Here's something that you may have not known about me: I have a handmade business. Well, technically I don't "have" the business, but in my mind I do. Let me explain. You may know that I like crafting. Well, I've always wanted to have a handmade business selling things I've made (starting with accessories), so a while ago I set up a Storenvy shop and a blog and other accounts for it. I never really promoted it that much or did anything outside of doing more of what I should have. The reason for this was that at first I was afraid (♫ I was petrified ♪ LOL ) but then once I started feeling more comfortable with my skills I thought, 'You know what? OK. I can do this.'
Where I live, and I'm sure in many other places, you'll find a LOT of people that have these online shops or home-based businesses that aren't exactly legal. What I mean is they don't have permits nor do they have their businesses registered. They just do stuff in their house and they sell them online. I know a lot of people around my way do that and I know I can do that too and it's what I started to do but then...well, sometimes I feel like I have the worst luck. When something seems to be going good, something bad suddenly happens (and for some reason it can't be something small, it has to be something big). So, I guess I started getting paranoid. I started getting afraid that, 'OMG for some reason of all these businesses they're going to pick mine and ask how legal my business is and when I answer "umm" my business is through, over, fin. LOL My partner would say 'come on, that's not gonna happen' but for some reason that thought just stuck in the back of my head and it's just still there. I left everything in my shop up, but I basically stopped promoting.
I thought, 'let me hop on the bus, go into town, and get the papers'. I used to have a business years ago but it was brick and mortar shop (a cybercafe to be exact) so I know exactly the offices I had to go to. I also know how much I spent in registering and getting the permits for that business. But this is the thing: that business like I said was a brick and mortar shop which we rented. I know the building had to be up to code and what not, we needed insurance because there would be customers there, so we did all that. This time, though, it's a home-based business and I'm not going to have any customers in the house because mostly everything going to be online. I thought basically I just needed to register the business (and the business name). When we had the cybercafe we registered the business but didn't register the name because it wasn't requirement to start the business. We planned on doing that later on so we just registered the business and got our permits so that we could open up the shop.
My thoughts were, 'Well, since this is a home-based business I'm just going to need to register the business, then register the business name because I'm going to need a domain plus a website. I won't be taking customers at home so I won't need the insurance or some of the other stuff. The fees are going to be a lot less. There are no customers coming in, it doesn't involve eating food, there are no deliveries (except the regular postal worker), the electricity/water/office space is what's used in my home. Everything is done online except for the actual creating which is something that I do almost every day (every week my king and I take some craft time).
So when I get there and inquire, she starts getting the paperwork and says that the filling out and submitting you can do online now and I think that's awesome. Then she asks where the business is located and I answer in my house (I had already mentioned it was a home-based business). She says 'Ok, that's the business office but where will you be conducting business from?' and I answer from my house. I explained the business location is in my house, that everything is from my house because its online. She then asks if I'm going to be selling offline and I answer that if it goes well, at some point I may want to put up a table or booth to sell...but literally outside my house. Like a few feet away from my front door. (^ᗨ^✿) (Which, reminds me, another reason I wanted to register the business because I'd like to participate in bazaars which require business registration. But that's somewhere else. Permits you get are local, but the registration is...I don't want to use "statewide" but, you know, not the same local office.)
So she starts giving me the paperwork and telling me I need this and this and I'm standing there smiling thinking, 'Wow. This seems vaguely familiar.' She goes on with needing this and that and when she tells me the cost I'm still smiling, 'Oh... those are the same fees we paid before'. So I ask to confirm and she says yeah. That everything is the same, 'but you won't need the firemen inspection, it's not food so you wont need health inspection, you won't need insurance.' I thought. 'Oh, "great". Those weren't really that much.' LOLOL So it kind of sucked. I started thinking about the business regstration fee plus THIS fee which is exactly the same as the brick and mortar shop (which I find it's a little unfair because a home-based business is run a little differently from a brick and mortar one) and I'm thinking, "Wow...that's...more than I thought". I then ask if I wanted to put a table out if it would be okay and she's answered no. If I wanted a table I would need to go to another office. At that point I couldn't help but think, "Wow...you guys sure make things easy for us". (^ᗨ^✿) When I went to the other office it was like 3:00 or 3:30 and the guy said they were closed for the day. Of course.
The thing is I don't have this kind of money. I wanted to register the business so I was saving pennies. Because I needed to save a lot of pennies I knew I had to do a lot of forum posting (I get paid for posting in certain forums), I needed to put up more baby food jars on ebay. I mean, I was really trying to think of the ways I had to come up with the business registration fee and then I also have to come up with the permit fees (to work in my own house which is ridiculous I think, but whatever). Anyway, I was just really really BUMMED at all that. I realized it wasn't going to happen, so I left it there.
Lately though, it's like I want to do something more. This isn't just putting a business because I like doing it, you know. Like I said, I get paid to post in certain forums. If you've seen my Other Sites tab on the menu bar on top, those are other articles that I posted on other sites (duh) that I get paid for views or revenue sharing. But it just wasn't working out. I would calculate and it would get so frustrating because it would come out to (and I'm being generous here) maybe $1.25/hr. When you're posting on forums it's not just writing, it's searching for what thread you could participate in, what thread or what post can you do more than "that's cool' cause that type of comment is usually frowned upon and can get you a lower rating which affects your earnings. There's people that just count the time they're doing the actual writing and I don't get how can they not count the time they're reading when it's part of that type of work. Same goes with article posting: the time I take to research (many times it's not extensive research but let-me-make-sure-this-is-right research) plus the time I take to write. At $1.25/hr (again, being generous) I was making pennies and I was okay with pennies. Pennies are good. You know...see a penny pick it up. (^ᗨ^✿)
But then it got a point where I thought, 'I can't keep doing this, I need to generate some sort of income.' I checked online and sent out some resumes sadly with no response. I also checked some of those work-at-home jobs directed towards SAHMs and I hate hate HATE those. You know the ones that they claim to make $500/week, but you need to register and pay a $25 fee to learn how. PUH-LEASE. Why don't you teach me how to make the $500 first and once I make $500 you send my check minus your cut. I saw on Instagram how one person shared a screenshot of their PayPal account saying it was proof that they were really making this amount of money and you could see all these different deposit transactions for $25 and it's like of course you're making $500/week. You're taking money from people and telling them to do the same without any actual work other than fooling people. I hate those and I refuse to do them. I JUST CAN'T. It's not in me.
Then there are those that you join the company to sell their products (which some are very expensive and so can be hard to sell) and they tell you to form your own team so that you can also make money of off team members' sales. Of course, you'd need to buy a registration kit which can range anywhere from $100 to $450. The companies with less pricey registration fees have products that are being sold by everybody and their mother so ANOTHER sales person added will probably have a difficult time selling the same things (especially in my area which is not that big). That's the Shark Tank fan coming out of me. What's special about selling something everyone else also is? It's like Avon back in the day. People already had their reps they'd buy from. Companies with more expensive kits have more expensive products so...yeah...harder sales. And I hate that most of the time, these are targeted towards stay at home mom and dads with the promise of easily making the money back that they spent. There are a lot of stay at home parents that fall for it and then find out it wasn't so easy and get stuck with a kit. And it sucks. Hell, with one of the least expensive kits I'd have part of the business registration fee. LOL I've considered it. But I started thinking about being able to sell online mostly, if not only and that I would just get another cookie cutter website from the company. Sure, they take care of shipping and all that...but I don't know. I find it so cold. Where's that personal touch?
I've always loved creating and I'd really like to be a "momtrepreneur" but....should I go the legal route or should I risk it and not? I prefer going the legal route because like I said, my luck sucks. LOL I don't know what I'm going to do. I've been thinking I can ask for help, but I really hate that too. I suck. I know some people find it easy to ask for help, but it's something I will admit I have always had a little trouble with. I truly suck at it. (^ᗨ^✿) To be honest, I don't know if it's something I want to do. If it was me alone, I probably wouldn't do it and I'd try to figure out another way even if it takes me forever, but it's not just me. It's for my king. I want to have a business because I want to have some sort of income for him. I mean, he's okay because obviously his dad takes very good care of us, but...I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I need to do a little more for him. Even though I have, you know.
Right now he's calling me to play with his new Take and Play tracks I got him with my Bing "job". 'Id like a job where I can tend to him at any time he needs. That obviously I wouldn't have to commute because I have no car. A job that can still be a baby-mommy led and not work-led day. I don't know. These are just thoughts that this stay-at-home-mommy has. Do you have a handmade business? Is it legal? Is it not? What do you think? Suggestions! Advice! Help! My king is calling me to be Percy and play with him with the new tracks, so that's exactly what I'm going to do right now. Tell me what job (other than one you're the boss in) can you do that?. (◠ᴗ◕✿)
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