In case you don't know (and I didn't!), the paper calls people who start an online business 'Giggers'.
Thought at first this has something to do with musicians...
Here is the article:
Sue Graham : ‘A lot of people have to turn themselves into entrepreneurs to try to make a living’
Etsy, the peer-to-peer ecommerce website with about 1,500 Irish members, enables people to set up shops to sell handmade or vintage items online. Sue Graham is captain of the Etsy Ireland team.
Originally from London, Graham is now living in Co Cork. She has two websites, Swanky Jewels, where she sells vintage jewellery and her own jewellery, and Amazing Beads, where she sells beads, gemstones and jewellery-making tools.
After she set up her own website she heard about Etsy and thought it would be a good way to attract US customers. Both of her websites have their own Etsy stores of the same names.
Graham gave up full-time employment because of health issues and then found it difficult to get work as she got older.
“I couldn’t live full-time on [my Etsy wage]. For most of us on Etsy on our team, it’s supplementary income,” she says. “Everyone wants to do it full-time but it takes a long time with any shop to build up its business.”
Graham says nearly half of her sales come from Etsy, and the majority of those sales are international, as Irish customers tend to go directly to her website. Etsy takes 3.5 per cent profit on every item sold on the site.
“The way the economy is at the moment, a lot of people have to turn themselves into entrepreneurs to try to make a living, especially in the countryside where work is fairly limited,” she says.
Graham says giggers tend to work much more than nine to five, but it is more flexible and she can decide when she wants to work.
“It gives you an opportunity to do something you want to do, as well as living life,” she says.
