I’m so excited to finally get to this point where I have finally figured everything out for the most part. I was going through somewhat of a crisis of identity along with a ton of really stressful things happening in my life. I have always had anxiety and depression and sometimes it gets the best of me. The last couple months of events didn’t help those things.
Our old house was extremely run down, to make a REALLY long story short, my house was a property my mom owned with her husband before her passing. We were staying there for almost 8 years, but the house was in serious disarray. Finally, about 6 months ago the roof started to leak and we realized we had no choice but to move. My husband has a traveling job and is only home every 2 weeks for 2-3 days, so finding a place, getting everything ready to move, and purchasing the house was left up to me.
This was INCREDIBLY stressful to me. Even if it’s a happy thing, stress is stress and I was feeling it. It was really hard on me. On top of that my Etsy was failing. I started my store in 2020 and at first (when everyone was home for Covid) I did really really well. But since then, its been at a slow decline. It was getting to the point where I had so many listings on Etsy that I wasn’t making enough sales to cover my Etsy fees so I was essentially paying Etsy just to have a shop. I knew for awhile something needed to change, but I wasn’t really ready to face it. I opened two other shops on Etsy with digital art to try to bridge the gap in my income, but after hours and hours of hard work and listings and photos and hundreds of items, Esty’s new bot pulled them down and banned the shops. After hours of asking them what happened, they basically said oh well. They said they did not have to give me a reason, and they did not. This was crushing to me. So much work for no reason.
Left with only my regular shop, I logged in one day to them pulling down half my listings for no reason. I messaged them and got the same run-around, they did not have to give me a reason. Lost. Terrified. Scared. Years and years and years of work down the drain. I went into an emotional tailspin. I went to bed that night knowing everything I had ever worked for, was gone. Waking up the next morning it had all been reinstated with no explanation, no apology. That’s when I knew I was done with Etsy. I look at it this way, I have my own house, but I keep paying and working on someone else’s house. It’s time to start to work on my own house.
Etsy gives you sales, yes. Etsy gives you money, yes. But you own nothing. You have ZERO security. Anytime they want, for any reason they want, or even via a bot, they can and will and do take away your hard work and business.
And leaving is hard, it’s so much more work, way harder than Etsy, but you own it, You own every single bit of it. No one can take it from you. I need that kind of security.
So WHILE I decided to leave Etsy, I’m also searching for a house, getting the financials together for purchasing a house, and packing up our home (along with our 8 cats and one dog). My stress level was at its highest. Once we got moved, I realized I really needed to figure out what I am going to do with my art career. I know I need to change some things that are simply not working. So for weeks and weeks, I was pushing thoughts around in my head, trying to think of what I wanted to do and make. Now that I have that figured out, I knew I wanted to leave behind Starrify, It was my baby, but it has run its course. I did all my learning on Starrify, all my struggles, and all my mistakes. I know better now and I wanted a better brand that I feel is more marketable. Thus is born, Hunnie Byte! Ill be explaining how Hunnie Byte will be different along the way.
Sorry for the rambling, I tend to, lol!
Becca