A Year of Gratitude and Growth | Claiming Space & What We’ve Learned
A year ago, this month we relaunched Cacti Oasis moving from an Etsy profile to a Shopify e-commerce website. We were able to push our branding a bit further and create a more welcoming space for us on the internet. We learned so much from this experience and wanted to share these ups and downs with full transparency, authenticity, and self-compassion.
Here are some key points from our experience along with a little more in-depth break down following below.
A year with Cacti Oasis on Shopify:
- Light rebrand and coding.
- Evaluated our key values and mission.
- Launched a subscription model. Creatively a success! Financially a Loss.
- Keeping up with the Joneses – Comparison killing creativity.
- Decrease in Sales
What’s next for Cacti Oasis:
- Quarterly snail mail over monthly. DEC 2024 = Last monthly snail mail
- Supporting small businesses/organizations through design/Illustration services
- Adding hero items back on ETSY
- Giving time and space for creativity to grow.
Below is a little more context and personal shares on these key points.
A year with Cacti Oasis on Shopify
Light Rebrand & Coding:
Our rebranding has been a delight over the year. It is so much fun looking through our social media accounts and website to see a beautiful cohesive aesthetic. It feels more like a gallery than a business website. Super rewarding.
I learned a little coding. I wanted to add this in because it was a huge learning curve. Although Shopify has site templates, I had to learn some coding to be able to use our typefaces and branding colors. YouTube can have its perks!
Values & Mission
We double downed on our values and mission. We wanted to continue to be eco-conscious and work in a more mindful, demure, way. ;)
We got rid of our Stickermule account and learned how to make our own quality stickers. We continue to support fellow Queer BIPOC artists. We will continue to put people first and try our best to break the systemic capitalist ideology in our industry.
Launched Subscription Model:
Creating a Snail Mail Club was on my goal list for a while. Being able to see it come to life has its creative benefits, but we quickly learned it’s not a realistic or sustainable practice. We took a pause to regroup and relaunch, but we now see that although we have created some beautiful quality work, it is still not a sustainable or profitable model for us.
Keeping up with the Joneses:
We noticed that instead of sticking to our creative lane and focusing on OUR end goals as artists, for a moment, we were trying to keep up with non-creative businesses on IG. It’s the feeling I got when I saw ETSY profiles slap a “Live, Laugh, Love” sticker on plastic bottles and made a killing vs artists who pour their sweat, blood, and tears into their art and saw little to no sales. Producing content just to sell is very different from creating quality thoughtful work, not just to sell but to also connect with people on a more personal level.
Sales? Profit? Negative:
The short and not-so-sweet: we have made less sales than we did last year. More not-so-great news: we have seen fellow BIPOC artists and business throw in the towel because it has not been financially sustainable to keep going.
Being able to take a step back to understand a little more of what people are going through along with seeing what others are doing to make it work has been the theme recently. We have failed in different ways this year, but we have also succeeded in producing work we are so proud of.
What’s next for Cacti Oasis
Quarterly Snail Mail over Monthly:
December will be our last Monthly Snail Mail drop. We are very proud of all the work that came out of this, but we can easily say we have overextended ourselves.
Our process for each month: Brainstorm ideas, create thumbnail sketches, design/illustrate approved sketches, test print, photograph work, create and schedule shopify product drop, email members a week before the drop, email all subscribers day of drop, share on social media, and then start on the next month. Whew!
Learning from our losses we hope to set realistic goals and approach this model in a different, sustainable way. We will be doing quarterly drops instead of monthly.
Supporting small business/organizations through design & Illustration services
We have been sought out by organizations for our design and illustration skills! We are leaning into providing our services to small business owners and non-profits. This is a great opportunity for us to grow in our industry.
Adding hero items back on ETSY
As much as I hate to admit, we had more sales on Etsy then we do now. We will be adding some of our best sellers back on the platform in hopes to get some of our ETSY fans over to our Shopify. ETSY is not the greatest when it comes to how they promote and support artists, but they do have a platform that opens a little more exposure via algorithms. Once we figure out our SEO’s on Shopify and IG we may cut ties with ETSY entirely.
Giving time and space for creativity to grow.
Time and space. What a luxury in this climate. With healthy boundaries set, we aim to spend some quality time with ourselves as artists. Creating, experimenting, flushing out ideas, are all focal points as we move into the next few months and carry that into 2025.
At the end of the day, our major take away is that we are artists first. We have experience, education, and talent. We are queer latine artists claiming our own path in this world and will work smarter not harder to be seen. Our path is our own and we do not want to fall into the capitalistic trap.
If you made it here, thank you. Thank you for your continued support, interest, and good vibes.
Con mucho amor,
-A
P.S. (Jared says hi!)