As an avid jewelry collector I realized one day that I had exceeded (by a long shot!) what I should have as “My collection”. It was taking over my kitchen, bedroom and was now oozing into my living-room!! I had to make some decisions; first, what to part with and second, what to do with it all. I work a full time job and jewelry collecting / making is my hobby but it was taking over my life. I needed to do some sorting- deciding what to keep and what to part with, and then what to do with all of this stuff I have accumulated. Currently, I am unable to keep a brick and mortar shop- I did not have enough capitol or time- so I decided to look into online selling.

I learned a few things along the way that I would like to share with you. To begin with I decided I wanted to host my own website. I figured this would be the least expensive way to begin selling online. I did some research and I found a great host that provided very intuitive software that allowed me to build my site. I was surprised at how easy and fun it was! I learned that doing a little each day was the best way to “eat this elephant”. Keeping that in mind, it took the better part of three months to get the site looking good. Along with the package that I pay for monthly, they registered my domain name for me, "MyGemStoneBox".

I did more research and found that I needed to do some work with my tags and optimizing my site for better ranking. It was great to part of the “world wide web” but you find out rather quickly it is a huge place and people need to be able find what they are searching for. Things were not moving along as quickly as I would have liked so I decided to dig deeper. I looked at Ebay, Etsy, & Ruby Lane. I figured a store on a well known site would make it easier to sell from- easier to be found. I decided to give Etsy a shot. Ebay had higher fees and Ruby was even more expensive. I opened my shop in 2007 and still sell there today. All that said, you still need to promote your shop. It does not sell itself.

Social marketing is a vehicle used to sell online. Creating and maintaining a blog is one way to increase your opportunity to be found. As part of my social marketing portfolio I keep my blog updated with fresh content at least once a week. I “ping” my weekly updates to Digg.com, Technorati.com, & Del.icio.us. In addition I have a whole host of social sites I visit regularly and mini-blogs I keep on various NING sites. You can friend me on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Squidoo, Flickr, and YouTube as either MyGemStoneBox or unicorn94.

Jewelry collecting (and making) is a wonderful part of my life and the experience has taught me so much. If I can leave you with one piece of advice it would be to follow your passion and learn as much as you can! The internet is a wonderful resource and you can learn so much just by investing some time. If someone were to ask me 10 years ago would I ever have my own business, I would have to say my answer would have been “No” but with the investment of time, commitment, and research it is amazing what you can create….. Don’t be afraid to try something new!!