[At the end of 2022] Looking back at the online shopping site Shinatomy
Today, along with this month's Shinatomy, I would like to give a summary of the year.
Please take a look 🥀
1. About this month's Shinatomy
First, let's look back on this month.
☑︎We have posted information regarding new event exhibits.
We exhibited at Artism Market last month.
We are grateful to have many people come to visit us.
Thanks to people finding out about Shinatomy, we have decided to exhibit at the Artism Market to be held in Tokyo on March 25th, 2023.
Based on the previous face-to-face sales in Osaka, this time we have doubled the space,
We also plan to install a separate hanger rack so that clothes and other items can be displayed.
With the increased space, we will be able to give you more time to look at Shinatomy's items, so if you are in the area, please do come and visit us.
☑︎We have posted information about lucky bags
Lucky bags will be on sale for a limited time from January 1st to 8th.
The lineup of items is divided into three categories: Pine, Bamboo, and Plum.
At the moment, we are considering selling only this lucky bag, so if you are planning to purchase any of the items included in the lucky bag, don't miss out!
2. Summary of the year
Shinatomy opened on May 1st.
Thank you so much to everyone who has supported me so far and to everyone who has learned about me for the first time.
I posted a summary of the year on Instagram, but I would like to go a little deeper here.
☑︎Dark
To be honest, in the past year, despite the fun and fulfillment, there were also many days of anxiety. On social media, you can only see one side of someone, and you tend to focus on the bright side. Therefore, from an outsider's perspective, the mail order site I run may have looked good, but in reality, it wasn't.
For better or worse, a personal business is run by just one person. It suits my lifestyle well, but the backlash when I get sick is quite large, which gave me the opportunity to think about how I should run the business in the future.
Also, anxiety never goes away. It's better to assume that things won't go well for at least three years. It's certainly true, there's no shortcut to success, and that's why I think that people can finally achieve success by overcoming daily struggles and accumulations, but when I'm feeling weak, I still think, "Wouldn't it be better to just work normally?" When my classmates post designer items on social media with a bonus of three months' salary or laugh together about work, it feels like I'm looking at a different world, and it makes my heart ache.
Still, I think the reason I haven't given up on Shinatomy is because I'm facing it more seriously than I thought and I have a lot of passion for it. I could never have felt this way on my own, and it's only thanks to the people who are reading it now. Thank you.
By the way, I have been told many times in real life and on social media that I want to be self-employed. I am very grateful that people think that about me, but to be honest, I do not recommend it. It is much easier to work for someone else. I cannot measure someone's suffering on a balance scale, but from my personal experience as both an employee and a business owner, I feel that it is easier to be employed. In reality, many people in the world are employed by someone and work, so it is probably a minority who do things on their own.
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I choose to run a personal business because my current situation is difficult, but is that really the right thing to do? I don't expect my personal opinion to change anyone's mind, but I don't want people to be fooled by the world I present to them. That's why I'm also sharing the real story. There are many people in the world who only show the good side of things, and many people are manipulated by them. I don't want to end up like those people. I myself am not yet able to see things clearly, but I hope that everyone will also be able to think about the shadows lurking behind the light. Well, it's selfish, I know.
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So why did I choose to start my own business, which is tough for me? It's because I was confident that I could endure the amount of work and the uncertain path ahead, which was more difficult than working. I've been feeling a bit shaken up over the past year, but I've never once thought about quitting my own business.
The dissatisfaction with the company that flies among my few friends, the microcosm of society where hierarchical relationships are shown, the exhausted spirit of my friends and my own weakness that cannot help them... It was the first time I thought that if I could become just a little bit bigger, I might be able to save my friends, and I thought that if I was going to achieve that, it would be through my current business.
That being said, a big factor is that you are not tied to work hours, either in a good or bad way. Sometimes I am so engrossed in my work that I forget to eat lunch, and sometimes when I finally get motivated I work in the evening and then late into the night. As I was writing this, I thought that whether or not you can immerse yourself in your work that much might be a factor in choosing a business.
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☑︎Ming
Although I've only written about the dark aspects, there were of course many good things as well.
Just over a year ago, I gave a presentation about Shinatomy, where I met many new people. Thankfully, we still keep in touch through social media such as Facebook.
Also, since we opened our online store, many people have used it. At first, we only had a few items, but now we have over 30, and our lineup of original Shinatomy items is more extensive than before. It's all thanks to everyone who has picked up our products. For now, we are a select shop, but we would like to gradually increase the range of our original items.
Not only through the online shopping site, but also through the unmanned sales at Takeda Cafe and face-to-face sales at Artism Market, the opportunities to talk to customers in person were very refreshing and valuable.
Personally, I thought a big step was my first face-to-face sale at Artism Market.
Face-to-face sales, and exhibiting in a place where I don't know anyone. I was filled with anxiety, but I thought about the layout in my own way and continued posting on social media, which I'm not good at.
My actions were not clearly reflected in the numbers, and I pushed forward without knowing which was the right answer. On the day, some people came because they saw it on social media, and some people happened to see Shinatomy and became interested, which made me really happy.
Through this event, I learned that the direction of my online shopping site is not wrong, and that if I continue to do small things steadily, I'm sure someone will find something. That's why I was able to apply for the Artism Market to be held in Tokyo on March 25th, and it looks like I'll be able to take another step forward. Look forward to it!
3. About myself
I think this year has been a year in which I've had a lot of physical problems. In fact, I was in bed until the day before I wrote this.
When you work individually, you can choose when to rest and when to work, but you always end up working on your days off and end up hurting yourself...that's what always happened.
My motto for next year is to take care of my body and understand my own capacity.
Please take care of yourselves.
4. Future Outlook
First of all, we want to sell lucky bags, and then successfully complete our participation in the event in March.
And in 2023, we would like to make major changes to the way we manage social media.
We will continue to interact with more people and make efforts to let more people know about Shinatomy.
We are also actively considering face-to-face sales from March onwards. After Tokyo and Osaka, we would like to do so in the Kyushu area, such as Fukuoka and Hiroshima.
We're planning to be even more powerful and do more exciting things in 2023, so stay tuned!
5. Conclusion
Thank you for 2022.
We will do our best to show you an even more powerful performance next year.
I hope this will be a wonderful year for you all 🥀
That's all for this time.