On Online Shopping, Trust, and the Handmade Life

A few thoughts on online shopping and the sheer number of stores out there. This holiday season felt different to me. I’ve been selling jewelry online since 2001 - which feels like a lifetime ago now. Back then it was all eBay, and before it turned into the giant marketplace it is today, small independent sellers like myself could actually do pretty well there. Once the rest of the world piled in, it became impossible to be seen, so I moved on to a site called Artfire (not sure that even exists anymore), and eventually Etsy.

None of those platforms are perfect for someone who makes everything by hand, and I never liked how little control I had. When you build your business on those sites, they make the rules - and the rules are always written with shareholders in mind, not independent artists. My business grew up right alongside the internet, really, so I’ve watched the evolution of online shopping from a pretty unique angle.

Now I’m on Shopify, and it’s been a great fit for me. I have control over my site, which truly is my baby. I fiddle with it constantly - tweaking photos, rewriting descriptions, proofreading, improving layouts. There’s always something to learn or manage, usually out of sheer necessity.

At my core, I’m an artist. I want to be creating jewelry. But to keep doing that, I have to sell it - which means I’ve also become a photographer, marketer, shipper, inventory handler, supply buyer, accountant, bookkeeper… the list goes on. I wear every hat. This business is my baby from start to finish, and everything that makes it run is done by me.

Because of that, I care deeply about my customers. I do my best to offer good service and a thoughtful experience. The work I make means something to me, so when I send a piece out into the world, there’s a real connection there - something you won’t get from big companies outsourcing everything, or worse, the drop shippers and flat-out scams that have flooded the internet in recent years.

Everything on this site is me.
If you email with a question, I’m the one answering.
If you get a package, I wrapped it.
And that piece of jewelry you’re wearing? I made it start to finish with my own two hands and more than twenty years of experience.

It’s getting harder and harder to find people like me online, and the fact that you found me at all feels like a small stroke of luck (and hopefully because my modest ad budget actually cut through the digital noise). I hate the thought of those dollars going into the void every month, but that’s the reality of online business today.

Circling back to my point about this holiday season - I was completely inundated with ads from “small businesses,” many of which looked gorgeous and polished. Some were absolutely legitimate and trustworthy, but so many others were questionable at best.

It’s become incredibly easy to build a beautiful website fast. AI has accelerated that even more, and there’s no going back now. The result is that it’s getting tougher for genuine small brands - the ones that actually make their products - to stand out and gain trust. It used to be obvious when a website was fake or scammy. Now they hide behind splashy visuals and convincing templates. This season, I found myself researching constantly before making purchases, and more often than not, the sites didn’t feel up to snuff, so I passed.

I suppose my reason for writing this is simple: if you’re here wondering whether this site is legitimate, whether I am who I say I am - I want you to know that I am.

Trust has become incredibly hard to establish online, but it’s more important than ever. And if you’re reading this, you’ve found a small corner of the internet where a real artist is working her butt off. I’m not a drop shipper, not an overseas factory pretending to be U.S.-based, not mass-produced anything.

It’s just me - a one-woman show whose work helps pay actual bills and college tuition for my kids.

I’m really glad you’re here.
Thanks for reading.