Dec 17, 2009

The power of dogs



by: Eva Sanchez
Well first of all I was always a cat owner, till my husband bought our first Chihuahua (Stitch) in 2002, Stitch was about 6 weeks old and was generally purchased for our children and it stud that was till he was about 5 months or so. 
 
Then I started to notice that he was starting to favor me and follow me around more and more everyday, one day I hid from him and watched him run up and down the hallway from the crack in the bedroom door, until he found me and it just melted my heart, my cats never did that and after that he became ALL MINE Stitch stole my heart. Around a month later my mother handed down her old sewing machine to me, I tried making everything that came to mind but nothing ever turned out perfect, but I kept sewing anyways. 
 
Shortly after I got my sewing machine my sister in-law gave me a little dog shirt that she had found on clearance at Walmart and I looked at this little thing and said “ this would be a piece of cake to make” and that very night I began working on little shirts for Stitch. It was a very exciting challenge and the results were outstanding! Stitch always had a new shirt for every occasion, then one day that same sister in-law told me that I should try selling my dog shirts on eBay. 
 
So about a month later I did as a matter of fact it I listed my first item on my birthday, at that time dog clothes on eBay was only about 3 pages long so no matter what I listed, it always sold. Stitch became my right hand man, and tested and modeled all of my creations and never complained. We had such a close bond that I understood him and knew what he wanted by just looking at him and he always understood what I told him and sometimes it would just blow me away. 
 
None of my items would sell for over about $10 but that was a lot for me and I was proud, eventually I started making dog dresses, it took some fine tuning but I finally got the pattern right. So as the months passed Stitch became my best friend, my companion and a very close member of my family, we were inseparable and I never left him home. 
 
Meanwhile had found success on eBay but the dog clothes section was starting to grow more every week, competition was getting rough and some of my listings were ending without bids. I started to be more creative and put more effort into my clothes and do a lot of research on what kind of dog clothes people were looking for so I started to study websites that sold small dog clothes and found out that dog clothes like mine were selling for twice as much without the haste of re-listing and fees. 
 
I started thinking about opening up my own website and started out with the free 2 page ones and I did get a purchase or two from my eBay customers but at that time I was also selling my shirts for a frugal $6. I did get tired of only having 2 pages for my clothes, I wanted to be more professional, since I was making extra money from eBay so I invested it into a real website, It did take a lot of work to build and even now I’m still spending many hours a week on my current site but it’s worth it. 
 
I finally had my first real website and shortly realized that traffic doesn’t come automatically so here I go again, doing hours of research on website promotion till I found and hired a company to submit my site to a certain number of search engines for about $40 a month, I thought that’s all I would need but I was so wrong. I finally found Overture, signed up and before I new it, I was doubling the income that I was making on eBay WITHOUT THE FEES, I canceled the monthly submissions. In 2004 I learned of Adwords, signed up and started to triple and sometimes quadruple my income in a day and haven’t sold on eBay since. 
 
I owe it all to Stitch without him, none of this would have ever materialized, he played so many vital roles in this business and ultimately changed my life, without Stitch there would be no Princess Petwear. 
 
Stitch passed away on 12-23-04 at 3 years old and I have yet to stop crying over his memories.
Its 2005 now and the dog clothes selection on eBay is now up to 50 pages long, I now work for my business 40+ a week and consider myself a work-at-home-mom with 4 kids, ages 13, 11, 7, 2. I still miss my Stitch, I always catch myself daydreaming of him remembering how soft his fur was and how I loved to rub my check against his face, I also find myself reminiscing on how would baby talk him and shower him with kisses and hugs, then I wipe the tears from my face and get back to work. 
 
About the author:
Author Eva Sanchez founder of PrincessPetear.com, online seller of small dog clothes for boy and girl dogs, which includes, pet sweaters, formal dresses, doggie swimsuits and more. Let your dog feel special every day in our affordable casual collection. http://www.princesspetwear.com
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