yesterday, I now have full inventory of all 25 notecards. It took about a month longer than I thought it would.

Anything that could go wrong, pretty much did, but ended up being a small ripple on the larger pond. And all of this kerfuffle is really just up-front disorder and static that goes with any new undertaking never tried before. Nothing ventured…

What I have learned so far is that just because people have been enthusiastic about the cards in person does not mean they will find them online and scoop them off the digital shelves like the Black Friday rush at WallyWorld.

Build it, and they will yawn.

So with all this stock, I am going to have to take initiative to find a buying market other than the Etsy storefront. I am going to have to prepare x number of each card set for shelves in local stores that I keep restocked on a recurring basis.

Where I’ll ask for space and how many vendors I’ll be willing to keep supplied is something I have not sorted out yet.

And here’s the crunch: retail sales is NOT going to be easy money or much of it per unit sales. And high volume is beyond the capacity of my thumbs, who are both on disability.

Selling wholesale to stores takes a bite out of the small margin per card.

Each “unit” requires an awful lot of touches from the time I get cards from the printer to the time I send them off in the mail or leave them at the Country Store.

I can see the tedium factor skyrocketing rapidly. I can see turf wars between one side insists he needs a lot of seemingly disordered surface area and the other who values “all that junk off the table” no matter why it’s there.

All of this is to say that today is the real beginning of this undertaking. I’d love to be successful in bringing in a bit to supplement my meager Social Security check. But how much busywork, how many touches, how many hours a week would represent more “success” than I’m willing to give to this “great idea” I had a few months back?