Here's a jumping off point.
First let me explain that I actually started writing this as a facebook group post which turned into a book ;) so some of what I wrote here references the group chat from yesterday but I'm sure it will still make sense to you here. I'm sharing it here simply because I feel more people need to read it. I'm also thinking of turning this blog into a walkthrought / experience / tutorial sharing my experiences and ideas based on what I'm learning as an ecommerce (online etsy) shop and handmade business.
Fwd.
Hello my lovelies, and thank you Claudia for requesting I join back after I quit yesterday.
WORTH A READ IF YOU WANT TO SELL YOUR PRODUCTS.
I wanted to clear things up.. I NEVER intended for my comments to seem malicious or nasty. At the end of the day if you ask for constructive criticism you best be prepared to take the bad and not just people stroking your ego telling you how talented and amazing you are etc etc..
I am of course referring to the admin post about ‘why are my items not selling?’ yesterday. Seems a number of people posted with genuine intent to improve their sales (this is for you) by making the changes suggested while others.. Well others took comments in a very bad way (like they were being personally attacked and upset).
I left because apparently I had upset people telling them things which frankly I didn’t even say!! So they / I deleted comments and I left. - Had an amazing (6 month anniversary) date night with my amazing boyfriend and one of the best nights sleep despite my fibromyalgia kicking my butt lol. I’m now back and have some stuff to say. So go get a drink, get comfortable and settle in if you want to sell online.
- I’ll wait -
FIRST.
As said if you wish for help (and indeed ask for it) please don’t get offended when people say something you’re not wanting to hear. That said if you have something to say please be mindful of how you say it, text can often be misinterpreted, and constructive criticism and feedback behind honest isn’t being rude. “I think you’re over priced because other people in your field who have more experience seem to be selling for less.” don’t say “You are ripping people off with that crap you claim to be art”. Big difference. But honestly if you're commenting to be rude, nasty, spiteful, hurt people or anything of a negative nature please take your hate and go troll some trolls there’s zero need for it and if you can’t say anything nice then don’t say anything at all. - Thank you.
That said I was telling Claudia that I feel sad a lot of people under value their time and skills and ultimately underpriced their products!! - I have seen this a lot on posts lately where people ask why their things are not selling it basically boils down to 1. People aren't in the market for that product right now. 2. Photography is bad and it's putting people off purchasing. 3. You're under/over pricing. And it is that simple in a lot of cases. I suppose you could also add 4. Where (how) you're selling. 5. How (where) you're advertising.
SECOND.
Touching on those points.
1. If people aren’t in the market to buy what you have right now (it’s not in fashion, it’s not the right colour, it’s out of their budget, it’s not the right season, their decor doesn’t match etc..) it can be really hit and miss.
You have a few options you can either change what you do and sell out to a market that is looking for your product (make things for an active market). OR you can open up commissions and take requests for you to make items based on someone else's requirements and/or design brief. - Of course don't offer up oil paintings if you've never even held a brush. OR you can continue doing what you love and everything comes back in style, eventually. - I said this yesterday to a lady when I said it’s “hit and miss” she took that a very wrong way, she instantly became very offended like I was attacking her profession and not that was not at all what I intended.. If you’ve spent any time at all watching YouTube or Webinars or even reading forums on reliable places like Reddit or just taken notice of trends throughout your lifetime then you’ll know that some people can have items in their shop (online or physical shop) that just don’t sell and then weeks, months even years later they go like hot cakes and people can’t get enough of them.. This is life!! It’s how consumers work. It’s how people work. In my life time (I’m 30) and I can think of 3 separate occasions that tamagotchis have been the new latest craze (like they never existed before) same with furbies and yo-yos and marbles and…. Same with clothing they come in and out of style and fashion same with hair styles, accessories, colours etc.. I’m not at all big on fashion (my clothes are essentially black and comfortable), even as someone who makes jewellery I don’t know what’s trending now and when I looked OMG I don’t want to make that.. I did recently do A LOT of research on this subject…. I was curious if there was a way to find what people are actively searching for on Etsy - as I don’t want to be making mermaid jewellery if everyone's searching for cats. I actually discovered the paid version of ERank (formerly Etsy Rank) has a trending section so I’m able to search the top 100 search terms for last month, the month before etc up to a year or so back. I learnt no one is looking for mermaid, steampunk, octopus jewellery and people are looking for pearl, turquoise, cyberpunk, seagrass in the top 100 jewellery searches - I wouldn’t recommend paying for ERank just for this information though. (although this does help with SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) - which if you’re selling online learn SEO, I’m happy to help you!! ERank also has lots of free stuff for helping you with SEO). But my point is that next month those top 100 won’t be the same top 100 search terms.. Things change and while your product may not be in now it may be the next big crazy. So don’t get upset if people don’t want your stuff RIGHT NOW. (And if they do then it doesn’t matter how much it is.. and if they don’t well you can’t give it away!! Or people just don’t know about you - more on that in a bit!!)
2. Photography.
OMG!!
First if you have a smart phone with a camera (and maybe internet for downloading apps) then you more or less have everything you need. - I have never said go out and spend silly money on a camera, I use my phone and my bf uses his phone (his has super macro which takes high detailed photos - jealous!!). But photography needs to be on point. If you go into a real actual physical shop you can often handle the item, get a full 360 view of the item. Be able to in some cases try it on or see how it would look.. This is why we take photos to try and give as much of that experience as possible.
Natural daylight - if you don’t have a lighting setup.. my lighting setup cost me £30 for 2 lamps inc a light box and stands and fancy-ness so it’s not as expensive as people think!! But the sun is just as good and often better!!. So well light photos.
So photography needs to be clean, I’ve seen people put their products on messy craft tables in a poor lighting taken a quick obscured snap, cropped it weirdly and using that one photo to try and sell a 3D object. Would you buy that? Really? First off it's photoS with an S multiple photos per product (selling on Facebook? Post extra photos in the comments or like to a place such as Instagram where there's more product photos!) Your photos NEED to be as close to real colour as possible - natural daylight is good for this. No knowledge of photography, design, cameras etc is needed I’m not going to talk to you about Lux, White Balance, Aperture etc because WTF?? Photography doesn’t need to be difficult.
Choose your background (perhaps make it relevant to what you’re selling). Backgrounds can be a plain bed sheet, piece of card, a subtle textured wooden floor, a tiled surface, fabric, wallpaper etc something that’s not too distracting, compliments your product and isn’t cluttered or stained or messy. Try to remove dust and hair and any imperfections. - I myself photograph my jewellery on an A3 black chalk board (for kids) from Wilkos for £2 here in the UK but other people use wallpaper samples they got for free!! I also use a tailors dummy and I have a lil driftwood setup I rarely use any more. So backgrounds / scene keep it simple, clean and make your product stand out. - Feel free to search for photography setup ideas on Pinterest or YouTube or simply look at successful Etsy sellers and what are they doing?!!
Props can help sell your item. Such as a complimentary stand, something that shows off your products say bubble bath use a bath and candles show luxury sell the product through photos. Use flowers (recently learnt that fake flowers give negative impressions so use real flowers and real petals whenever possible). Show images with scale so people get an idea of size by placing familiar but relevant items next to your product as props. Wear the hat, scarf, glasses, necklace or use a mannequin (beware of hygiene issues / laws). …Or use something like a window, sofa, mantle etc to give a suggestion of size for say artwork. Don’t use props for the sake of using props and make your photos confusing as your pictures can look cluttered and take away from that product focus.
So natural lighting, not too bright and exposed bright white blown out images. Not too dark so we can’t see. Try to get as close to colour - editing can help with this. I use Adobe Photoshop simply because I have a licence (or my graphic designer boyfriend does). But there’s plenty of free apps out there in fact one of the best I can suggest to you is Adobe Lightroom - the free version on your phone includes colour balance to make things brighter, darker or change the colour. It also has a focus and a blur and even a sharpen tool. It’s exactly what you need and it’s free. It also has a crop feature so you can crop to say Etsy size 5:2 ratio or instagram’s 1:1 square or whatever size you require for your selling platform. - Please crop your photos as sites will do it for you and not always will your pictures work out. Have you noticed how facebook crops elongated pictures so you have to click to see them properly / in full? Same with Twitter, WhatsApp and even Pinterest. Well so does Etsy and a bunch of other selling sites and some selling sites require your images to be X:X size.
Other than that there should be nothing in your photo that isn’t background / scene, prop or product.
- And there’s so many tutorials on YouTube for all of this and more.
3. You’re over/under pricing.
Yes it could be that simple. I see plenty of people who don’t value themselves or their time and ultimately their product. If I go onto Etsy and I see "X product it’s nice, it’s well photographed, it’s all round great but wait what why is it only £2?? What’s wrong with it?? Did they spend £1 in pound shop and trying to double their money?? Is it fake, knock off, watered down, not worth more?? - I don’t like this I’ll buy the more expensive one from another seller as it seems more legit!" Yes this happens. Sometimes your items don’t sell because you’re under pricing yourself and under valuing results because of it. Yesterday I saw a lady who makes amazing henna tea lights she said she sells 6 for £2 WHAT!! NO!! I could have cried! First 2 for £6 seems much better… Also if she put them in boxes not bags added a ribbon and for pennies her 2 for £6 could be a £8 product if not more. If I was her I’d easily be looking into that. And making sure her SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) includes search terms like “Indian Wedding” “Henna Wedding” etc.. Fantastic. I’ve not seen anything like those which is amazing since we live in a very competitive someone's already done it world.
Sometimes our items can sell simply based on our packaging options. Even offering this as an extra purchasable, add-on or personalisation could make a massive difference and it's not always as expensive as people think.
On the other hand I see people seriously over pricing. People who seem to have plucked the numbers out of nowhere. People who haven’t done their market research. And people who frankly I admire for being ballsy as normally we don’t like talking money and cost as humans (in my experience). Kudos. But that being said that leads to over pricing and I see this a lot with artists - which as a digital painter I stopped because people just didn’t want to pay £20-30 for 3-15 hours of my time / a custom painting. And my £5-10 prints never sold. My boyfriend is a graphic designer and he works in the industry in a job that’s too easy for him and he’s bored (he legit does his weeks work on a Monday morning and spend the rest of the week helping others with theirs!!!!!!!!!!) simply because freelance no one wants to pay. We have other friends who work in the industry even some who work for the big comic cons, big name graphics studios, and have a name for themselves etc even they can’t sell because no one wants to pay. It’s so sad that artists spend time developing skills (no such thing as born with talent) just to be underappreciated and undervalued. Artists are known as ‘starving artists’ for a reason. - I AM NOT SAYING DON’T DO WHAT YOU LOVE. I AM NOT SAYING DON’T MAKE / SELL ART. I AM NOT SAYING DON’T DO WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY. I AM NOT SAYING LOWER YOUR PRICES. I am simply offering up an opinion based on experience and research that unless you’re super unique at what you do - with crazy good developed skill you’ve dominated and made truly something and already got a foot (not just a toe) in the door of popularity then you’re going to struggle in my experience to make money from drawing, painting, fine art etc.. That said it’s absolutely possible for you to do well but you specifically need to home your audience. I was talking to a lady yesterday who expects to sell only through Facebook (I’m sorry lovelies it’s unlikely that’s going to happen). Who is new-ish to her craft. Who is so over pricing herself (and also poorly representing herself with her photography of her product). My advice to her was to get onto selling sites like redbubble.. Etsy.. search out sites that are more aimed at prints and art. Also target local selling spots: when I lived in Cornwall with an ex his photography prints sold well in a local gift shop (he gave the gift shop a %) but none sold online (even though they were less money online). I use to have a. friend who worked in a glasswear shop but they allowed her to sell her fractal artwork and cards in their shop for a % and my hairdresser stocks handmade birthday cards made by a widowed lady down the street for free. Here my doctors in Bispham and also outpatients in Preston hospital transport area sells fine art originals they’re on the walls of the waiting rooms. Equally people want something a bit more than just a piece of paper so perhaps look at selling frames, hanging kits etc as an add-on or a “free” perk. My boyfriend and I recently went to a comic con we got 2 amazing prints on a fantastic deal; £10 each or 2 for £15 A4 prints - imagine our surprise when he put them in super simple black acrylic not glass frames with tissue paper in a clear carrier bag. AMAZING!! Now we don’t need to get frames for them, they look so expensive and it was in with the price making it an even sweeter deal. We saw lots of other print sellers there who didn’t do that with the frames, at best they could offer a polly pocket document sleeve.. And we saw some thatt offered an artist signature for £5 or more (on their own originals / prints of course.)
But what's worse than under and even over pricing is not pricing!! I absolutely hate seeing facebook pages that post up their items and say inbox me for prices. NO! Me and my anxieties are certainly not going to inbox you for prices!! Why? Well lets say you have a bottle of perfume, it looks nice and you claim it's very similar to my designer scent I love but at £60 for 50ml can't afford. I inbox you and ask how much is product number 8472B the one that smells like X and she replies oh that's our best seller it's £30 for 20ml. Now I'm stuck in this awkward engagment my designer perfume is far cheaper what do I say. Quick make up an excuse that I'll be back on payday. We both know I lied, no intention to buy yet a few times a week DING! there she is reminding me about that perfume I was interested in ...awkward!! This goes for people who sell at fairs and such in person and shops. It's super awkward when you can't afford or are reluctant to pay the price but are now engaged in an awquard conversation. There's been a few times both on and offline where I haven't enquired about something probably very reasonably priced for fear of this sort of engagement costing them to not make the sale. So always put your prices on your items. Let people haggle you down but don't make people feel awkward.
My best advice when pricing would be first to see what your competition is doing. Research. If I can get the same image painted by someone who has better skills and more expensive mediums that will not fade over time and comes in a frame and its £30 less than what you’re charging. No brainer. If I can pay £3 more for a watch with bracelet strap that looks exactly like you copied another seller (don’t do that) but I get gift wrapping for free, a 6 month guarantee against it stopping working or I can get some kind of exclusive extra from you even if it's just you offer a quicker shipping rate for the same P&P price then I’m going to buy from you.. You're more expensive but I'm getting a better deal. Equally you could sell the exact same product but market it better than your competitors that doesn’t mean under price them, or even the same price just do it better.. Better photography, better wording, better advertising!!
You also need to remember that some people can afford to add on extra cost based on the brand they’ve made. There’s some amazing polymer clay sculptures out there who started completely clueless made some stuff and sold it for probably not even the cost of materials. But now they’re making these crazy amazing sculptures which with time and practice comes a lot quicker and easier to them (I’m not devaluing their skills at all here I’m pushing how hard they work and how much I appreciate that background knowledge and experience) but now they can create these things that give them a double even triple figure profit. Because they built up their skills, their brand, their following and now they have loads of fans, followers, returning customers etc etc and they can bump their prices up because people will pay for their brand.
While I'm here let's talk about free shipping. I tried it for a few months and my views decreased to 1/5th and I don't want to tell you about my lack of sales.. I did some research and people said 'I am more likely to buy if the shipping is free', 'I stay away from handmade sellers who offer free shipping; I feel it's dishonest adding shipping to their item', 'I would buy but I wouldn't buy multiple items as I feel I'm paying for shipping more than once'. Even when I stated all over my shop that P&P comes out of my monthly outgoings it's not added to my listing cost this is when my sales stopped entirely. I recently added £2.50 postage to my items and I've sold 6 things in 5 sales. - Maybe it's coincidence but think about it!! How can handmade businesses afford to do it??
Competing with China prices? Don't!! It's simple if people want to buy from China and wait a year for it to get lost then fine. Ignore those people but don't lower your prices or try and compete with China you'll lose.
Starting out is always hard to find where we price ourselves. We often feel awkward asking for money especially when we know what we spent. An option is to follow a handmade business pricing formula such as: Time (based on apprentice national wage for beginners per hour) + Materials = Cost. This is how much your item cost to make. (I personally just do materials and don’t inc my time for things I love doing). Cost x 2 = wholesale price. Wholesale is if you were going to sell everything together like all 30 pieces you made as a job lot to a vendor, trader, supplier etc etc so you’re doubling your cost. Wholesale x 2 = Retail Price <— this is the price you would put your items up for sale at. So essentially 4x materials (and maybe your time). You can also add a bit to this to cover your overheads such as the selling site fees, electric, fuel to get to the post office, tool purchase etc although I usually add this onto the P&P or my monthly outgoings. Speaking of that second P stands for Packaging don’t forget to work out the cost of packaging that is the packaging container, extra bubble wrap or peanuts, the label, the printer ink, the pen, the tape etc. I personally don’t charge you for my business card, organza gift bag, ziplock bags nor for any decorative items such as my business logo stickers - these go on my monthly outgoings / purchases I take out my profits/income. Honestly when starting out in most cases this is the best formula and it’s one people commonly use across the internet - over time you can add the value of your time and pay yourself, increase the apprentice wage to a higher paid job, pay yourself a bonus for creations that are harder and require a higher skill set that you’ve developed.. Not just those higher end tools and materials..
Remember: People will pay if they want it. And if people don’t want it then you can’t give it away. (Right now). - This is always changing and what’s in today is out tomorrow. Don’t beat yourself up.
4 & 5. Where are you selling your products? How are you advertising what you sell?
I saw yesterday, and lately, a lot of people say they can’t afford to sell online - for whatever reason but usually it’s lack of money. I’m sick/disabled on low benefit income and I get you - I don’t go out much, I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t go on holiday, my luxury money is spent on craft supplies for my therapeutic pass time and online fees.. I always make sure my bills are paid first and that my cats and I are provided for. I am able to budget to finance selling online (which tbh isn’t as expensive as I thought it was when you look at the grand scale of it!!). Just don’t expect to get sales on Facebook (or other free social media) just because it’s free and people are on there. There’s so many points here:
First of all selling on / advertising on free social media spaces is like building your house on rented land. While the product is yours the space isn’t. So don’t ever build your business primarily on social media. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, MySpace etc. These are all what is called a hope advertising, hope marketing or hope selling. Hope is very much a nice way of saying wishful thinking and in some cases yes yes it does work. But not always and that’s what most of us experience. Furthermore not only that but this social media could be gone tomorrow!! Imagine waking up and all the effort you put into your Facebook Business page has gone because Facebook have decided they’re only doing paid services and you have to start over somewhere else.. OUCH!! But that threat is real - these platforms are aimed at families and friends first and foremost. Social and then networking. It also depends on the algorithms as to if your business related posts even get seen!! Facebook (who own Instagram) are prioritising posts about friends, family, and social actives.. It’s even going as far as to hide content from business pages, people who post links to outside sources such as Etsy and is not maliciously but literally harming our businesses because Facebook while it’s meant for networking isn’t set up to promote businesses that’s not even in the top 5 primary functions. Facebook is also favoriting (showing) video over photo, photo over text and live video and parties are taking the crown!! (Don't believe me hop onto your feed, ignore the people you clicked 'see first' and I bet it's mostly videos, photos and how many of those are all these pages your follow? Handmade business adds? Mine is mostly group photo posts, friends posting pics of their pets and kids and the odd paid facebook ad.) Facebook is cracking down on what it shares reducing spam and pushing for personal connections. Building friendships not making sales unless it’s through their boost (don’t do that) or paid ad services (do this). Makes sense right? So many changes are rolling out to Facebook and Instagram over the next few months which will do more harm than good for us sellers..!! But more about that another time. From here on when I say Facebook I mean all social media.. So on Facebook it isn’t putting businesses first as said. Not only is there THOUSANDS of us but then under us are people trying to sell who aren’t even a business. Yes Facebook has paid for ad space (for the love of god please stop with the boost button it’s doing nothing for you at all - boost boosts your content to online people whereas facebook ads targets individuals based on their online shopping behaviours who are more likely to actually buy our products so use ads not boost - Yes facebook spys on your online activity and you agreed to this when creating your account). Of course use Facebook to meet people, chat, socialise, network, make friends, buy, sell, trade and all of that but don’t pin your hopes on it; simply think of it as a tool in your workshop/craftroom/pencil case etc which could break or stop working so don’t rely on it too much. Maybe put your fingers in a few pies and have backup tools and supplies that you also use. This is one reason why people have emails lists (create one for free with MailChimp), their own website, sell on selling sites.. They’re more secure it’s like building a house on land you own that could flood, sink, be hit by other natural disasters such as earthquake, tornado etc…. But generally it’s there to stay (unlike social media). That isn’t saying that your service provider won’t terminate or shut you down. So definitely make sure to read all legal text inc fine print, update emails and make sure you know what you’re agreeing to and what you’re doing. In honesty the only true way of being 100% secure in your business is to sell at fairs, cons, markets, trade shows or open a real brick and mortar shop. And even then it could be cancelled, the landlord could sell the building, there could be a fire. Nothing is safe. So pick your insecurity but remember social media such as facebook especially any social media that is free or where you’re doing hope marketing isn’t the best option for everyone.
Second selling sites don’t have to be expensive and often aren’t as expensive as people think. I did some research as someone selling handmade jewellery and I found that…
EBAY:
I could have a free Ebay account or pay for an Ebay shop. Let's say we choose a free personal account this would give me X amount of free listings on auctions or cost for a buy it now price. - If I wanted to sell items on buy it now I’d be better paying for an eBay shop. Selling fee for a personal seller (at least here in the UK) is 10% of all money (sold price and P&P charge) plus PayPal of 3.4% and 20p for the transaction. But not many people go to Ebay for handmade goods. Plus my listings only last for 1-10 days (default set to 7 days). But on the up side Ebay has GSP (Global Shipping Program) making it cheaper and easier to ship internationally. Downside is that searches are typically based on your titles and the category information you enter and that's a high competitive market in most cases inc China prices.
ETSY:
An alternative where everyone goes for handmade goods would be Etsy. On Etsy I am a business regardless of if I want to be or not - some countries require you to be VAT registered and a bunch of legal stuff, but not in the UK. To list an item it costs $0.20 plus VAT - for me in the UK it’s total 19p inc VAT of 3p so to list 1 item it costs me 19p - but that listing lasts for 4 months… Yes FOUR MONTHS!!!!!!!! Yes there’s selling fee and processing fees and trust me using Etsy Payments is far cheaper than adding PayPal fees onto that….. So selling fees on Etsy are 5% of all money (sold price and P&P charge) plus there’s also VAT, a transaction fee, VAT fee, processing fee but let me give you an example of this it's not as complicated as it seems: I sold an item for £11.56 inc P&P and the total fees were broken down in the Etsy section for finances which shows listing fee 19p Item Cost fee 66p Transaction fee 23p VAT for the Transaction 5p P&P Cost fee 13p Cost VAT 3p Processing VAT 13p. Total Paid to Etsy £1.42 / £11.56 but I accounted for that cost.. Then postage and packaging and cost of materials etc gave me a profit of £4.80 which I think is fair since I don’t pay myself for the time it takes me to make the piece. Searches are based on the title and tags you use. Be sure to definitely use all 13 tags and maximise that Search Engine Optimisation. (SEO).
DEPOP:
Here’s a free alternative for listing online. Cons are not many people compared to Ebay and Etsy use it. Not many people who use it buy handmade from it (mostly it’s unwanted clothing and mystery box items). Also it's an app and not a website version. Pros are it’s 100% free to list things. Listings last for about 6 months and you only pay when/if you sell which is 10% of both the item and postage charge and then PayPal fees so the same as eBay. Items are on a buy it now only. You don’t have to be a business. Another con is no buyer or seller protection despite what they claim (as a seller I've had 2/7 sales go bad). Also you can't set individual shipping international cost your buyers have to request you change the flat shipping rate or you can select sell to my country only. People also usually request you make a new listing when they want multiple items so they don’t have multiple postage to pay. But it gets you onto the ladder of selling things and it doesn’t cost you anything to try. Items are found seemingly by any word you put in your description.
Advertising.
So how can we advertise?
Well most social media have paid ad space. While I’ve researched and learnt a lot (inc not to use Facebook boost button) I’ve personally never used it. I have however been using Etsy Promoted Listings for 3 weeks set to $1.20 a day at $0.05 bid which I have had 23,512 listing views - 106 people clicked on my products has cost me a total of £5.78 and I’ve had 1 sale from it. I’ve also been using Google Shopping UK Only for 2 weeks and that’s set at $1 a day (though it borrows money from previous days if you didn’t spend the full $1 a day) which I have had 13,135 listing views - 37 people clicked on my products that’s cost me £11.53 and I’ve had 1 sale from it. - At the end of the month I think I will stop doing Google Shopping advertisements through Etsy since it’s costing me a lot. Though the 2 sales I did have were higher end items and the profits from those 2 sales easily covered these two fee’s - 2 sales I may not have got otherwise.. So I’ll have a think about it.
On another note doing those like for like or fav for fav or go heart 3, like 3 comment on 4 follow x, follow for follow etc etc. It’s not worth your time. It’s a huge waste of time actually. 90% of people (inc me) don't play fair and they drop their links and run because going through peoples pages and liking just to not have it returned is disheartening (that said if someone likes mine I do like them back whenever possible). - I tried this tactic last month honestly spending HOURS and I liked over 500 facebook pages (I actually got temp banned a few times from liking pages by Fb for this!!) and in return I got 8 new page likes. Same with Etsy shop links I ended up with 5 new shop favourites compared to the 200+ I favorited and have now unfavorited. A lot of these pages and such I’m not even interested in. I have cats not dogs, I make my own jewellery, I have sensitive skin and can’t do most bath products, My bf is a graphic designer and we have artist friends alongside myself, we don’t have children and our home decor is very geek / goth and we can do it ourselves. So 90% of these pages I’m not interested in. My interests are geek, goth, pagan, witch, steampunk and their close affiliations so again that’s not most of the people I’m following. Some people I follow to support them others I fellow because they inspire me. But I don’t want people following me because they think they’ll get something out of it like a like back or a sale. And on Instagram I want to be inspired by arts and crafts not have to scroll through hundreds of selfies, what they had for dinner, terrible attempts at flatlays, hauls, outfit of the day, makeup, nails…. It’s not my thing. Or at least this is why I have 5 instagram accounts.
THIRD.
Track everything. I have a spreadsheet and I write down how much I spend on materials, tools and supplies. (Outgoings). I write down sales inc exactly how much was paid, how much I paid on what for fees inc packaging materials, postage and all online fees, VAT etc etc. I also track my promoted listings - how many views, how many clicks, how much those clicks cost me, if I got sales and how much profit those sales generated for me. I also have a monthly take home and monitor how much I spent on supplies etc, how much I spent on listing fees, how much I got in profit = monthly income/outgoings. I also track where my Etsy views come from which has recently been updated to a better tracking system but throws out all the tracking I’ve done this last 2 weeks GRR!!
FOURTH.
Oh yes I’m still going.. Don’t measure your value, self worth etc on if your stuff does or doesn’t sell. You have to remember on eBay there is (according to Google) Ebay has 25 million sellers, 800 million live listings according to their website on 18 September 2015. You’re just one person and often with less than 100 products for sale. Big competition. (According to Google) As of 2018, more than 2.1 million sellers sold goods through the Etsy ecosystem. You’re just 1 vs over 2 million people… AND how many of those sell same, similar, better, cheaper……….. It’s not you’re not good enough, you’re priced too high (most of the time), nor what you produce that is not good enough, sometimes it’s not even your photography, not your SEO, not the algorithms, not advertising, not not not not not but it’s simply that you’re fighting to be seen! And Etsy is just one platform vs sellers who are on Ebay, Amazon, DePop, Shopify, NuMonday, Shpock, Wish, AliExpress, Facebook Selling, Personal Websites, Business Websites, Markets, Physical Stores, Door to Door Sales, House Parties…….. It goes on!! I know I shop around websites not just sellers for the best deals and the items I want. Often I see items on Pinterest or Instagram and I will go look to find same or similar for less.. So please don’t get disheartened you’re worth it and all you can do is try your best and that my lovely is more than good enough x
FIFTH.
Learn about SEO Search Engine Optimisation this basically is how people find you / your product when they search. Google has a search, Bing, Yahoo, Internet Explorer etc etc.. So does any site with a search bar such as those sale platforms like Etsy, Ebay, Amazon and so do other places such as Pinterest. - How you search on those different platforms depends on the system for example on Instagram and Twitter it’s mostly based on hashtags. On Etsy it’s based on listing tags and titles. So make sure you’re playing to your best advantage. Also learn how they work some sites require one word key ones likes these three tags ’Swarovski, crystal, beads’ where as other sites like Etsy do better with ‘Swarovski crystal beads, crystal beads, Swarovski crystal’ as the tags so more like search phrases than search words. Searches are based on algorithms so if someone is searching etsy for “Swarovski crystal beads” SNAP! you made a match the exact search term where as if you had put ‘Swarovski, crystal, beads’ as 3 separate search terms it will come up in their search but just lower down their search. So your SNAP exact word for word match will be ranked higher. If someone else had that exact search term they might be ranked higher than you based on how many sales they’ve had, reviews, favourites, clicks, views, visitors, activity to their shop etc etc. - If it’s promoted listings it works the same only someone higher than you may also have placed a higher bid I have mine set to 5 cents per listing someone else may have that at “I’m willing to pay $1 for the number 1 spot” at least that is how the current algorithms is - but these are forever changing almost daily and they’re all different on google vs etsy vs Pinterest etc. So keep in the loop, keep updated, do your research, maximise those SEO’s and great photography and fabulous products. Tip. Go onto the website Etsy and scroll down to the bottom of a listing and you'll see the tags are what people are using - this is a. helpful hack to find sellers who sell similar and use their SEO to help you write your SEO.
SIXTH.
You're doing yourself out of free promotion!!
When you post anywhere use it as an opportunity to drop your link either etsy shop link, personal wesbite, facebook page (on facebook you can use a sly tag hehe), or create a linkree account and drop that link with links to all your social media. Mine is linktr.ee/miimogenation
Make sure on all your social media you use every opportunity to link your shop / products / social media such as on instagram on that website bar in your about me.
Don't have a facebook page? Get one even if you don't sell on Facebook simply use it to post links to where you do sell, advertise your stuff, generate a following, get feedback etc etc plus then on your main profile you can link this as a place where you work.
Also use the opportunities of banners, featured photos or even profile photos to include visual link to your shop / products / page / site etc. Put a hyperlink in the description of that image if possible.
SEVENTH
Don't be afraid to ask for help.
GOOD LUCK; not that you need it as you got this.
Happy to talk to people who need help, advice etc..
Any content I missed feel free to comment below. Feel free to converse and remember none of this is negative. It's aimed to improve your sales.
