Milestone: I’ve sold stickers in all 50 states and 16 Countries
Okay, let me start off by being real and admitting I am, much later than I care to admit, late to talking about reaching this milestone. Possibly by, like, two years.
It seemed when I started selling stickers, other sticker shops or small businesses in general were sharing posts with a map showing how many states they’ve sent orders to, trying to generate sales in states they hadn’t reached yet. Some would offer deals along the lines of ‘if you’re the first order I get in THIS STATE, you’ll get XYZ’ or ‘use promo code ABC’, etc. Cool concept, but not something I ever really promoted myself.
Instead, this trend inspired me to keep track of which states I had sent orders to track my own progress. For what reason other than curiosity, I’m not sure. I started, what is now, an extensive list on a Google Spreadsheet, where each time I send out orders, I add to it the city the order came from. I categorized it by adding each state, and under each state is a list of cities where I’ve sent orders to. And, wow, I’m realizing I may be more analytical than I’d like to admit as I keep typing.
Have I ever done anything with this data? Nope. I’m not really sure there is much for me to do based off of it. Is it weird to keep this data? I hope not. Maybe this information would be helpful if I decided to target ads by location, knowing where most of my orders come from. Bottom line, it allowed me to keep track of which states I had and had not yet sent orders to, and I can tell you that the last three states to round out all 50 states were Alabama, Mississippi and North Dakota.
Something else I found interesting and wanted to keep track of, was where I got international orders from. At this point, I’ve sent orders out to 16 different countries, or territories. Most of my international orders come from Canada or the United Kingdom, but once I got an order from Luxembourg, and the recipient mailed me a postcard back and wrote me a note thanking me and telling me a little bit about their country.
Aside from stickers, on my Etsy shop I also have listed some ashtrays and earrings I make with resin. I actually just added the 14th country on my list, Switzerland, with an ashtray order.
As I come back to finish off this post, weeks later from the Switzerland order, I just sent my first sticker order to Portugal, which is now the 16th country on my list. The internet is cool.
This all might have just ended up outting the analytical side of my personality, but I guess I just get satisfaction knowing my stickers, my art are out there worldwide. Maybe it’s also partly the travel bug in me that finds this fascinating. Who knows. Anyways, tldr, I’ve sent orders to all 50 US States.
