Review - Independent Businesses

After completing these blogs and reflecting on them and the information I collected, I feel as though I can make a more informed decision on the career path I am choosing to take. Its great to know about what fills the world of illustration and the amazing community behind it. All the resources available to boost my skills and give me all the help I need will be really useful. I loved finding out more about my favourite illustrators and their shops, what they stive for and how much they have achived. Shops like these have always been one of my favourite things, they have always been a source of inspiration to me and will continue to along will all the other beautiful shops I discover all the time. Even though this area can be tricky to make it in, it’s something I love and I wouldn’t want to do anything else! It takes passion and commitment and a definite love for what you do otherwise the would be no point and I can tell that the owners of these shops I have researched, take pride in what they do.

I would love to take this research further by continuing to reach out to shops as I progress my own. I think it would be an amazing opportunity to be able to collaborate with other people and create unique pieces with a flavour of my own shop and another.

An action plan for this might look something like:

1 – start and build up shop and online presence

2 – get a collection of posts going so people can get a feel of what I do and like to illustrate

3- continue to reach out and message shops to ask questions or opinions/ feedback

4- create contacts. The more connections the better! You never know when someone could be just the person you need

Like with any field or small business selling, there can be lots of pros and cons. Its important to weigh these up to decide if something is worth doing.  All of the illustrators and shop owners I researched have worked really hard and over time that work has paid of for them and helped their business grow to what it is today, but this is not possible without putting in the work yourself. No one is going to achieve your dreams but you! There are definitely more tips and tricks I would like to learn, potentially off more small business owners, that will help ne progress my work and products and get them to a standard and quality I am happy with but before I get to that point, I have to take it one small step at a time.  

I have had a Redbubble account since I was about 13 and uploaded some art here and there and that was fun when I was young, the thought that people were out in the world with my illustrations in sticker form enjoying them! However, years on despite them increasing their product range, Redbubble has just been over flooded with millions of accounts and illustrations and it has become harder and harder to get noticed and to sell anything. You must reach a threshold of twenty pounds before you can receive payment and I’m lucky if I can get that in a year! Even after uploading more of my work after I had improved my skills at university, I still only sell one sticker and its only because it is themed on ‘Beauty and the Beast’. I do not think this site is worth my time as an illustrator anymore and I would rather focus my efforts into Etsy where I have more control over my products.

Take a look at my (dusty, old) Redbubble account here:

https://www.redbubble.com/people/carrotchipcooki/shop

Every platform comes with its downsides though and for Etsy it’s their fees. Recently in April this year, users and sellers of Etsy boycotted the site for a week to protest the rising costs to upload listings and the increasing fees that are attached to selling, promotion and more. From what I understand from people already active in this industry that I follow online, it’s becoming harder for small independent businesses to make a living. It seems normal for people to have these jobs as a side job alongside whatever day job they need to make enough money to pay necessary bills and living costs. We do what we do because we love it and that isn’t fair for bigger companies like Etsy to be capitalising off of small businesses and if we don’t work together to make the industry fairer for new illustrators and creators then things could get worse. Despite this, I am almost forced to use Etsy as selling platform to begin with as it is well known, has a name for itself to can buy handcrafted of illustrated products from honest real people and has an existing base of customers who use the site. One of my goals is to be able to move my online shop up from Etsy to my own website where I can yet again have even more control over not just the products themselves but everything that goes in to listing them, pricing, promoting and selling.
There are lots of articles outlining the Etsy boycott, here is one where you can read more about what happened and why. Below you can also see a helpful illustrated guide on the boycott from twitter user @starsalts

https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/30/23001727/etsy-seller-strike-boycott-fee-increase