Glutton for punishment?

You'd think I'd learn after my first attempt at starting my own retail business. It was such an epic fail that I should be banned from even trying to start another one LOL Ugh! I'm a horrible sales person. I can sell words and ideas, but retail products... well, I can't bring myself to lie about how good an item is when I didn't make it or have experience with it.

When I worked at Dillard's I had to sell watches. If a customer knew what they wanted, no problem. really know anything about. It was always about selling the highest priced item the customer could afford and the Gucci watches were always the first ones I had to show. Maybe if I'd had a supervisor or a senior employee, who had a lot of experience with watches, training or working with me I would've done better.

When a customer came in asking for the "best" or "longest lasting", I knew what to say, I just couldn't bring myself to convince them to have confidence in an item I didn't

Then there was the wholesale/retail business I had with my dad. He convinced me to start a business using products from a late night infomercial. It sounded simple. Buy at wholesale prices (which were actually really cheap) and sell at any price above that. I could buy full sized swords for $12 and sell them for $80! The problem was that I didn't feel right about selling the cheaply made, albeit nice
looking, products for prices much higher than I bought them for. They really were crap items. Shit wrapped in glittering paper. It seemed everyone in the world was selling the same things I was, even on eBay, where I sold a little Cherub set for $8, bought for $4.50. I didn't profit because of the shipping cost. Go me and my horrible math skills! At least I was good at keeping records. Total loss ended up being a couple grand. (As an aside, while looking up photos of cherubs to post here, I ran across this site. Freaky!)

And here I am again. Starting another business so I have something to do. This time, I'm selling my own handmade items. At least these I can stand behind. I still can't sell them for much more than what I bought the materials for and I have no idea how much my time is worth to add to the product's price. We'll just have to see how this turns out. At least my web host has given me around $250 to spend on Twitter, Google and Facebook advertising. I'm hoping to take advantage of social media this time, something I didn't have before. I want to sell at local conventions and festivals too. I just don't know how I'm going to do it with my chronic pain issues.

I don't plan on getting rich, I just want to offload all the things I'll be making since I don't have room to keep them all LOL! Okay, and earn some spending cash for the movies or something. Maybe that'll help too, being in a different mindset. I still think I'm crazy for even trying. I got through registering my business with the PA Dept of Revenue though, so I guess I should at least see it all the way through. I got my fingers crossed that I do good this time and can make a little extra spending cash.