CockSocks: A New Storage Option

Hello there, y'all! I've taken a short break from reality for a moment to provide a little update on both my life and the Shop.

So the Fall semester has started again and I have been adjusting to a fully online course load like many other college students at this time. Like usual, I'm keeping the Shop open until the end of my 12 Days Sale, then I will have my annual Holiday Shut Down and restock for the new year. I don't "officially" plan on releasing anything new for the Fall Season at this time due to the Mega Drop in July and the abnormal lack of fabric supplies caused by the pandemic. However, I'm not ruling it out completely because I do need to clean up my work area since I finished some personal projects. It's amazing how many plans I had that completely went out the window during this chaotic episode.

Speaking of CHAOS, I got a new full - time job! (An actual job with a regular paycheck for rent and bills.) So these last few weeks have been an orienting/ transition period as I assimilate into my new role. That's another reason for the late update as I'm trying to establish a new "normal" in all this mess. Things will stabilize for me in another week or two.

Now for the important stuff:

I'm currently working on getting my stuff together for 12 Days/ and the following year, hence the clean up. I have a few designs reserved for the event, but I'm still open to anything that catches my eye. I've also been considering possibly adding new products to the Shop. Since I haven't been active lately in this community and any others I may happen to cater to, I feel a need to do a little updated marketing research.

I have created a small survey for anyone who wishes to help me get my shit together in time for winter. This is NOT a Shop specific survey like I did at the end of last year (that will come later), this just gives me an idea of what's up right now and how I can improve my stock in the coming months and make changes in the future if necessary. This is completely voluntary, no purchase required, no chain email to follow, etc.

Marketing Survey Here

The survey will be open until probably 10/17/2020, so spread the word!

Until next time!

 

Hello there, everyone!
Let me start off this post with a huge thank you to everyone who participated in the recent survey! It may not seem like much, but I enjoy getting feedback from you guys and the answers to some of the questions were surprising to me.
And now, something I know you all enjoy: a tiny drop. This time it's The Mask Collection.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheCockSockShopUS

These are the leftover fabrics from all the masks I made over the last several months for both you guys and local healthcare workers. Those who have ordered masks from me may recognize a few patterns. After all, your toys need protection, too! The majority are abnormal within their category since these are basically ‘scraps’. However, I know that a lot of you actually like the odd sized options sometimes for your more unusual playthings. I’m still planning to have a good-sized pile for 12 Days that will have mostly the usual dimensions.

Until next time, stay safe y'all!

 

Your CockSocks look so amazing! If I wouldn't live outside the US I'd definitely buy some. Or many...
Keep up the good work.

 

Whelp, it’s that time again. Those who have been following my Shop for a while already know what I’m going to talk about : The 12 Days of Christmas Sale. Sorry for the late announcement, it's been CRAZY y'all!

Obviously this year is going to be a little different for MANY reasons. The 1st difference being that the 12 Days Sale will NOT begin on Black Friday this year as it had in previous years. The reason for this is because my FINALS at University have been pushed up a week due to schedule changes caused by the pandemic. Which meant that it would have coincided with the 12 Days Sale, and I would rather not have the stress of both of these events on me at once on top of my new job. So for this year, the 12 Days Sale will begin next Friday on 12/4 and will continue until 12/15. My annual shut down will begin on the 16th and will reopen in January as usual.

So now that’s out of the way, I wanted to address some things and answer some questions:

Stockpile: Regular items - will be 50% off as usual, I plan to have at least a couple new designs displayed for this occasion.

Abnormal or Old Stock - Will be 70% off. Anything labeled as “Abnormal” for its size or just items that have been in The Shop for a long time and need to go.

Custom/Random - Okay, I’ve been thinking long and hard (ha!) about this considering the current situation of the USA right now. Also my state has tightened up restrictions recently due to a sudden rise in cases. I haven’t been as “active” creating Socks this year in part because it was tough for me to get supplies in a timely manner. I’ve not opened up Customs again prior to now because of the hot mess that is still happening.

So the current plan is this: I open up Customs and Randons for the Sale at 30% off based on the current situation. HOWEVER, if it gets to a point where I cannot fulfill these orders because of any issues caused by these circumstances, I will refund the total amount of the customed order Socks back to the buyer.

Face Masks: The face masks will NOT be discounted for this sale. When I created this item, I did so with the intention of selling them at the cheapest I could while still covering the costs of supplies. I wish I could have given them all away for free, but realistically that wasn't possible. What I have now is what I got and next year I may even raise the price a little for the ones left (only by a couple dollars or so).

Domestic Shipping: Will be free for all orders, not just the ones that are $35 and over. Speaking of which, come January that feature will be going away. I did this out of experimentation this year, but Etsy's algorithm has messed stuff up for me since using this. So when I reopen the Shop I will not do the free shipping thing, but I will certainly still refund excess shipping charges as per policy. I’ll highlight this again in my New Year’s Announcement.

International: I will have to check with my local post office for the current restrictions, but I'm looking at 50% for Canadians. As usual I'm not shipping anywhere else due to previous experience with the ridiculous expenses involved (sorry).

I will also have the End of the Year Survey with a few updates for all who like to provide feedback on my CockSocks and The Shop as a whole.

Don't forget to bookmark The Shop's page, I usually release new designs in the morning around 9 - 10 AM.

 

+mystical baboon voice* It is time!

The annual 12 Days of Christmas have begun at The CockSock Shop, including a few new designs!

I'll be honest, I was planning to have quite a bit more this year. And than 2020 happened and things got a little crazy. On top of everything in my personal life (which I won't bore y'all with), I realized I wasn't going to accomplish all I wanted to this season. Oh well there's always next year.

At the very least, I'm grateful for all the support from you all this year. I will have a survey out in a few days after I recover from FINALS.

Come get them while you can!

 

Finally a New Year!

I missed my usual Christmas note amongst all the hustle so let me wish y’all a belated Merry Christmas, a Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year!

Before I continue, let me address the most important questions: Yes, I’m still working on finishing the ‘12 Days’ Sale orders with the goal to be completely done by January 17th, since my new Semester begins that week. Some of the orders ended up a little larger than I anticipated and sadly it was tougher to find good fabric options this season. On top of that, a few of my family members (who don't live with me) had an encounter with Covid 19. Thankfully, they’re all fine but it still shook us all up a bit. The next batch of orders is due to be sent this Tomorrow, and I have another planned for Tuesday the 5th. Buyers are free to message me anytime either at the Shop, on here, or my email: drkndstr7@gmail.com

Wow what a year 2020 has been! I didn’t see at least 75% of the events that happened coming and I still can’t believe about half of what did happen! Honestly, it makes me nervous trying to plan out the rest of this year like I usually do since I feel I didn’t even really accomplish the majority of my goals for 2020. Granted, I did manage to do more than I thought I could, just not what I initially set out to do. Plus,restrictions on various activities and even some goods made it hard for me to get some stuff done. It’s not just me either, many small business owners and professional craftsmen struggled this year. Some were not able to hold on and make it through. I consider myself fortunate that I’m still able to do this and that I have great support from y’all.

Speaking of support, the new Survey is open for you guys to complete if desired. You don’t have to complete it, but if you do you can let me “officially” know how you feel about The Shop overall! It’s anonymous and it doesn’t require any personal info, so I’m not going to know who you are unless you decide to outright tell me. Click here to go to it!

Enough with the sappy stuff though, let’s get down to business:

General

Stockpile - Due to my current abnormally long creation and shipping period as I focus on the 12 Days orders, I have not had a chance to stock up on my inventory, nor have I found any appropriate fabrics to really do so on a mass scale yet. For this reason I am currently debating with myself when exactly to open up shop again. The 3 dates I have in mind are: 1/17, 2/1, and 2/12. Notice that 2 of these dates are in February; this is due to my upcoming Semester. I am moving up to higher level courses as I continue on with my degree and last semester a couple of courses took up more work than I anticipated. At this time I plan to continue keeping the Shop open, but how much inventory I’m able to create will just depend. As usual I will try to incorporate various holiday colors each season to at least acknowledge them, but I’m not going to release something on each holiday due to previous lack of interest.

Customs/Randoms - Since things don’t seem to be as crazy as before I’m going to try keeping customs and Randoms open for a while when I do reopen. However if restrictions tighten again or there’s a sudden rise of cases in my area, I'm not about to take risks and will shut the option down again.

Designs - Still searching for frequently demanded patterns like fur/skin patterns, space themes and abstract marbles. Now that things are getting back to semi-normal, I'm hoping there’s new patterns to explore!

Shipping Prices - As mentioned in my 12 Days of Christmas post. The “Free Shipping for Orders over $35 USD!” is not happening anymore. It was fun while it lasted, but Etsy’s algorithm made things really weird for The Shop while I still had it on. My policy of refunding shipping change is still effect.

Social - So as I clean up my workspace in person and online, it occurs to me that I’m not super active online at this point. I still occasionally look around various forums, but I wonder just how many are looking at ME, y’know? Basically, I’m wondering if it’s worth it to keep my threads/blog going on DragonHoard and Tumblr. I know I got peeps who follow, some even since the very beginning! I certainly still love Bad Dragon toys and I love this wonderful community as a whole, me being inactive has nothing to do with that but with me becoming increasingly busy. I realize it’s unfair for me to use that space when I’m starting to become so busy that I can’t regularly participate like I used to. If I do shut down these threads, I’ll leave an official final note.

I obviously have my Reddit page since I’ve been lurking more on here in recent years. I also have Twitter for important updates like sales.

Now for some seasonal activities…

Winter
Sales - I still plan for a Valentine’s Day Sale as usual! 50% off Stockpile and maybe 25% for customs, I haven’t decided yet.

Spring
Slow Down - There will be a slow down in CockSock Creation during late April and early May due to Finals. I will have an official announcement later so that you guys can anticipate the exact time period.

Summer
PRIDE! - I plan to have a RAINBOW! Option for sale during the summer like normal, but I don’t know what kind of fabric yet. Currently keeping my eyes out for anything interesting. I’ll do a Rainbow Sale for June also, thinking 25-50% off depending on supplies.

Drop - Always a Possibly, especially since this is my usual break from studies. If I do, it will likely be in late July or August before school again.

Fall.
Sale - 12 Days of Christmas! I plan to start on Black Friday as my norm). I definitely learned my lesson this year and will prepare my Stockpile accordingly. The survey results and custom requests will also help me with having new designs available.

Shut-Down - My annual holiday break/ restock time will begin after ‘12 Days’ Sale. Any orders I received during the Sale that I didn’t finish will continue to be worked on during the Shut-Down, but new orders cannot be placed until I reopen the following year.

And so here are my thoughts for 2021! Not a lot as you can see, but after last year I think I'm going to go with the flow.

Until next time, may this year be fabulous for all of you (and much better than the last!

 

Happy Valentine's Day!

No I have not dropped off the face of the Earth nor have I forgotten about The Shop! Unfortunately, I have been backlogged to an abnormal degree this year and I still got a few more orders to fulfill. This year has already been A LOT and it has barely begun. However, I wanted to get on the social pages and update all of you.

You will note 1st of all that the Shop has not reopened yet. This is due to many reasons, finishing up these orders being one of them. There are other factors at play in the delayed opening including but not limited to: my surprisingly large schoolwork load this semester, new changes at my job, family drama I don’t want to deal with but kind of have to, and finally just… winter.

Winter just makes me melancholy and combined with all the stuff happening in the world right now means that I’m not always in the best mental state to do much more than what is absolutely necessary. I know I’m not the only person suffering from this, it just makes me frustrated that this is affecting me to such a degree. It has been 3 months now since my 12 Days sale and this is the longest I have even taken to complete a series of orders.

This is why I haven’t opened the Shop again yet, and it’s also why I’m not doing my Valentine’s Day plans for a Sale. I’ve had no time to prepare nor do I have a lot of spare resources to work with this year. It saddens me that I won't be able to do something this year, but I know that in the grand scheme of things we all have bigger problems. And since I don’t have a “Spring Break” this year due to my school trying to lower possible disease spreading, I’m not going to have that extra week I normally have dedicated to Shop related activities.

My new “tentative” reopen time is April, when I hope things will get back on track. Although to be completely honest I would not be surprised if I leave it for the remainder of the semester and just go all out for the 2nd half of the year.

I want to thank everyone who has been patient with me for the past few months.Thanks to all who have continued to support me despite all the craziness happening everywhere. I hope this year has been off to a good start for yall and continues to be good from here!

 

ha, last time I wanted to make a 5 color marble on a toy themed around the summer i took the colors from a palette of a picture of a beach sunset. They were blue/purple, pink/orange, turquoise, gold and brown. It came out alright I believe. You ever thought about selling wholesale to a toy store? , I own Survey Of The Cosmos on Etsy , and been looking for alternatives for shipping , these are probably too expensive to send in standard orders but would be nice to have as a fancy extra choice , but well , looks like you aren’t short of business and I am glad to see that , just something to think about whenever u want to expand , hit me up if u do - Jon

 

Happy PRIDE y’all!

Finally (!), I can officially say that I am finished with all of my orders from 12 Days! And it only took… about 7 months to finish the very last order. (sigh…)

This past year and a half has been WILD y’all and I wasn’t expecting the hot mess that ended up becoming my spring semester. Part of the long wait time was the unexpectedly high amount of Customs; which was a direct result of me not having it open for most of the year. I knew I was going to get some demands but didn’t foresee it being that many. Thanks to everyone for their support and patience, and a huge apology to all who had to wait during that frustrating time.

Normally I would have a new series of CockSocks to celebrate PRIDE, but this year I just didn’t have the time to focus on the Shop during my normal prep period. And with a professional internship coming next month I don’t foresee opening the Shop again in the near future. I’m honestly not sure about when I will reopen the Shop, the previous semester highlighted how tough my classes are becoming and I don't know if I will be able to handle it for the entire Fall Semester. I don’t plan to officially shut it down or anything drastic, and I’m definitely planning for something around Black Friday as usual. However, I don’t know if I can commit to having it open for long periods of time and may get to a point where I have it open at certain parts of year or something like that.

All I know is that I got a huge pile of fabric to use and I’m still watching for any news and comments from y’all. Feel free to message anytime! If I end up making any major changes then I will spread the word.

Until next time, be safe out there!

 

Hey, thank you very much for your well written update!
My advise: Take all the time you need, and you can do this!
I'm happy to hear you don't want to close the shop completely, so I'll keep myself updated about it when you find the time to open it again for a short period of time.

I hope you'll stay safe as well and I'm looking forward to reading about your updates in the future.

 

Thank you kindly!
Here's a little update for you and all who are waiting.

I'm currently making plans to reopen The Shop sometime in October. This will hopefully give me enough time to refill my inventory and prepare for my annual 12 Day sale. I already ordered a couple new fabrics and I will soon be going through my excessive fabric pile. There's also a few things I'm looking to experiment with if I have the extra time. I'm going back over the old survey I did a while back for more ideas as I need them.

Thanks to everyone for their continuous support and patience. I literally couldn't do this without y'all!

Until next time!

 

Oh I love this idea! I’ve been meaning to get bags for my collection but could never find something I liked. I’m excited for when you re-open, I’ll definitely pick some up!

 

It’s that time again, y’all.

I hope that you all have a chance to celebrate the Holidays somehow this year even with all the crazy events we have had. Since it’s been so long since I’ve had a chance to talk to you guys, I figured it was time to give an update to let you all know that I have not abandoned my Shop and I do in fact think about it (and you guys very often).

The main point: I don't know if I'm going to open the shop for 12 Days this year. If I do open the shop it would have to be closer to X-mas when Finals would be over. Otherwise I would wait until sometime next year.

It really does feel like each message I make is just delay after delay. I don’t usually talk about my personal life online, so most of y'all may not be aware that a good portion of my studies involve learning how to code on computers and occasionally constructing my own coding projects to demonstrate my programming knowledge, which takes days to do. So if you ever wonder what I’m doing when not creating CockSocks, I’m probably doing this.

Combine this with the fact that every time I make plans to actually focus on the Shop, something always crops up whether it’s personal affairs or school related stuff. I just love when I have a whole pile of fabric to work with and no time to actually work on it. (-_-) It just sits there on my workstation, taunting me...

With Thanksgiving break coming up, I’m currently debating what to do and checking what I actually have time to do. If I do manage to get a decent sized pile made, then I will see about opening Shop after FINALS week instead of Black Friday this year. If not, then I will see about opening either just after New Years or on Valentines Day. Decisions, decisions…

Feel free to message me on any of my platforms if you have any questions. And in case I don’t see y’all soon, I hope you all have had a fantastic year and have a wonderful holiday!