saplanet originals™

Oh well, I don’t even quite sure what I meant by Personalizing Commercialization?

I started this business with the simple objective to do what I would be enjoying doing. I started off with Etsy, which was a fantastic warm community. I am not so sure if I love it as much anymore. I don’t hate it for sure.

With the closing of Etsy Tools, I started to realize that more ‘pioneer’ members who saw the growth of Etsy since it was just a baby little selling venue have started to grow to dislike the now very commercialized venue.

I remember I used to login to the Etsy Forum, chatting up with some members, read on some various perspective. People were pretty supportive, friendly and helpful in there. I am sure some are still maintaining the good qualities though.

These days, I rarely visit the forum anymore. It’s full of land mines, you may catch yourself in a really nasty situation if you just let your guard down a wee bit.

I started to think about my own business. I love the personalization of the service and communication I have with my buyers, many are now my regular and friends. However, it’s a little different from just friends, there’s a tint of commercial factor in this unique friendship, because they still pay for the purchases. LOL..

The objective of my business is pretty simple, I want to keep doing what I love doing, and this ‘hobby’ finance my daily basic needs. One thing for us to watch out for would be the reason of this hobby.

As I design patterns, I need to simply harness the thoughts that I am doing so because I want to, and love to. I would not want to be making dolls and patterns just because I want to make profit out of them (surely, I still need income, but you know what I mean?) but because I enjoy the process.

I need to be able to shoo away bad buyers who do not pay, haggle for freebies, poor attitude or whatsoever. I may sound snobbish here, but hey, I am not here to beg for sales, remember? I want to be able to be in a situation to reject orders when I think I really can’t fulfill them, and not grab on just any sales and do a lousy job. Rejecting sales means lesser income, but I want to be in a position to not see buyers as money generator. I know, I may sound like I am living and behaving like some arrogant artist, but really, when money is all we think about, we may just end up copying someone else’s work and discount on our integrity to create.

My business may remain small scale, or expand in a way that it always carry a personal touch to the work. I just need to figure out how to do that. LOL

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Replying to josepb:
I am unable to publish your comment here, because you have mentioned someone’s name and the url. You did not leave your email or web address, so I am going to just reply to you here.

1. The Forestie Tortoise in my shop was first created upon request of a buyer in July 07, you may go track on the sale of that seller you mentioned, and you will get the answer to your question. I cannot comment further. Although I may not have achieved that many sales as that seller has, that doesn’t warrant that I copied her works.

2. Thank you for your information though, but actually I have been informed of that some time back. We just have to leave it to the conscience of the seller.

3. I do not have/buy the pattern she is selling, I can’t tell you if it’s similar to mine, you have to decide which one appeal to you most.

I think I have attended to your concerns eh.

All in all, I choose not to be bothered with such issues, since I have very little control over what others want to do, I can only choose to keep doing what I love doing, putting my best effort in every design.