Starting a New Online Jewelry Shop on Etsy

I've started making Jewelry just over two months ago. I've quit my job last Sept, and for 6 months I had been traveling all over - San Fran, Singapore, NY, Phuket, Bali, Bhutan, Bangkok, Hainan Island and many times back to Tokyo to visit my bf and friends.

In March, I've decided to start to take a break from all the traveling and wanted to settle a bit in HK. I heard there were many cute, fun beads shops in Sham Shui Po so I've decided to take a look one afternoon. I was really mesmerized by all the different types of beads, chains, ropes and various fabrics available on just one street! I was hooked!!! My gf also took me to the big Jewelry Fair that takes place every quarter in HK and I bought a bunch of sterling silver jewelry parts there.  At first, I was making  Jewelry for fun and very soon afterwards I decided that I could potentially make this into a business as I've been having a blast making my jewelry. Ever since I was in high school, I've always wanted to have my own business, but could never really think of something very specific I would love to do. The good thing about having an online jewelry shop is its flexibility in terms of working hours, and location. This job can be done anywhere around the world, and the fixed cost is low as jewelry making can be done at home.

I've had an Ebay account from years ago but never really used it much. I've decided to do a test and posted a pair of sterling silver earrings I made on Ebay to see if I would get any traffic and sales.  Unfortunately that was a pure fail as I did not do any research on how to promote my items. 

My gf Cheryl suggested I use Etsy instead to build my online shop and I can understand why. Etsy feels emotionally more welcoming to users. You also feel that Etsy is for artists and creative individuals who wants to present their artwork/gift to others. Etsy just looks esthetically more pleasing and classier.

Starting an online shop on Etsy is surprisingly quick and easy. I started posting my jewelry online exactly 14days ago. My initial mission is to figure out how to create lots of traffic. Having people visit your page is the KEY, the more people that add your store or items to their favorites will bring sales.

So far, I have 13 sales. These sales were thanks to postings on my FB page to promote my new shop, and it was really my gf who posted my link on her page first and also posting my page on her blog. Therefore, all these sales were from my friends or friend's friends. Word of mouth is very important, and getting friends to promote this on your behalf is crucial. I was told by my friends that they've showed my online shop to colleagues, bosses, and friends and people seem to have a positive feedback and some are even interested in buying from my shop (fingers crossed!).

I think right now my goal needs to be getting sales that are not coming from friends or family. 

I've joined teams and commented on forums to increase my exposure and also learn from other successful Etsy sellers. I've also bought advertisements to showcase my jewelry. Another thing I did today was browse around different people's pages on Etsy and add their items to my favorites when I liked their products.  The forums mentioned that building Treasuries would also boost traffic and visibility so that would be the next task I will execute this week.

Please come check out my shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/Yoju