Thoughts on buying beads

Shoppers, browsers and buyers please read!..... When I purchase new beads for my store I try to do some research. Before posting and pricing I check other stores to see what they are selling similar beads at. Something has come to my attention that I hope you savvy shopper recognize also. The price point for a similar item may be much lower at another store, BUT compare not only the shipping cost per item, but the Quantity. Are you getting the same amount of product for your money?

When I got these NEW beads in I had a price point in mind, but when I went to check other stores the price was MUCH lower. Hmmmm I thought, how can they sell them at that price, I know what they paid for them. THEN I realized they were selling HALF as MANY beads... Even though the picture was of a full 8 inch strand, they were only going to send you half that amount. This is a common practice in advertising and done in every type of sales not just beads. So just bear this (pun haha) in mind and read the fine print. Thanks for listening and happy shopping.

Selling

I have given up on the Ebay monster. Just too cut throat/politcal/and oh everything else.. just plain Unfriendly. I have both Etsy and ArtFire stores. And even tho Art Fire is just getting started, the fee structure is the best for new artists/suppliers. They are both very easy to use, accept payments via paypal, then print your shipping labels directly from paypal. I buy big boxes of bubble mailers from Uline, scrounge bubble wrap and peanuts from everywhere. I did purchase a digital postage scale on ebay, A scale is a must.

As for photography. Well, honestly, it's hard. do you have a good digital camera? If not you need one. Then all I can say is read everything you can find, take a class, and practice, experiment with lighting and backgrounds...maybe a light tent... selling is expensive LOL... but not frightening, I actually enjoy the selling part. I guess you could say I get a sense of satisfaction packaging up my wares and sending them off.



My DH is puzzled by all this, he cannot fathom my enjoyment of the selling process. He looks, asks a question and walks away.

So I begin....

Is life not a journey? Are the choices we make not the turns in our path? And is it the height of arrogance to think that anyone else we encounter on that path is at all interested in our journey? All that said, I will answer my own questions. As evidenced by the popularity of blogs and blogging the answer must be yes. So I will join the party and blog away, thoughts, ramblings, beads and beading, jewelry making, life in general, trips and more.... begin.

No I'm not from the south, but I have lived here so long sometimes I feel like I am southern born. In reality my heart is in the West. I grew up and went to high school in Colorado and still have family living there and in Arizona and Nevada. So I guess you could say I have Western roots. And thus evolved my love of Native American art, jewelry and BEADS.
As a child I had a fear of bears, mostly from reading sporting and hunting magazines, but as I grew older I felt an affinity to Bear and adopted him as my personal totem. Now I have a collection of Spirit Bear totems and beads. I started beading as a hobby and now am turning to it as a business. I hope you like my work, my bears and my beads. Please feel free to check out my Picture Trail site, lots more of my work there, http://www.picturetrail.com/homePage/spiritbearbeads
Or my Flickr photo albumn,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spiritbearbeads/
and my two online bead stores
http://spiritbearbeads.etsy.com
http://Spiritbearbeads.artfire.com

busy aren't I?