I'm in the same business as her, though physical sales at conventions and such rather than online so far. A lot of UK artists are being hit by the tariff problems, she's not the first to announce closing up shop, recently, though I don't believe that's her reason at all.
Print on demand is pricy and doesn't give much return to the artist unless you're doing very well. That's why so many artists source out their own manus (or buy shirt presses etc.) and do it themselves.
But someone as consistently bad at quality checking her products should NOT be looking into persuing kickstarter or similar to crowd source her items, especially plushies and pins. That requires a LOT of back and forth between herself and whatever manu she decides to use, and a lot of trust in the creator (her) to not rip potentially hundreds of people off with shoddy items that have the wrong patterns or colours or anything. I've also witnessed small businesses go under because they launched hugely successful kickstarters and then had to refund everyone because the products came and weren't what they wanted at all.
This is all such a strange move for her to be making - if it weren't for the tact that print on demand allows you to swan around the world. Which is exactly why she's doing this, I feel. She obviously doesn't NEED katnip to do as well as she pretended it did, as they have other income to play with. Now she can throw her designs on Redbubble, make a pittance (by comparison) while charging her loyal customers double, and live in France or Spain or wherever she fancies being at the time.
