I may have mentioned some time back that I’ve sold online for years. I started out when eBay was text only — no pictures — so I’ve been around the block a time or two. I started out buying homeschool books, then started selling them, and it morphed from there. I started selling sewing patterns around 1999 or so, and have been hard at it ever since. I love what I do. I’ve been on eBay, another online mall (that now appears to be a porn site – WOW), my own website, and have been happily settled on Etsy for several years. I go back and forth about going back to my own website, but haven’t decided, so there I stay.
Once in a while, I get a message from someone on Etsy, asking if I will take (insert number) dollars for the pattern(s) they want to purchase. My standard response, thanks to one of my friends’ brilliance is “I’m sorry, but I post my best price.” Because I do. I’m not running a garage sale. This is my primary income. I take pride in what I do, and it’s WORK. Let me tell you how it works when one is selling patterns.
First, you have to find the patterns. I’ve been blessed. I’ve been featured in the Indianapolis Star, as well as Threads Magazine. I don’t have a shortage of people contacting me to buy patterns from them. I have to set up a time to look at them, and then travel to the location. I have to look through them and decide if they are something I really need, because patterns accumulate rather quickly. I’m choosy. Then I take them home and the work begins.
I have to count each pattern, making sure that not only all of the pieces are there, but that the pieces in the envelope match the pattern number and size on the envelope. A lot of sewists do mash ups, so I’ve found three or four patterns all in one envelope. This sorting takes time. I watch Netflix while I’m doing it sometimes. The other day, it took me two hours to get through about ten patterns because they were complicated and mashed up. It’s a process.
Once I’ve got the patterns counted and have noted any missing pieces, I take photos. I have a little space set up for this, but also have to have the right lighting. Then I have to edit the photos so they look nice. Old patterns aren’t always the easiest to make pretty, and though I don’t go to the Photoshop extremes that some people do, again, it takes time. Then I post photos to Instagram and Facebook, and try to remember to add them to Pinterest. This requires captioning and hashtags, so again, time.
Then I make the listing, again adding description, title, tags, and the like. I research prices to see what I want to list it at. Then, for history’s sake, I add the pattern to the Vintage Pattern Wiki, because that’s where the archive of patterns is located. I add a link to my shop’s listing there, too, so people can find it. When the pattern sells, I have to go back to the wiki and delete that link. Once I’m done with all of this, I file the pattern away numerically, in one of the pattern cabinets I own. It’s tedious. Filing is not my favorite thing, but it’s better than the old days when I would make the kids do it, and my daughter purposefully misfiled things because she didn’t want to do it.
Of course, when the pattern sells, there are shipping procedures, and a daily run to the post office, but you get my drift: this is work. I love love love what I do, and I’m glad that my customers find me and purchase from me. But it’s work. Are some pattern prices really high? YES. Are some patterns available less expensively somewhere else? Sometimes, but those sellers don’t make any money when you compare to the time they’ve spent.
I’m a professional seller who takes pride in her work, and has to pay her bills. So please people, before you go asking an Etsy seller if they will take less money for their hard work, think it through, because we’re not running a garage sale. We’re conducting business, and business doesn’t work like that. If it does, it won’t be doing it for long.
::end mini rant wrapped up in an informational post::
The Vintage Fashion Librarian 