Online in a week

Seven days is enough. This plan assumes you can give it two hours a day. If you can only give it one, stretch it to ten days. The shape is the same.

Day 1 — Inventory and story

Open a spreadsheet. One row per product. Columns: name, one-line description, price, quantity on hand, photos status (have / need), shipping weight in ounces. Fill in the top twenty products you want to sell first. Don't try to do all of them.

While you're at it, write one paragraph about you. Two sentences is fine. What you make. Why. Keep it in a note somewhere you can paste from.

End-of-day: spreadsheet + paragraph.

Day 2 — Photos

Don't buy a camera. Your phone is fine. Shoot outside on a cloudy day, or inside next to a big window. White or wood background. Every product gets one hero shot from the front and one context shot — on a table, in use, in hand. Five minutes per product. If your products are small, thirty products in two hours is realistic.

If photos are your biggest blocker, shoot your top ten today and commit to the next ten tomorrow.

End-of-day: 20 products × 2 photos = 40 images, roughly named.

Day 3 — Put up the storefront shell

Pick a platform today. Don't research for two weeks. The shortlist most displaced vendors end up on is: Shopify, Etsy, Squarespace, or Painted Porch Free Porch (our thing — free, 10 products, no card). Any of the four works for week-one.

Create the account. Add your paragraph. Upload a logo (a plain wordmark in black on white is completely fine if you don't have one). Add your banner — use your best context photo from Day 2. Connect Stripe (or equivalent) so you can take money.

Don't try to customize the theme. Default is enough.

End-of-day: a real URL that loads and says who you are.

Day 4 — Products live

Load five products. Full description, both photos, price. Pick ones you know ship easily. If something takes more than ten minutes per listing, skip it for now and come back.

Write the description in your own voice. Don't try to sound like a brand. "This is the mug I use every morning. It holds 14 ounces. The glaze is a slow reactive one so no two look exactly alike." That's all.

End-of-day: 5 products visible, all with buy buttons.

Day 5 — Shipping and policies

Write a shipping page. Three lines. "Orders ship Monday and Thursday. Most items ship within 3 business days. If I'm late, I'll email you." Write a returns page. "If anything arrives broken or not as described, email me and I'll make it right." That's the bar. You can expand later.

Go to the post office or order a few Priority Mail boxes online. Print one test label from your platform so you know how it works before the first real order.

End-of-day: shipping works, you've practiced the motion once.

Day 6 — The other 15 products

Use the cadence you figured out in Days 3–4. Fifteen products × ten minutes = 2.5 hours. Push through it. Incremental perfection kills week-one launches.

End-of-day: 20 products live.

Day 7 — Tell everyone

This is the single most important day. Without this day, Days 1 through 6 are invisible.

Make a list of everyone who has bought from you in the last two years. Phone contacts, Instagram followers, old booth repeat customers if you have their info. Anyone.

Send three things:

• Email or text to every past customer. One sentence: "My booth closed but I'm fully online now. Here's the link. Here's the first piece I'm listing: [link]. No sale, no pressure — I just want you to know where to find me."
• Instagram post. The same sentiment, plus one photo of the piece you're proudest of. Post it, then DM a handful of your most loyal followers directly.
• Local community. If your city has an artisan-community group, post there too. Many of them forbid commercial promotion — mention that you were displaced, link to your store, and ask mods first if you're unsure.

End-of-day: your first real traffic. Often your first real sale.

What day 8 is not.

It is not "launch the perfect version." You are not going to have a perfect version for months. Day 8 is "keep telling people" and "keep listing the next five products." Momentum is the only thing that matters after Day 7.

If you get stuck on any day — the technical setup, the photos, the pricing — come back to the Project. Ask in the contact form. We've walked vendors through this exact week many times.