I’m Alok. I run Rupanjali, an online silver jewelry store. Small Shop Lab is where I write down what I learn running it.
The short version
That’s the whole idea. Most advice for small sellers is written by people who have never packed an order, watched an ad budget disappear, or found out at the end of a month that a bestseller was losing money on every sale. I have done all three. So before anything gets published here, I run it through my own shop first.
Why I started this
I kept searching for answers to very ordinary questions. What should this bracelet cost? Is a dollar a day on ads worth anything? Why did my views drop last week?
What came back was the same article rewritten a thousand times — confident, general, and completely untested. Nobody showed their numbers. Nobody said “I tried this and lost money.”
So the rule here is simple: if I haven’t measured it, I don’t publish it. When I don’t know something, I say so. When something failed, I show what it cost me.
What I actually do
I don’t sell on Etsy, and I can’t: Etsy Payments doesn’t operate in my country, so Etsy won’t let me open a shop. What I write about Etsy comes from its published rates and its public listings, and I say so every time. Everything else here comes from my own store.
I list, price, photograph, pack and ship real jewelry — more than 400 pieces, each one made once and never restocked. I run Facebook and Instagram ads with my own money. I built my store’s checkout myself. I have made most of the mistakes I write about, including spending 78% of three years of ad budget on the wrong thing and only noticing when I finally added up the column.
That is the only qualification I claim. I’m not a marketing agency and I don’t sell a course.
What you’ll find here
- Pricing & Profit — pricing formulas, fee math, and where the money actually goes
- Etsy SEO & Listings — titles, tags, ads and the tools, tested on live listings
- Photos, Packaging & Shipping — shooting jewelry, packing it so it survives, and paying the least to send it
- Your Own Store, Email & Ads — Shopify vs WooCommerce, email that works, ads that don’t waste money
- Jewelry Business — suppliers, metals, sizing, and starting a jewelry shop
How this site makes money
Some links here are affiliate links. If you buy through one, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I only link to tools I have paid for and used in my own shop, and I say plainly when something isn’t worth the money. The site also shows display ads. Neither changes what I recommend. Full details: Affiliate Disclosure.
Say hello
Questions, corrections, or a number of yours that contradicts one of mine — I want to hear it. Contact me.
You can also find me at Rupanjali, my jewelry store, and on LinkedIn.
— Alok Roy