Happy New Year everyone!

I hope you all had a great Christmas, and a fun filled New Year celebrations!

As you can tell from the title of this month’s blog… there are going to be a few changes happening in The Little Sticker Shop and I’m about to tell you why!

Switching to Tracked Postage: What this Means for Pricing

To help minimise postage issues and ensure orders arrive safely, I’ve made the decision to switch from stamp postage to tracked packages. While this offers much more reliability and peace of mind, it does come at a higher cost. Because of this, sticker prices have been updated slightly to reflect the increased postage cost. This change helps protect both you and the shop and ensures a smoother delivery experience overall.

You may be wondering why I didn’t do this from the start… the answer is honestly, I didn’t think I would sell much. To keep prices low when starting my business I used stamps. Any small business owner knows to make money you have to spend money… and for me that was material, so I had to lower the costs of some things (i.e. postage) to keep those start-up costs low. 4 months in, I am now happy to make the switch to streamline the process and make it more reliable for both me and you.

Why we’re saying Goodbye to Etsy

I’ll be closing the Etsy shop and focusing fully on my website instead. Managing Etsy alongside my website comes with extra listing fees, posting costs, and time spent linking and promoting both platforms. At the moment, I don’t have the capacity to give the Etsy shop the attention it needs to perform well, which means it isn’t generating enough traffic or profit to justify the costs. Concentrating everything in one place allows me to put my time and energy where it truly makes the biggest difference.

I have always wanted my website to have the most traffic and took the advice of others to set up shop in Etsy to help promote my products and although that is not a bad idea for those who want to start their own business, for me it didn’t work whilst I had my own website anyway that I was directing traffic too. This is nothing against Etsy, but it is a competitive market with restrictions and rules that make it hard to crack (or at least for me) whereas on my website I do not have these restrictions and would rather spend the money on my site instead of giving it all to Etsy.

Colouring Books: Testing before going bigger

I really enjoyed making my Colouring Story book this Christmas of The Tale of Little Jack Ginger and I’ve been exploring the idea of professionally publishing a colouring book. However, this is a big project that requires both time and financial investment. To help fund this and learn what works best, I’ll be selling smaller colouring books on my website as a test. They will be published and made from my little home, so I am not wasting money on outsourcing these small products, as the goal is to outsource a bigger colouring book. This will also allow me to gather feedback, refine the designs, and make smarter decisions before moving forward with a larger publication. These small colouring books will be 10 pages max. This will make the process of printing, cutting and binding a lot faster as my 40-page story colouring book would take at least 2 days to put together. I will do various designs, and they will all link in with my favourite sticker characters like Bonnie-bear and occasionally have a seasonal vibe to it. These will be advertised on my social media, so if you are not already following, I’d suggest you do so, and I’ll leave the links down below.

Will there be another story colouring book you may ask ???

The Answer, I don’t know. Right now, I haven’t thought about whether to make a second book for next Christmas of The Tale of Little Jack Ginger, or whether I will be making a completely different book. But this is where I want to get them professionally published. This is more of a long-term goal than a short-term one, that needs a lot of time and thought to make it just right. When I know… you’ll know, but I want it to be perfect for you. If I do get it professionally publish, I am sure you understand the cost of that will be higher, but I will do what I can to make it reasonable but also turn a profit for my shop.

 

Saying Goodbye to Some Products (and Hello to New Ones)

Some products will be removed from the shop as they haven’t been selling as well as others. Although this makes me sad as I love every one of my stickers… this is where my brain needs to override my heart. I want my shop to be purposeful and filled with products that you all love and want to purchase, instead of cluttered with items that don’t sell. In some cases, these may be replaced with updated styles or refreshed designs.

As an artist it is hard sometimes to find the style, you’re happy with and I am still exploring mine. This can take years, and I am also hoping in the new year to learn how to draw with different brushes to create new textures and depth into my art. For example, I love watercolour! Always have. It was my favourite style of traditional painting, but I have lost that skill over the years and want to re-learn. Drawing with watercolour in digital art form is also very different than traditional art so I want to explore and learn this skill in the new year and once I am happy, I will introduce it into my store.

Whilst this process happens behind the scenes, you may find that things will disappear and reappear. The products that I have already printed and packaged will need to be sold before I remove them from my store so this will be done at a discounted price. I will announce that sale on my social media so make sure you follow for that announcement.

Pausing Personalised Order to Improve the Process

New personalised orders will be paused for now while I work on finding and setting up an online form that I’m happy with for the website.

With personalised requests I have a lot of questions to ask; What size do you want? Glossy or matt finish? How many sheets do you want? Do you have a design already or do you want me to design it for you? Have you got any reference images? The list goes on and on. Depending on the answers as well will also depend on how long it takes to produce, and now I am going back to full time work this will take longer to make custom designs.

This form will help streamline the process, making it easier for you to communicate your vision and for me to capture the right level of detail for your order. I also want it to be able to provide you an approximate price total, so you get this information first hand before we proceed.

Businesses I already work with regularly, and whose designs I already have on file, will not be affected and can continue ordering as usual. Once the new system is ready and running smoothly, personalised orders will reopen.

 

A Note of Thanks

Running a small business means constantly learning, adjusting and sometimes making difficult decisions. I’m incredibly thankful to everyone who continues to support The Little Sticker Shop through these changes. Your understanding and encouragement make it possible for me to keep moving forward, and I’m so excited about what this next chapter will bring.

 

Lots of love,

Emily

The Little Sticker Shop

xx