I recently re-committed to my Etsy shop after a lot of turmoil in my life. Through a lot of reading of Etsy Storque articles and the Etsy forums I gathered a lot of valuable information and started to work every day on my shop. I thought I would share some of the basics you should strive for to help your shop grow. I would say the one thing to keep in mind is there won't be a magic bullet solution that will work for everyone or bring instant traffic. Build upon these ideas and tweak them to work for you and your shop. And be patient. These changes takes time to truly take full effect and build momentum.
1. Photos: Try to get functional pictures. If you are selling an eyeglass leash, show the leash on a pair of glasses. Help the buyer picture the use of your item. For my rings, I have been adding in angles of the ring on a finger. Use ALL 5 slots to show every angle you can. Strive for clean, professional, uncluttered photos.
2. SEO – I read and re-read the articles on how to optimize my shop. If you google czech glass button rings or just czech glass rings my shop pops up usually in the very 1st slot of the 1st page. I changed all of my section names to keywords for my jewelry. I utitilzed my shop title to have keywords, and my shop announcement has keywords too. NO “welcome to my shop”. Plus I do the same thing with the title and descriptions. Did you know if you have a lot of similar items and you title them pretty much the same google won’t index the same/duplicate listing? So each listing you should strive to make them unique and separate to help.
This is a great article in the Etsy Storque on how you can improve your SEO in your shop:
http://www.etsy.com/storque/how-to/etsy-guide-to-seo-5224/
3. TAGS: I guess this could fall under SEO too, but I did it separate for this post. I still struggle with tags. Use all 14 tags is my basic rule, and to use a variety. But a really good Storque article gives a great base of what you should cover in your tags:
http://www.etsy.com/storque/how-to/seller-how-to-tag-o-rama-with-descriptive-keywords-5474/
4. Policies: Please fill in ALL policies. Be detailed about it. Return policies, if you can stand behind your work and be willing to refund/exchange, replace. Explain when you will ship, which carrier you use to ship…. The more info you have the more confident your buyer will be. This is controversial and have had many threads started on it but do not put you are not responsible for lost packages! You ARE! Again if you want people to buy you need to give them the confidence that they will get what they pay for, stand behind your work to be truly successful.
5. Profile: Really the bottom line, when you start on etsy you should click on every single button/option under “my etsy”. And fill in everything you possibly can. This include a bio about yourself, people feel more comfortable to purchase if they feel like they know you. And it should include your location. Etsy has a great feature for people to shop local so this will help you find more buyers to fill in your location, PLUS if I am looking for something I need quickly then the location will affect who I buy from. Don’t just put your city, or even just state… I don’t know every single city in the world so I still may not really know where you are if that is all you provide. Make it clear where you are.
6. Create a Theme/Feel for your business. Create a brand. Use your banner and avatar to portray your image. Let people know what you sell, and what type of feel you want to create with your shop. Maybe you want a whimsical feel, or maybe more sophisticated. Don’t use your dog, or your own face in your avatar. The avatar is visible in the forums, and I never feel this huge urge to click on a face of someone to see what they are about, but I will click on an avatar that is a beautiful product that intrigues me… so that I see what else they sell. An interesting detail that many may not think about is the color scheme you use. Think long and hard on the colors you use for your brand. Different colors evoke a variety of feelings in people. What type of feeling do you want to try to evoke? Check out this fun article on more details:
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/colors1.html
7. Marketing/Promoting: This is really key. This can include a lot so this will be a little involved. This is another amazing thread with a list of websites you can use to put links of your shop on, or chat and promote… or place ads. Very useful list of ideas, use this as a starting point:
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5797668
Consider a blog if you don’t do it already. This keeps fresh content near the top of google that will link back to your shop. I have had a lot of success with social networking sites, like Facebook and twitter. But many hate social networking. Find what works for you. I would say if you choose this route the key is building relationships. And don’t look at every option as a way to make money, it is a way to network. To find new sources, to gain valuable feedback, to test new products. Obviously the bottomline is important (money) but there is a lot of things to be gained from social network sites.
8. Use visual adds, such as business cards, brochures, and such. Be creative, get different shapes, sizes, use colors to your advantage and get them out there. I try to do several craft shows a month and hand out a ton of cards. Make your business cards useful so that people will hopefully reference them and keep them. Otherwise they will end up in the trash LOL
9. Stock and inventory of your store! Strive to find a niche. A unique product that is also desirable should be your goal. I have found the more I list the more views/traffic/sales I receive. Each item you list in your shop adds 10 more tags into your shop to be found on etsy searches. If you use keywords in your titles and descriptions, each keyword in each listing is more exposure on Etsy and through search engines. If you can't list everyday then you can try renewing. I generally don't renew but many have had huge success with it.
This is a nice blog on an experiment on renewing, many people have huge success with renewing:
http://shopsomethingblue.blogspot.com/2009/08/etsy-experiment-revealed.html
10. Pricing: If you are doing this as a business and want to make a profit then you have to master pricing. This is another topic that could be a book on its on. I won’t get into all the things you should include and count etc. But here is a great article on some basics. I have found having a broad price range in my shop helps attract more customers and sales. Even though I have 300 sales in my etsy shop I have actually sold 5 times that offline. So don’t forget to price for wholesale and consignment options. Your etsy shop can’t undercut those accounts so you have to plan ahead with your prices to give yourself the option to sell offline/in person.
http://www.etsy.com/storque/how-to/the-art-of-pricing-three-helpful-pricing-exercises-3788/
In the last 2 months my google analytics show a steady increase in my views to my shop. I had 48 sales last month!! And for July I have had 22 items sell in 23 days! But go back to May and I only had 9 sales for the entire month. These tweaks have definitely helped.
I will close this out by saying… SET GOALS!! Set high goals and strive to achieve them. Always want to improve. I want to improve my packaging, I still want to work on photo’s, I want a broader product line, I want to sell 500 items on etsy now… Set small goals (daily/weekly/monthly), and set long term goals yearly goals… these will keep you focused and keep you on track for success!!
Good luck everyone! Thank you to all of you that have helped me with the craziest questions, and those that have supported me!!!! On to another 300 sales!
Janet
http://www.galla15.etsy.com/
http://www.trinketsnwhatnots.com/
