my Contrado shop is now better than ever

One of the goals I set for 2023 was to revamp and rework the content in my Contrado shop so it looks a bit more cohesive and curated.

I opened a Contrado shop back in 2020 and initially what drew me to it was the fact you could create fabric prints there, but as soon as I joined, I realised I was more excited about the leather purses collection and home decor items.

Contrado doesn't quite work like most PoD where you upload the design once and then select which of their item you want it enabled on and that had confused me a bit for a while because I was still approaching creating products with a "Jack of all trades" kind of approach which is probably not the best one for that website.

Contrado has more exclusive and higher end products on its catalogue, and trying to upload one design to as many as possible isn't a smart move. This is a place were working with curated collections work a lot better and makes for a whole lot more clarity in the shop.

So, I went ahead and deleted a lot of the old products I had there and decided to work around collection themes instead, for now, there are 3 of them : - Tropics on your mind which has tropical inspired designs like my turquoise parrots and pink dragon fruit patter. The focus of that collection is more fashion accessories than home decor, though there are a few home decor items. The central idea to the collection is summer fun, trip to the beach or pool and vacation time. So there are large leather totes to carry your vacation essentials, scrunchies, fun PJ pants, espadrille, scrunchies and sleep masks among other things.

- Coastal geometry is a collection centered on geometric patterns and mandalas in a coastal color palette of navy blues, blues and whites. Most of the items in that collection are home decor items like occasional chairs, rugs and lampshades. The patterns are Art Deco and mid-century modern inspired. They are meant to be elegant yet have a bit of an edge, because after all Home Cyn Home is bold and colorful.

- Fishes dancing in seigaiha waves is a fun, bold edgy collection featuring a Japanese seigaiha wave pattern in which floral fishes are dancing/jumping. for now the collection has only the 3 handbags featured on the first picture on this blog post, but the theme of the collection is likely to be fashion accessories and some home decor items in the future.

Working in collections has helped me being more intentional and focused with my Contrado shop. Since it features more expensive and higher end products, I don't feel the need to have a lot of variety in it, just select designs working around themes and ideas. The big unique selling point for me is being able to offer leather goods, especially handbags and purses since I have a purse fetish myself. Afterall, my dream home has a closet display just for bags...that's how much I love this fashion accessory people!