"Lost My Day Job" Chapter Five: Depression, Etsy Induced Stress, and Shipping

I have to be honest. I am failing miserably at focusing on ColieArt. I've done nothing I said I was going to do, have not followed through on thing I've started, I haven't even posted here since March. 

When I first starting seriously creating it lifted me up out of a terrible bout of depression. Over the years since it has helped keep my depression at bay. Recently I've been experiencing some difficulty, in addition to my regular depression I am dealing with a few serious problems. So far, this time, creating hasn't helped...I hate to say it but sometimes it has even become a source of stress. 

OK. I've got my new goal. Working my etsy shops will not be a source of stress. I will figure out what is causing the problem and fix it! 

  The first thing that comes to mind is shipping. Two of my last 3 orders have been to the UK, I paid $12- $13 but only charged $8. I can't afford to lose $5.
    How do I fix shipping? I've noticed that etsy will now calculate your shipping costs for you! I wonder how long I've been missing out on this? Are you using this feature? If so I'd love some advice! If not, well, now is the time! I'll be sharing my process for those of you that are interested. 

So, go to your shipping profiles. 

I went to my shipping profiles and found like 5 different profiles I had created over the years so the first thing I did was delete everything. 

Then I click on the orange "Add a shipping profile" button. The first thing to fill out is the shipping costs and what do you know? "Calculate them for me" is recommended! 
There is a link to a handy article about "Calculated Shipping" there which I will share with you here: "Calculated Shipping"

You plug in where you want to ship to and then select up to 6 USPS services to offer your customers. 
Up until now I have only offered USPS First Class. I have not consistently offered international shipping because it's been a pain to estimate shipping charges! Guess that solves that. 

This is nice: there is a place to add a handling fee and etsy says the buyer will not see it separately! I learned the hard way that tissue, ribbons, boxes, bubble mailers...all add up. 
This sucks: there doesn't seem to be an easy way to apply the new shipping profiles to listings...if I try to do it in batches it won't work because each listing needs to have its weight and package dimensions entered first. You might as well apply the new shipping profile while your doing that- one listing at a time.