Help, I need suggestions!

[Michellemurraydesign]

Hi everyone, I really don't know what I am doing wrong. I know I have only a few items and am working at getting more things listed but have now been a shop officially for a month and only get really low views and no sales yet! I am feeling discouraged and not sure what I can do to get more traffic. Are my tags bad or is there anything else in my shop that could be fixed???

[BenchMarkCustomSigns]

First, you could have a perfect shop and still have a tough time breaking into this market, it is saturated.

But moving on:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/99471208/sterling-silver-unique-swirly-design

When I search for “sterling silver earrings” etsy gives me 209,003 items to look through. You have 15 items that can play in that game, not much of a chance of landing a view let alone a sale there, there is just too much competition.

When I look at your listing above, you have some terms in your title that are probably not doing you much good, ie: “unique swirly design”. “swirly” might have some value, “unique” and “design” probably not so much. Your title is also a bit short for etsy serp.

When I look at your tags you have a decent enough match to your title but you are not using all the tags you could be. Basically you are letting search opportunities go by.

I think photo 1 of the listing is nice and clear. Photo 2 doesn’t seem as nice. When I look at your shop page the photo’s do not have a sense of cohesion. Some are also too dark.

As for views, you cannot depend upon the etsy view fairly to show you any love. Actually it probably will a little for a new shop but in your saturated market I doubt you can even tell. You have to find way to drive traffic to your shop yourself. Otherwise you are not likely to go anywhere.

I recommend you work on photo’s, make your titles longer, use all your tags and make sure they relate to the title (make your tags first), and find some way of driving traffic to your shop. I would also say that you need to discover something that will set your product apart and / or focus on a niche.

[Michellemurraydesign]

Thanks so much for the great advice. Yes, I do need to re-take some photos and I am planning on doing some more photos of my earlier listings as they only have 1-2 photos of each and that is not enough variation. I have joined a photography team and will be working on my technique which is pretty limited thus far, lol.

I was wondering about changing my backgrounds to all the same but in a way I like the variation. Does anyone else have a comment on that or other suggests? Also, what are ways to drive traffic to my shop? More treasuries?

[BenchMarkCustomSigns]

The often stated ways of driving traffic to your shop are blogs, facebook, pintrest, stumbleupon, wanelo, etc, etc, etc. I don’t think those are very effective but they are free. Maybe I’m wrong.

Another way to drive traffic is via ads. You can find free google ad coupons, you can advertise on blogs and other sites relative to your content. This is the old “it takes money to make money” conundrum.

Before you would commit to any of that I would recommend getting you photo’s and stuff squared away. If you have to, you can have product photo’s taken, there are several shops that offer this on etsy.

[farburvur]

Hi Tracie, your jewelry is beautiful! I think my favorite photographs of your items are the ones with the gray rock as a background and the ones taken outdoors (like the sand dollar earrings - gorgeous!)

I'm still new to owning an etsy shop myself but I recently joined a site called etsylush.com (not affiliated with Etsy.com) where you can list an item a month for free with a link to your item on Etsy. It seems like a nice way to get more people to find your shop. You can also list an item on the front page in the gift guide section for $3 (one month duration), $5 (2 months), or $7 (3 months). It's too soon for me to say if it's generating much more traffic for my shop but thought I'd share anyway. Good luck!

[Former_Member]

I, too, have the identical problem and I have to retake some photos and try to redo my decriptions. One thing I did that shocked me was when I did a search, trying to see how customers would find my items. Basically, put myself in their shoes. I found very few of my things. I'm also planning on being more active on social sites and blogs, etc.
Ted

[Michellemurraydesign]

Farburvur, thanks so much for having a look at my shop and the advice. I have looked at etsylush I think and not sure if I joined or not. I will have to have a look again, lol. So many things to do and networking. I wish I could devote myself full time.

Your shop is so cute as well! I love a.ll the creatures.

Ted, I think that would be a good idea to retake you pics. I joined a team on etsy that helps people with photography and they give some great advice on how to's for us who are challenged in that area. And, yes, I should also try to do some different searches to see what comes up. Sometimes I find it difficult to try to think what people will search for because I am so close to my work and perhaps would describe it differently myself. That's why feedback is helpful and also checking out tags other people use with similar things to get ideas.