Confused

[Former_Member]

Hi everyone, i need some advice, I've been making gifts to sell in my Etsy shop for a while now, I've hd people say how lovely they are and on my shop i have likes and favourites but i haven't had any sales as of yet.
I would like so advice on how i could make things better so that I'm able to get some sales.
Thank you.
Emz x

[FaireMiscellany]

I'll tell you one thing, you are great with a camera! This is huge. Much more important than you may realize. It won't guarantee you sales, but it will make it much easier for you to draw attention.

Take this for example:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/179669107/glass-heart-bead-earrings?ref=shop_home_feat_1

You're right to feature it. The earrings are lovely. In fact, I'll bet the fit right in with my next treasury. However, it's been up for a month and a half and still have not been favored. Well, it wasn't until I got there :) That means you aren't promoting it enough.

Keep in mind that I make one sale for an average of 500 item views and 800 item favors. Yeah, I know there are shops that are closer to one for one, but they are the kind of shops that will typically sell a fair number of items on a single purchase, like bead shops. For you and me, the numbers are not going to be so kind.

Worse yet, you are probably trying to compete in one of the toughest categories for Etsy. Seriously, go to the search bar and type in any of your tags then look at how many PAGES of items come up.

You will probably find it a lot easier to promote your items through treasuries and click games even than through SEO. Your shop is beautiful enough to make people comfortable about grabbing something for inclusion.

As to SEO, yours needs a lot of work. There are a couple threads here in the team that will be of far more help than me, but I will say that single words aren't doing you any favors. Especially stuff like "lightweight". Not too many people will be looking for "lightweight". "Lightweight earrings" are another matter.

Well, I've gone on long enough. Give it a couple of days, and I'll bet others will have more to say.

[Former_Member]

Thank you so much, your thoughts and advice means a lot.
Emz x

[LaurenAlleyneJewelry]

I'm having the same issue, I get a lot of views and favorites, but not as many sales as I would like. Can someone please critique my shop? Thanks in advance!

[FaireMiscellany]

You're kidding, right? You only have 33 admirers but you've already got 16 sales? For someone who does not appear to be marketing that much, you're doing fantastic. Of course with so much inventory, you are probably getting better SEO through shear volume. That and your tags are, for the most part, pretty good. But remember, you are also probably going to need a lot more total views to make each sale.

Actually, I'd really appreciate it if you'd settle my curiosity. Could you take the number of total views for the month and divide it by the number of sales, then post it here? I'm betting you've got a better ratio than I do.

Never the less, I decided to pick on one of your items.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/167958997/olive-green-cream-and-mahogany-bead?ref=shop_home_feat_3

You've only got nine favorites (plus mine) and only had 19 views over the course of just under a month. I see that many of your sales have less than ten views before the sale was made. That's fantastic! You clearly have plenty of appeal, though I think you could still benefit with better photography. So you're probably wondering what's wrong with this one. Let me give you a little perspective.

Go to this listing from my recent sales:

https://www.etsy.com/transaction/191538123

Scroll to the bottom of the page. Right between "Related to this item" and "Follow Etsy" are my stats.

Now admittedly your stuff is going to have much broader appeal than mine as I am kind of a specialty store. I mean, how many people out there are actively looking for beaded lizards? But that also makes it harder for you to get a good placement in the listings because frankly, there are a heck of a lot of people out there doing much the same kind of bracelets that you are, and a lot of them are putting out some gorgeous pictures. Unless you can make your items stand out more - brighter, more appealing backgrounds, more interesting camera angles - people wont even see the listing among so many others.

I tried testing one of your tags. I typed "earthy bracelet" into etsy's search bar. I found it on page 15 out of 226.

Remember, your position in the listings goes down over time. Search results are like a river with new listings constantly being added to the top. If you do nothing, it will sink like a stone. I have no idea how many people will make it down all the way to page 15, that is assuming they picked the phrase "earthy bracelet" to search for what they want, but probably not too many. Worse, by the time you see this, it'll probably be on page 16 or even further down. Unless you can get a ton of hearts, or until you renew the listing, it won't go back up in the search results. Then the only people who will see it are those who come to your shop for other reasons - such as when you put up a new listing or when they come to fulfill a treasury requirement.

By the way, I searched for just "bracelet" and got 1,196,458 items. That's your competition. "Earthy Bracelet" got 9,007 items. And the vast majority of them are priced between $20 and $25. Stiff competition indeed.

[Clovetree]

Hi, yes ditto the comments on tags and search items. Try and shake things up a little by changing the wording in the description around. ie Bracelet purple violet glass beads for women. I know long descriptive titles look clumsy, but they make you perform better in search. Also, repeat the key words in the first few lines of your description. And then some more... Don't stick too much to formula in describing your work, because google doesn't seem to like this much. Get a pinterest account going too - you can now get a shop with them as well. Join a treasury team too - get treasured, get some hearts on your work. I'll give you a few, your work is great. The photography isn't perfect, but it is pretty good, and your shop looks good. You are in a very saturated market, so you have to really push getting your shop found. Have you listed your items on our 'list by color' treasury thread yet? It will make it easier for us all to help promote each other with treasuries, and this is good for your SEO too.

[LaurenAlleyneJewelry]

Thank you all so much for your feedback!!! By dividing my total number of monthly views by the two sales I made last month, I got 447. I am also in the process of coming up with some new photography ideas to get a little more creative. And I need to tweak my SEO as well. And thank you for your support in favoriting my items ♥

[FaireMiscellany]

Lauren, it looks like you are doing just a hair better than me on the views per sale. I think if you can get your views up you'll have more sales per listing.

I'm glad to hear you're going to work on the photography. I'm betting that will help with closing the deal as well as attracting attention. With jewelry like yours, don't be afraid to let parts of it look blurry while focusing on specific points of interest. And seriously, use daylight as much as possible! Lighting is huge when it comes to good picture taking.

I have one more bit of advice for you. Feature at least a couple of your plant pots so that people looking at your front page will know there is more to you than bracelets and the occasional earring. Personally, I use the re-arrange feature to make sure at least one of each kind of item lands on the front page. As I get more inventory I'll use the Feature star more.

[FaireMiscellany]

If you two are wondering how to get some exposure without turning your entire life over to Etsy, you could try one of the "Make one be in sixteen" treasury games. It takes me about an hour to build a treasury from one (as opposed to the two or three hours for my from-scratch ones). You still have to go and favorite, click, and comment on the treasuries that include you, but that only takes a few minutes per treasury. It's well worth it.

There's one getting started here now:

https://www.etsy.com/teams/18411/simply-devoted-to-promotion/discuss/14254258/page/1

[FaireMiscellany]

Ah, sorry. It's already filled and running. You have to jump in fast when you see one of these. Does it matter? I'm pretty sure, based on timing, that my best sale came from a round of treasury trades.

[LaurenAlleyneJewelry]

Thank you so much for your advice!

[FaireMiscellany]

Hey Lauren, your front page is looking great. The pots really add something to it.

[FaireMiscellany]

There's another one here

https://www.etsy.com/teams/20320/the-treasury-tavern/discuss/14267483/page/1

This is a sweet group to work with.

[Clovetree]

've just applied - hope they ok me before the treasury list is full! :)

[LaurenAlleyneJewelry]

Thank you Chris and Kate! You were right, it adds a different dynamic!

[FaireMiscellany]

Still plenty of room in the create 1 be in 16 I linked to above. I recommend it because it's a sure way to get into 16 treasuries. Besides that, the captain of the team is wonderful about putting people in treasuries. She's on vacation right now so things are slow, but it's worth being a team member and it's worth while doing treasuries.