I read an interesting article today which was sent to my email from Etsy (I think I joined every email list they have!) and this one was all about Pimping Your Shop for 2009, although actually when you read it, it’s more about getting traffic to your shop and getting the word out, and a little about how to make your shop look better and rate higher etc.
It’s interesting to consider the business of attracting customers. Any other time I have sold handmade products it has been through word of mouth, friends, family, work colleagues, or in a physical location with passing trade, like a market stall. You don’t really have to do much promotion, it’s mostly done for you by the word of mouth or the market people promoting the overall market. You just have to sit back and wait for the customers to come to you. Online it’s different. There are millions of people out there surfing the net, internet sales are growing year on year, but unless you have an internet presence and people can find you easily then you may as well be in a locked shop with the lights out!
That’s why I like the Etsy concept, although it’s so big you can still get lost in the 100s of shops there. Although I’ve had my shop account for a while now, I still don’t have any products in it, mainly because I’ve been too busy to get them made, but also because I like to research a lot and make sure I get it right. So this article appealed to me as a new internet craft shop owner and ties in very nicely with something else I was reading a few weeks ago; a blog by another Etsy shop owner, all about her personal experiences of setting up an Etsy shop and also her craft business in general. It makes interesting reading for anyone in the same position and it’s full of helpful hints and ideas. She also documents how many hearts and sales she gets week on week and what she might have done or not done to achieve this. Her blog is here Rifferaff and her Etsy shop. She specialises in handmade gift wrap, journals, cards etc.
Also as one link leads to another, I came across this The Etsy Handbook – All Our How-Tos About Selling which I had no idea existed and they seemed to have it hidden away somewhere. This kind of stuff should be linked to your shop or to your profile or something, especially when you first get started. *runs off to check there isn’t a link to it on profile* Nope I’m ok, and not blind. Anyway, good to know it’s there and from the first look, seems to be full of helpful advice.
I started off well this evening cutting and ironing fabric – got distracted briefly by ordering some sexy fabric which may or may not be here in time for me to make anything for Christmas – and then got a phone call from my BIL who begged for help with a powerpoint presentation. He came over after he’d had dinner (I still haven’t btw) and well two and a half hours later, he’s gone home with a pretty cool presentation for tomorrow. He seemed to think I was some kind of genius and that I should get paid lots of money for doing PPT but sadly I don’t, and I actually wouldn’t want to. Oh and I’m not great at PPT but I get by. The point is that the fabric is still on the ironing board, and it’s nearly 10pm and way too late to be thinking about making dinner and the BIL ate most of the Tablet! Tomorrow I was thinking about visiting my favourite craft shop before it closes down – it’s actually relocating/merging into another slightly larger shop – and they have some great discounts on the stock they don’t want to move. I was in both shops last week – the old and the new – and the new one which is an existing art supplies/stationery shop, really has no room to fit in all the stock from the other shop, so I doubt that I will be shopping there very much they just don’t have the space to duplicate what the old shop had and they had very little actual craft stock at all. It was all very disappointing but one of the few places around here without me having to travel like 50+ miles.
Time to catch up with last night’s Heroes!
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