Why Poops, Please?

Before I answer that, I have to show you what I made yesterday. Well, I finished it yesterday. I started it on Tuesday. It almost makes me want another baby. Almost!

I do apologize for the darkness of the pictures. I have to take my stuff outside to get any kind of decent light, and even then I have to use the flash as well if you want to see the colors. If I do open an online shop, I'm really going to need a better camera for the taking of merchandise pictures. What online shop? Sorry, I get ahead of myself.

This wee sweater is a basic raglan, top down, seamless baby sweater in the newborn size. The yarn is Elann's Peruvian Highland Wool in navy, khaki, and cream. Don't you get sick of baby blue on little boys? I would put this on a boy or a girl! I added some pewter buttons with Irish knots on them. The sleeves were supposed to be navy from the color pattern to the cuff, but I ran out, so I finished them with khaki. I still like it, though. I was making it up as I went along.

It's for the shop.

Speaking of shops, I'm getting kind of tired of etsy. I haven't exactly had a bad experience there, but stuff isn't moving and they don't really have any decent tools for improving sales at all. And I have a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth after being warned by the administrators that I violated the terms of use policy. I didn't know I did.

See, etsy has this tool where you can bookmark something for sale in a shop to go back and look at later. It's called "hearting" someone, as in I "heart" that baby sweater. I can go to my shop and see who hearts a particular item. I decided at the end of February that since Spring is just around the corner I'd run a mitten special. I have many of them on sale, and we're coming to the end of mitten season. So I decided to offer free shipping on any and all mittens in the store.

Then I looked at who hearted the mittens and wrote them a personal email (etsy has its own internal email system called "conversations"--emailing someone in house is called "convo-ing" them) telling them that the mittens they hearted have free shipping during March.

I was promptly reported and reprimanded. Apparently, one is not allowed to initiate a convo for the purpose of selling. Only potential customers can initiate a convo. To do it the other way around is considered spam, or unwanted junk email.

See, I thought that hearting someone was, in a way, initiating contact. The seller, by hearting me, is telling me that something in my shop was worth a second look. So I let them know that since the last time they looked, it got a special attached to it.

You say spam, I say salesmanship.

I'm at a point where I have a lot of stuff in my store. I have a blog. I have email. And they're in three different places. I thought it would be cool to have one site that was All Poops, All the Time. So I'm looking to see what the costs would be to have my own store with my own rules, a place to have my blog, and a business email as well. I'd love to be able to link to some of my Knittyhead friends who have online shops to give them some additional exposure as well.

So it's in the initial planning phases. It may come to naught if it's prohibitively expensive, but we shall have to see. Stay tuned.

Oh, and about the name, Ask Poops Please? Someone asked...I don't remember who. "Poops" is actually the nickname my family uses for me. All the time. Especially my sister and her husband. Her husband--Baboo--is under the impression (accurately too, I might add) that I know something about everything. So if she doesn't know the answer, he'll say "Ask Poops Please and chortles with glee when I know the answer.

But it's confusing because my craft show business is called Remember When, as in "Remember when everything was made by hand?"

I'm trying to figure out how to consolidate all this into one nice, neat package.

One last thing before the computer hangs and I lose it again: here's a pair of mittens I made but forgot to blog. Yarn from handpaintedyarn.com, pattern's all my own.