When NOT To Start A New Shop

As many of you know, last year I decided to split up my shop. I had hit over 400 items and was averaging a sale a day. I wanted to keep like items together. So, I go through the process of registering a new shop, designing new banners and buttons, fill out all the policies, link to my bank account, you know, the million and one things you do when you start a new shop. (<--- That is going to be a series in the very near future)

After having my main shop open for over a year, I had forgotten all the hard work that goes into starting a shop AND maintaining it! I take my inventory and start putting it into the new shop one at a time. I rephotographed each piece to match the theme of the shop. Rewrote each listing. Reworked all my tags and titles and so on. I had created a nearly perfect shop.

There was only one problem. No one was looking at any of my items! In the three months I had the shop open I made five sales. One was to a friend, three were right as I was closing up the shop and moving the items back to my original store, and one, well that one must have been blind luck. Given, I never had more than 50 items in the shop but I did advertise the heck out of it!

There are many good reasons to start a new shop. I did not have any of the good reasons to start a second shop and I am pretty sure that is why I did not do well. Here are some reasons to start a new shop:
1. You don't already have a shop.
2. Your items do not go well with each other. (baked goods and adult lingerie(I am sure that is up for debate(not by me, of course)))
3. You have someone to run your new shop.
4. You want to try out a new type of product line that does not match your current one.(See#2)
5. You have nothing but free time on your hands.

That is all for today. If you have started a second or 3rd or more shop and had a success or failure I would love to hear about it. I love to be able to help people learn from mistakes and successes! See you tomorrow!