Any Etsy sellers want to chat / share tips?

[SinkGirl]

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve restarted my Etsy shop (well it has been up and running for five years, but I was pregnant when I started it then I had twins who are both disabled so I haven’t touched it in four years - I’ve just been selling digital downloads, so it’s just been ticking over with very very few sales (about 40 last year).

I’ve added lots of new items including a kit and have been trying to get back into the swing of social media as my pages had died a death. It’s hard going but feel like I’m getting somewhere (have turned over as much in the last month as I did all of last year).

I have a mammoth to-do list including taking all new photos, and restarting my shop selling finished items to run alongside my templates and kits.

I’ve been out of it for so long that I feel like I’m starting from scratch.

Would be lovely to talk to others about how they are doing, share tips on getting the best results, making listings as effective as possible, share info on things like where to order packaging and stuff like that.

Anyway, I’m here if anyone wants to chat :)

I recently put my prices up - but remembered yesterday about the price filters. So have reduced my lowest priced item from £20 to £19.50 so I still come up in the Under £20 price bracket.

I also realised I was missing out on a key word (I sell limited edition prints) so had to go on and change all my listings to include the word "Picture". I had drawing/art/print but no picture (doh!).

Am hoping will up the numbers again as I too have found the last couple of weeks quieter. I wonder if Etsy have changed their algorithms again?

Maybe. In my case I’m thinking that those who’ve been busy crafting away for the last year are going out more instead or at least getting ready to do so rather than buying more craft stuff.

Do you have different tags for all your products even if they are similar?

@FizzyPink

Oohh I’d love to join. I have my own website which does very well but I’ve also listed all of our products on Etsy and not had a single sale.

I suspect this is down to the fact that we have no reviews yet and that we’re in a very saturated market.

Does anyone have any tips for getting those first couple of sales?

Where do you host your ecommerce website? I need to design one. Is WIX good?

I did mine on Wix - I've not finished the shop bit yet (it is very tedious setting it all up) but website is linked to my Etsy site. I am slowly (in the evenings in front of netflix) adding all my items to the website shop and then eventually I will try and direct people there rather than Etsy. I am getting ready for a retail launch - so juggling that so website-shop taken a back burner priority wise.

Setting up the website with Wix was/is relatively straightforward if, like me, you are a bit of a marketing/branding novice - you can select themes (so for example simple/traditional). Then if you upload your logo they can take the colour theme of the website from that. Then they will offer you a few designs of each page (photos at top/photos on dark background/photos scrolling across the bottom).

I used some of the pages for things other than what they called them/suggested. For example in my Commissions/Pet Portraits page it is actually WIx's suggested "Meet the Team" page - largely as it was a page layout with various photos with a title. They had various fake employees and their photos on the suggested page - I just had to rename it and enter my text (so it has the name of the artwork) and photo of artwork.

It was not difficult - just a bit dull.

Just to say, you cannot use your own font on Wix - that was my only bugbear with it.

There are also the monthly costs - mine are not much at the moment as I have the most basic plan (think it is £3 a month), but if I want to add the shop element (ie payment processing) it will go up to about £13 a month so am holding off upgrading until I am ready.

If you want to see it link is here: www.jomccallionart.co.uk Any feedback(good or bad) gratefully received. I am quite please as it is the first website I have ever built!

@doadeer

Do you have different tags for all your products even if they are similar?

Can anyone advise here?🙏🙏

Luckily DH is a web developer so he’s building mine - as I sell downloads I need quite a lot of functionality. Looking forward to having my own site so much but there’s so much to do first.

After a very quiet week I’ve had several orders in the last 24 hours so that’s good. Wish I knew why it’s so busy sometimes and not others.

Had a look at different searches today and my listings list very highly for my main search terms so I guess there’s just not as much interest. Hopefully when I add files for cutting machines things will pick up :)

No I have much the same tags for similar products, with just the relevant variations. So London map paper cut vs Paris map paper cut.

There’s no point having say “paper cut” and “map”, you might as well have “paper cut map”. It’s worth signing up to eRank, the free version will give you tips on improving your listings.

@MrsEWeatherwax

Please share your Etsy shops. I love Etsy, I have bought so much this year. And Instagram shops It doesn’t put me off sellers having of different items, because people who are crafty are well crafty.

Hi there. Just in the process of setting a shop up

Surely Instagram shops are not shops but links to a shop?? Genuinely asking, not being goady 🙂

@FizzyPink

That’s a good suggestion, I’ll maybe get a friend to look through my products and see what they think.

The problem I have is that I don’t really want to promote Etsy on my social channels as it’s much more expensive than my website, so I’d rather the sales come direct through there. Really I was hoping Etsy would be somewhere for new customers to find my products but I think I need to put some more work into it

Hi fizzypink, what website have you set up? I assume it is an e-commerce site? Did you use WIX and which is your best payment method? IE the one that is easiest to use and not expensive Thank you !

@SinkGirl

Thanks I need to experiment! Problem is that I want to take framed photos on the wall but none of my walls get much light. Will try some things tomorrow. Currently working from our teeny round dining table - hopefully we can move next year and I can have my own room!

I’ve actually just bought an A3 printer just so I can print larger templates without having to get them done externally. Do you use gloss paper? I’ve only been using it on my special cutting paper but it’s all just solid colours and black lines so haven’t tried anything fancy yet!

Have you tried, or has anyone tried a lightbox to take photos in??

Would they be helpful??

@SinkGirl

No I have much the same tags for similar products, with just the relevant variations. So London map paper cut vs Paris map paper cut.

There’s no point having say “paper cut” and “map”, you might as well have “paper cut map”. It’s worth signing up to eRank, the free version will give you tips on improving your listings.

I did the etsy onboarding call and someone from their team went through my page it was helpful to learn more for sure.

My other question today... As the primary image, do you think a person wearing a garment or it styled flat is stronger?

Sorry meant to write I'm glad to know you don't do totally different tags, I was running out of ideas 🤣

Oh my goodness sorry I was half paying attention to my son. I also meant to say... The good tip I got on the call about tags was:

Black Yoga tops will rank all those so no need to then have black tops for example.

Which is what you said!

Joining in, I've recently opened on Etsy I have 3 sales that are all family 😂 and nothing more!
I've picked up on so much I'm doing wrong just from this thread.

Forgot to say that Royal Mail are currently offering free collections until the end of May - usually they have a charge on top of the postage. They’ll collect up to 5 items a day so it’s super handy if you have small numbers to send out. Just buy the postage on their site and then click arrange collection.

I bought a few backdrops online (just vinyl and fairly small but handy for small photos and also for the crochet videos I’m making. Light boxes are great for small items but if you have a garden, going out there with a backdrop would be just as good. Here’s a few photos I took with mine, when the twins go back to school I’ll spend some more time trying to get the best shots.

Also I’ve just today signed up to Folksy as some people I know are doing well on it. If you pay for premium membership (£5 a month) you can get unlimited listings with no extra fee and you can import your Etsy listings (you need to export as a CSV and send it to them and they’ll upload for you). I just need to do that and then I’ll give it six months and see how it goes.

I’m £9 off selling double what I sold last year since the start of this year - it’s not saying much but obviously the work I’m putting in is working!

As you can see shadows are an issue here - need to find the right time and position in my garden, light is useless in my house

@JulietMadeChutney

I did mine on Wix - I've not finished the shop bit yet (it is very tedious setting it all up) but website is linked to my Etsy site. I am slowly (in the evenings in front of netflix) adding all my items to the website shop and then eventually I will try and direct people there rather than Etsy. I am getting ready for a retail launch - so juggling that so website-shop taken a back burner priority wise.

Setting up the website with Wix was/is relatively straightforward if, like me, you are a bit of a marketing/branding novice - you can select themes (so for example simple/traditional). Then if you upload your logo they can take the colour theme of the website from that. Then they will offer you a few designs of each page (photos at top/photos on dark background/photos scrolling across the bottom).

I used some of the pages for things other than what they called them/suggested. For example in my Commissions/Pet Portraits page it is actually WIx's suggested "Meet the Team" page - largely as it was a page layout with various photos with a title. They had various fake employees and their photos on the suggested page - I just had to rename it and enter my text (so it has the name of the artwork) and photo of artwork.

It was not difficult - just a bit dull.

Just to say, you cannot use your own font on Wix - that was my only bugbear with it.

There are also the monthly costs - mine are not much at the moment as I have the most basic plan (think it is £3 a month), but if I want to add the shop element (ie payment processing) it will go up to about £13 a month so am holding off upgrading until I am ready.

If you want to see it link is here: www.jomccallionart.co.uk Any feedback(good or bad) gratefully received. I am quite please as it is the first website I have ever built!

Really nice Website!! Do you have your own that Wix links to as it's your own name? It looks lovely though. Clear and clean

Photo wise I sometimes use frames/poster outlines from Pixabay and the like to make framed images - like these - just use a google drawing and insert first the "frame" and then insert my product photo (from a scan) on top.

Obviously these are just as part of all the photos - not the main ones)

Paper cuts are so hard to photograph well - I’m figuring it out but it’s a challenge! Wish I sold prints 😂

How do people find Etsy charges vs eBay ones?

@thebestnamehere Thank you.

And re the name I have the domain...er...registered? Paid for? Subscribed? er....thingy (technical term) through 123Reg. I did that a few months back on DH's suggestion to reserve the name for if/when I wanted it. It is then linked to (somehow, can't remember how but wasn't difficult) through the Wix dashboard. I could have just used CompanyName@wix and not done the .co.uk bit.

@SinkGirl

Paper cuts are so hard to photograph well - I’m figuring it out but it’s a challenge! Wish I sold prints 😂

Would they scan? If you put coloured paper or something behind? I just have a cheapo Canon scanner (years old) but it scans at 600dpi (you only need 300dpi for fine art prints - so super high resolution). That would give you a good quality Tif or Jpg you could use without shadows