Saving time on packaging orders

My sales are creeping up at the moment (I think Christmas shopping is already beginning!), which is great of course, but I’m increasingly conscious of how much time I spend packaging orders. Because I work full time everything is done in the evenings and at weekends, so most nights before I go to bed I package up any orders outstanding, and even 4 or 5 orders seems to take me half an hour to take through from on the shelf to ready to post. I think this is too long, considering that I don't have particularly fancy packaging. International orders are the most time consuming, and since most of my increase in sales is happening on Etsy, the hours spent sticking, writing, printing, are really starting to encroach on both making time and sleeping time!

Determined to do something about it I realised that the two big time-killers are finding the extra 4 digits for US orders, and printing postage on Royal Mail’s online site, so I tried to find ways around these.

Well that's summer done...

Hm, so it seems I haven't blogged since May! I guess I got struck down by blogger's block, and a bit of Olympic and Paralympic fever too, and Mog's Togs has been keeping me pretty busy as well. I've hardly written anything on my cat blog either. Ah well, onwards and upwards!

Airmail: Small Packet or Letter?

In my article on postage I say that you can send anything internationally as a Letter rather than a Small Packet if it is cheaper. When I first wrote that article, it was only cheaper up to 40g, but now it is cheaper up to 100g, so this issue now applies to more people.

I had a question on the blog about whether I had any proof that this was true, and also got involved in various threads on the Etsy and Folksy forums about this issue, so I wanted to collect together the facts and myths in one place. Let me warn you, this is a bit of a long post, and there are no pictures to break it up, sorry! Update - I think we've cracked it! Whizz down to the bottom to see!

Cheeky Moo!

Have you seen this offer from Moo in conjunction with Folksy, for 50 free business cards? I decided to take them up on it last month. I'm a big fan of Moo but don't find it cost-effective to use their lovely business cards for all my needs (I admit it, I'm an even bigger fan of Vistaprint!), so when I saw this offer I couldn't resist. I wanted to have photos of my happy customers on the back; they look cute and make a good talking point. The only caveat to the offer was that the back of your cards had a smart "Folksy" tab added (and you had to pay P&P too).

No paypal, no cheque, no bank account... Another way to pay

This is just a quick post about a payment issue that came up this weekend on my website shop, as I thought the way we (the customer and I) resolved it might be useful to other sellers.

Royal Mail price increases & thinking outside the box on packaging

As we probably all know by now, in just a few days Royal Mail's pricing for personal customers is changing. Pretty much everything you send now will be more expensive from April 30th. Not only are the price of 1st and 2nd class stamps increasing, but there are some changes to some pricing structures which are important to note. I'll be amending my previous two posts on posting internationally, but here are some of the important points for both domestic and international post and what (if anything) you need to do about them, with a particular focus on thinking creatively about packaging in order to reduce costs. All the new prices can be found here.

My first solo craft fair

Sorry I've been quiet for so long! I am still here, I promise. I submitted my PhD thesis at the end of March, and since then have been catching up with Mog's Togs. However I should now have a bit more time to spend on this blog, although I might have to use some of that updating / rewriting my international postage posts - thanks for that, Royal Mail!!

I just thought I'd share some photos from a craft fair I did on Saturday. I don't normally do craft fairs, for various reasons / excuses...