“You have to know what your success condition looks like,” Tori said. The Boston entrepreneur has quickly built her small Etsy shop into a thriving jewelry business. “I knew I wanted to work for myself,” she said, “and I knew I wanted to keep my expenses and overhead fairly minimal. But I also knew that what makes my business special is me: I’m the one who designs and manufacturers the jewelry.” She laughed and shook her head. “And there’s only 24 hours a day.”
“When my business grew from individual orders to where I was selling on a wholesale basis to stores – I call this when I leveled up – some of the parts of getting the job done started taking a lot longer time-wise. Packaging was definitely one of these areas: it takes much longer to prepare 200 necklaces for shipping than it does 2! And everything had to be done right, so my business looked professional: competition is very severe in my industry. Appearances matter,” Tori said. “But if I was spending all my time packing, when would I make jewelry?”
Finding the right Boston packaging company took Tori some time. “I knew I wanted someone with an excellent reputation, who would take pride in making sure my company looked good,” Tori said. The search was worth it. “Once I outsourced my packaging,” she said, delighted, “I found my production went up over 15%. Simply having the time to concentrate on the part of my business I love the most has had a positive impact on my creativity, energy and most important, sales!”