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climbdraws · 4 years

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How does an artist whose never really posted art online go about making a successful online store the same way you have? I'm not sure how to even start, do you open a store and pray? Get an endorsement from another artist? Am I gonna need a twitter? I guess im just looking for any tips, if you're willing to share. (BTW I got a a few of the holo skull stickers, ADORE them!)

hi! glad you like the holo stickers - hopefully gonna add more real soon!

(long answer so under cut)

I think the first thing you need to ask yourself is - how much effort do I want/have time to put into this? ((*For reference, my store would be categorized under upper-medium/high effort as I am doing art full-time))

Low Effort - POD service (print-on-demand) such as RedBubble, Society6, Teepublic (you upload your work, they handle everything else.)

PROS: They handle everything from site listings, product photos, product creation, packaging, shipping & handling, and customer support. They have brand reputation so people trust the site & your products. Offer a lot of custom printing (shirts, pillows, blankets, mugs etc) that would be pretty expensive trying to do yourself starting out. Very little involvement besides uploading your work & sharing it to your followers.

CONS: Artists only receive a very small percentage per sale and it might take quite a while to earn anything substantial. Product quality varies (RedBubble sticker quality is hot garbage imo) as they are usually cheaply produced. A lot of stolen artwork/designs are sold on these sites and nothing is done to regulate it.

Medium Effort: Online marketplaces such as Storenvy, Etsy, Shopify etc. A PLATFORM for you to sell your goods - you are responsible for creating, packaging, shipping & marketing your products.

PROS: Convenient marketplace shopping allows people to easily browse your store alongside other vendors/artists. Allows you to brand your own store & products so that they are uniquely yours. A true “small business” as you are handling essentially everything except for the online store-hosting platform. Allows you to include personal notes/touches or freebies in your orders as you are packaging & shipping them yourself.

CONS: Usually have to pay a fee for every sale/listing. Website/Storefront design are limited to what the platform has to offer (some don’t have custom HTML options). Requires YOU to create your own merch - whether it’s original art, prints, stickers, enamel pins etc - which means a lot of time spent talking to manufacturers, figuring out shipping rates etc. Can involve a lot of $$ investment upfront.

High Effort / Full-Time: Creating your own website/storefront OR Patreon Clubs. Handling everything yourself & releasing new content quite frequently - good for artists with a following/brand reputation/full-time.

Basically everything from the ‘Medium Effort’ tier but requiring quite a bit of time/effort (usually) daily. Monthly Patreon clubs are becoming pretty common - backers pledge every month for a ‘tier’ level and receive merch at the end of the month (which requires you to factor in manufacturing time, shipping time to you, packaging & then shipping to the customer which can be difficult for people who suck at meeting deadlines ((sometimes me but I'm working on it))

Honestly there is no “correct way” to go about creating a shop for yourself. I know a lot of artists who run their own stores & also have merch on RedBubble/Society6 as it’s just another revenue stream that’s quite low-key and the more visibility you have as a ‘brand’ the better. Some artists have shop openings with their store only being open for a week or two and then closed for a couple months and then re-open again (youtuber BayleeJae does this & is quite successful at it)

There’s honestly so many factors that go into a store - what kind of merch/art you want to create, what your fanbase is, who you’re marketing to, how much funds you want to invest etc etc. It can be quite overwhelming which is why I really recommend those just starting out to start slow/small and test the waters with just a few items first before rushing in and spending a bunch of $$$$ on products that might not end up selling as well as you hoped.

Since you said you don’t really post online - I would suggest starting with a LOW EFFORT store like RedBubble, Society6, TeePublic etc and really focus on building your social media following & presence. Make sure your social accounts all have same/similar handles (mine vary a lil but it’s always ‘Climb’). Posting frequently can be hard but it’s really important to start getting people to notice you & gain interest in your work.

#tutorial #i guess? more like tips but yknow #long post

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secrethauntedcollect · 7 years

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I got all of the above for $2.69 (nice)

Oh What’s This? It’s Soren’s No-Bullshit Guide To Couponing

When I say “no bullshit” I am aiming for a very high level of no bullshit. Cause you know when you see blogs about this shit, it’s all hyped up and overwhelming and click-baity like “PAY NINE CENTS FOR GROCERIES FOR A WEEK” except those groceries are just, like, some toilet paper and like 100 tubes of kids toothpaste or something? This guide is not going to do that to you.

I’m going to talk about: how couponing works, what I do and use, what you need for it, what the “catches” are, and what may or may not be applicable to you as well. You can save on a lot of stuff, but I haven’t found my grocery bills cut in half or anything. This is a long guide because there’s a lot to cover. Get yourself some tea/water/coffee/hot chocolate (or all of those), get cozy, and settle in for the read.

So, how does this stuff work?

It’s not like it was back in the 90s or any date before smartphones became widely used. Smartphones have changed the whole game. You no longer work exclusively with newspaper coupons and nor do you have to cross examine sales ads every week for like 10 hours a day to figure out where to get beans for free.

A huge change is rebate apps like Ibotta and Checkout51. You add your favorite stores, see what items offer rebates, and then add them to your list. Once you’ve bought stuff, you upload photos of your receipt (or scan the QR code) and it gives you cashback on whatever you bought. I use Ibotta, because I have limited phone storage and try not to cram too many apps on my phone. If I had more room I’d probably download Checkout51 as well.

Here’s a link for Ibotta https://ibotta.com/r/gqdfows (if you sign up with that link I get $5 and we also get to be “teammates” on the app, which means we are friends. Also, Ibotta gives you $10 for signing up and using it within the first 30 days)

In-store sales and manufacturer’s coupons (or “MFG coupons”, usually found in newspapers but about 40% of the time you can get them online as well) still factor in, of course. The real money saving is when you can stack up all three, which happens pretty often. The website and app Krazy Coupon Lady tells you exactly where these stack ups are. You don’t have to do shit except scroll through what they’ve found for you, print some coupons, add rebates to your rebate app, and then go get it. You can use this on your desktop if you don’t have phone space, or you can download the app. It’s up to you. The app is handy for remembering when you’re out and about what was for sale where, but then you could also just write a list to remind yourself.

BUT—and here’s the biggest catch of all with couponing—do you need all the couponing deals and steals? Do you even like what’s on sale? Do you need to buy 10 kids toothbrushes even if you can get all of them for 60¢?

This is the most frustrating part of couponing, I’ve found. There are a lot of deals on stuff I don’t like or don’t use at all. Ever. I don’t need to save on toddler clothes, and I make my own laundry soap (it’s actually incredibly cheap to do it this way) so I don’t need the Amazing Deals On Tide Pods At Target This Week Only. My savings could be “more” if I did need these things, but I don’t. Because it’s mostly moms that do this, it’s pretty mom-geared. But it can work for other people, smaller households and single people like myself too.

What I use:

A computer & printer

A smartphone (with one rebate app, one couponing app, Target app, for Cartwheel savings)

A car

What I’m mainly missing is: the other rebate app, a newspaper subscription

I save because I can print coupons from home, I’m really mobile, so I can go to more than one store (each type of yoghurt above is from a different store) and I have a smartphone with a rebate app on it.

If you don’t have a car you can still get some good deals through rebates, coupons & sales in the stores near you. Most grocery stores are listed on Ibotta and offer refunds. So whatever’s near you and you tend to shop at a lot, you can probably find some rebates. You can stick to looking at the stores near you and still do a pretty good job saving. You don’t need to coupon EVERY DAY. Most sales are about a week long, so even if you grocery shop once a week, this can work for you. (If you live out in the sticks like I used to and only grocery shop once a month, that’s going to be more difficult)

If you don’t have a printer I’m not going to tell you something absurd like “ask your neighbor to print coupons for you.” Cause, like, no. That’s fucking unreal. No one would ever do that. (I would totally try to print coupons at work or school though.) But if you can’t get printable MFG coupons, you can still combine rebates with in-store sales and save. You’ll save about two-thirds or half of what everyone else is saving.

If you don’t have a smartphone… it’s going to be tough, honestly. But you can still check out the Krazy Coupon Lady site for where the deals are and use printable MFG coupons stacked up with in-store sales.

If you don’t have a newspaper subscription you can do what I do, which is check the recycling bins near you for coupons. I found some once. I’m usually in there anyway, throwing out my own recyclables, or, yes, scrounging around for stuff. Mainly clean boxes I can use for shipping stuff. I haven’t found coupons consistently though. A lot of coupon sites will tell you to just ask your neighbors… lmao nah. No thanks.

Like a lot of things in life, the more you already have, the more you can save. Kinda sucks, but that’s how it goes. No bullshit!!!

What’s the Deal, the Lowdown… the “Catch”

MFG coupons: there is no catch here. You just print them and use them. Most people think you can only print one, but you can actually print two per device each time. Print one, click the back button on your browser. Make sure the barcode numbers are different. Print again. You can get two from your computer, and then two from your smartphone if you can hook up your phone to your printer (I haven’t figured that out yet, I’m lazy.) So you can, ideally, get 4 coupons to use on multiple items. OH YEAH and you can get a lot of MFG coupons on coupons.com. Sometimes you have to go directly to Kleenex.com and sign up for their mailing list before you can get your coupons. SOMETIMES you can get a bigger coupon if you share on social media. (This is what a locked alt twitter is great for.)

Ibotta: it mainly collects consumer data/feedback from you and sometimes you have to watch a 10-15 second ad in the app to add a rebate to your list. Half the rebates I add don’t ask for either. Sometimes you get one that’s like “Wow! What new ice cream flavor of ours are you most excited for” and you have to click on a flavor. It’s whatever. Also, you can only withdraw your money once you have over $20. Is that hard? Not really, I’ve found. Your first one is especially easy since they give you $10 for using a rebate within the first 30 days of downloading it. I’ve been using it since late June 2017 and have saved up $59 already (so I’m really close to my third cash out of $20.) Update for March 2019: I’m hovering right under $500 in savings now.

It sends your funds to either Paypal or Venmo, not your bank account, so you need one of those.

I’m not sure about Checkout51, but I assume it’s basically the same.

Krazy Coupon Lady app/website: no catch here, but you might have some carelord online @ you that you’re being problematic because it has the word “crazy”, albeit spelt wrong, in it. They have some good guides over there, I recommend downloading their guide to couponing at Target, it gives you a pretty good taste of how this shit goes.

Overall, since some savings come from rebates, it doesn’t always cost that much less up front. If you’re using just Ibotta for a discount on something, you still pay the full price, and you won’t see your refund until your blessed $20 limit is reached. However, I like ibotta because you don’t have to do shit at the cash register, and you can go home and take pics of your receipt after you’ve bought everything. It’s pretty easy. Sales and coupons give you the up-front-at-the-register discounts so you out-of-pocket pay less. That feels a bit more rewarding, especially if you know you have an ibotta rebate to add later. However, you have to remember to bring your coupons, and make sure they’re still valid. Also they can be glitchy! Half the time I have to have someone come over (I pretty exclusively use self-checkouts) and validate or collect the coupon because the system is angry.

The products themselves: what can you get on sale? Is buying name brand cheaper than buying store brand?

Real deal: they talk a lot of shit about really cheap toilet paper, but I have yet to find any name brand toilet paper with 1000000 coupons/rebates/sales that’s cheaper than a store brand. Not worth it, but you can keep looking and hoping if you want.

Besides that, it’s kinda up in the air. Sometimes, depending on the deals around, you CAN get name brand for much cheaper than the store brand and have it be worth all that effort. Sometimes it’s ten cents difference and like, fuck that. I don’t need name brand plastic bags that bad.

THERE ARE A LOT OF DEALS ON LAUNDRY DETERGENT. So many. So fucking unbelievably many. Half of them seem to be “I got some Tide at rite aid for a dollar.” If you do a lot of laundry, this is great for you.

Most of the deals are for like… “normal American food” stuff, I guess. A lot of name brand breakfast cereal, granola bars, canned soup, Kleenex, yoghurt, ice cream, sometimes cheeses. P&G brands. Your dairy products are generally on sale (except butter, weirdly—though they do push the margarine.) There are not a lot of offers for produce, which is like… fine really, cause it’s already pretty cheap.

On Ibotta, however, there are “any item” rebates for some produce and other “staple” items. For a while they were giving you 25¢ off any bananas, 50¢ off any milk or bread, that sort of thing. Now they’re for oranges and eggs I think. They also tend to have 25-50¢ off any item rebates too which you can snatch up easy. I like those. I was getting 50¢ off single donuts at Fred Meyers for a while, making them 19¢.

What about special diet stuff? Organic stuff?

There’s honestly not a whole lot of this when it comes to coupons + sales + rebates stack ups featured in the KCL app. Which is weird to me, you’d think someone on the site would be paying more attention to Whole Foods sales and matching them up with rebates, but whatever. So you’re not going to get gluten free bread for 50¢ a loaf. There are, however, coupons here and there. Ibotta has a rebate at Whole Foods for $1.50 off Udi’s GF bread right now, there’s a $5 rebate on organic protein powder, some kombucha, Stonyfield Grassfed yoghurt… it’s there, though it’s not like Cheap As Free, so it doesn’t get advertised as much. You can still save here, but not as much as if your diet is mostly General Mills breakfast cereal and Tide laundry soap.

What’s good, though, is if you save enough in other areas of Household and Grocery, it makes it a little easier to get some of the nicer stuff that never really goes drastically on sale.

So what about that yoghurt up there? How’d you do that?

Alright.

The Chobani Smooth yoghurts, both of them, were free. There’s a rebate on Ibotta right now (as of Sept 8 2017) for $3.00 off two of them. They’re currently priced at $1.50 at Walmart, so those suckers were cheap as free. The KCL app told me about this one. I didn’t need to print coupons or do anything but go buy them and scan the QR code to redeem the rebate.

The Oui yoghurt was also free. This was from softcoin.com, which loaded the coupon onto my Fred Meyer’s card (always get the store club cards, they’re free), so when I scanned it at the register, it became $0.00. There was a limit of one. The KCL app told me about this one too.

The Noosa yoghurt was from Target and I paid 73¢ for it. Or something. Idk about my math on that one. The KCL app listed it at a lesser price than it eneded up being in my store, so I didn’t get it for 48¢. The savings came from three places: 1) 15% off Noosa yoghurt from the Cartwheel part of the Target app; 2) A MFG coupon from noosayoghurt.com; and 3) an ibotta rebate for noosa yoghurt. With the cartwheel app, you just add the offers you want to your list, and then scan your barcode at the register for the discounts to apply. Sometimes there are MFG coupons in there for you! Paperless! Nice!

The Suja organics drink was from Winco, originally $2.48 but ultimately ended up being 73¢. If you can, always try to use coupons and rebates at your cheapest grocery store. I used an ibotta rebate for 74¢ off, and found a $1/off 1 MFG coupon on the bottle itself at the store. Which isn’t the first time that’s happened.

The Zico was 75¢ off with an Ibotta rebate, making it $1.23 (not bad for coconut water).

With the last two, however, there’s more: there’s currently a bonus on Ibotta that if you buy a Suja drink, Zico coconut water, and an Odwalla smoothie, which all have their own single 75¢ off rebates, you get an extra 75¢ off, which means they each become 25¢ less on top of that. All this shit I drink already (I’m big into bevs) so this is a good save for me. There are bonuses like this a lot, though I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to all of them because they aren’t always relevant.

Some of my good past buys have been: 4 bags of pasta for 38 cents a piece (safeway sale plus MFG coupons). I got linguini and fettucini noodles because the long noodles you can’t get in bulk at winco (bulk noodles are always cheaper)

And I got some puffs cube box tissues (ie the ones that fit in my silly tissue covers) for 75 cents a piece instead of like two something. That was a safeway sale + MFG coupon and an ibotta rebate, if I remember right.

Anything else?

The most rebates on Ibotta are at Walmart. They by far have the most rebates.

Also, not every rebate is for every store. I tried to use something at Winco once only to find out it’s only valid at Target. You can see where it’s redeemable when you scroll down. Most of the time this isn’t a problem, though.

Ibotta has a lot of rebates on alcohol. If you have or have had a drinking problem, you can hide all of these from you in your settings (I think it should be something you can turn off when you sign up, but whatever)

Kohl’s weirdly has amazing clearance deals on household stuff. who knew? the KCL app will tell you about them.

So, basic getting started:

download Ibotta

go over to KCL and check out their shit about what’s on sale where and when and how. you don’t have to download their app if you don’t want to. it might be overwhelming but... just look for a bit. think about it. (i usually browse through the app while i’m watching tv or just before bed to see if there’s anything i need to pick up the next day)

go over to coupons.com to see what’s out there

then, when you’re ready, fuckin coupon

That’s probably it for now. If you have questions, feel free to ask me.

And again, if you want to try out ibotta and give me $5, my referral code is GQDFOWS wooo okay

#guides #couponing

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