I opened up my Kawaii Doll Shop on Etsy not that long ago. I had another shop on Etsy where I sold jewelry and jewelry supplies (on and off, though mostly off) for years, and while I did rename the old shop, dusted it off a little, and added a few listings, I have decided to concentrate on my doll shop because that brings me the most joy right now. Plus, I can still make doll jewelry and doll themed jewelry over there, so I can satisfy my jewelry enjoyment too.

A good chunk of my summer was spent prepping for the doll shop. I was still teaching at my “real” job, but summers are always slower at school. I had fewer classes and not as many additional teacher-related commitments.

That, of course, all changed when fall semester started. I have an extra heavy class-load, meetings to attend, and school projects to complete. It leaves me a very small amount of time for the doll shop, but I was managing.

Then Etsy decided to come out recently with a big update related to the guide they publish online. It’s sort of a “best practices” manual for Etsy sellers. I’m still catching up on what all the new changes mean, but one crystal clear change is that they are really pushing for sellers to offer free shipping.

I’ve been using the calculated shipping for my listings, and I like that it provides a discounted rate. Except for non-domestic rates, shipping for most of my items has been under three dollars. But free shipping? Is that something I can even do?

Since my shop is basically a big experiment at this point, I decided today to go ahead and give it a shot and ended up setting all my listings (and there are only around 20 right now) to offer free domestic shipping. I’m curious if it will make a difference or not.  What’s the worse that could happen? What’s the best that could happen?

I don’t know how long I’m going to run the free domestic shipping experiment, but unless it turns into an amazing selling tool, I’m think I will try this out for a few weeks. Obviously, if I end up selling doll clothes and sundries like hot cakes, then it will be here to stay.

We shall see.

I’ll keep you posted.