Advice Please?

[Former_Member]

Hi everyone! If you have a minute, I would really appreciate your advice on my shop. I started a shop about a year ago that included my boyfriends wood craft items but just recently made a store dedicated to my knit items. I dont know how to get traffic to my store and how to FINALLY get a sale. Just one sale would give me a little motivation to keep up all of this time and effort. Here is what I have done so far:

~I have posted a few items so far (about 15 I think) which may not be a lot, but I have staggered when I listed them so they would show up in search results at different times.

~I post links to my Etsy site on my facebook page, I have joined a few teams and stay active with the discussions and posting my new items there

~I have made treasuries and try to sneak an item or two of my own into them in hopes to get a click or two

~I have added a ton of people to my circle (maxed out) and most added me to their circle as well.

I do not know how else to go about getting the traffic necessary for people to see my items and hopefully make a purchase. Any advice? Are my photos terrible? Do I need more items listed? How else do I get people to visit my store? Is the product I am offering overpriced or useless? -I am thinking no, as I have sold many items during craft fairs, but you can be honest with me. I can take it! :) Thank you in advance for your support and critiques. Good luck with your shops. I look forward to hearing from everyone.

[Former_Member]

Hey,

Well done on your shop and getting it going. It is so hard to get the ball moving - don't give up!

I took a look, and here is my opinion. I think your pictures are a bit dark. I also think they need to be uniformed. All with the same back ground and done in a style that says, 'yep, that beanie is from this shop.'

I re-do my photos all the time and I think I have finally cracked my photo style and uniform.

Listing wise, we all start somewhere. It is true that the more listings - the more views you're likely to have.

I think you're selling yourself cheap - I don't think it would hurt to raise your prices by a couple of dollars.

Join more social sites. I see you have a fb page already, that is great! Have a twitter account and a pinterest account. If you have the time and energy to blog, I advise that too.

Promote, promote, promote!

Make sure you're using all your tags. Make sure they are accurate. Keep your titles simple. I also in one or two of my listings I tag my own shop name - because some people search for your shop and can't find it.

I find that circles don't really do much. But treasuries are good, but not good if you throw in your own items. I have done that in the past as well - and nothing come about it. I find if you have photos 'worthy' enough of a treasury - the more likely you will be featured in someone elses.

I hope some of this helps!

Good luck!

[TinTeddy]

If youa re selling heirloom quality, as you say, then your prices should reflect this. That lovely scarf must have taken quite a while to knit.. so should surely cost more.

I was really confused by the gloves at first though. I was thinking 'why is she selling gloves for $3.50', then it occurred to me that these are not knitted by you, but commercial stretch gloves (I realised after looking at the materials). Because you shop says it is "Beautiful Heirloom Quality Knits" I think you either need to not include these, change that heading or make sure there is something on the listing to really spell it out that these gloves are not hand-knitted, as I am sure I wouldn't be the only person who would naturally assume they were.

You have some really nice looking items. I do like that scarf.

Finally - read up on tagging and titles. At the moment you are using things like 'gift for her' (which I believe is not allowed) rather than tags that will get your items found easily. There is lots of advice on this in the Sellers Handbook, and there are useful threads on it regularly :-)

Good luck with your new shop :-)

[HausofAriella]

Definitely raise your prices. When I see something that's far cheaper than I would expect it to be, I tend to think that it's just low quality, especially when talking about handmade items. I know it takes quite a while to knit your items, so your prices should reflect that.

[HausofAriella]

Also, with the funky fir gloves, I couldn't tell from the listing if you were actually selling the gloves or just the cuff.

[Former_Member]

1) Continue put more listing to your shop. And your knits look beautiful.
2) It's always good to have brighter background photo, usually look better.

example:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/95889500/seamless-cable-stitched-wristers-in

Maybe this might look good enough to shoot with the plain white background? Instead of showing the pink wall, just make it clean. But this is great shot, to shoot with hand is great.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/95943274/funky-fun-gloves
Another example from your listing, for the 5th image you show, It's blur out. So just make sure every photo you show on your listing, it's not blur, clear to show the object, and bright.

The rest should rework is title, better description, keyword / relevant tag.

Read fresh article on etsy blog:
http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2012/the-four-keys-to-success-for-new-sellers/

Hope this help. All the best! :)

[TrueTreatsPetBakery]

Im having lots of negative changes happening in all three shops. The past two weeks are amazingly slow and views are down. Ive almost perfected my titles and tags and it doesnt seem to help at all now. What are you noticing and have you heard of a glitch or major change on Etsy that effects this?

K

[Former_Member]

I agree that your prices should be a bit higher. I am a knitter so I know how much work goes into it, ESPECIALLY a sweater. I would like to see your photos 'pop' more. They need to be photographed in better light and perhaps with a lighter background.

Getting a shop together (I mean reeeally getting it together) takes a lot of time & effort. I'm still tweaking my shop, by re-doing photos, changing up titles...it's an on-going process. You've done a decent job, but know that it IS a process and there's a LOT to learn! :)

[Former_Member]

Wow! Thanks for all the great suggestions! I will go raise my prices just a bit now, as that seems to be the theme. Better pictures, more social sites and just keep plugging away. Thank you all soooo much!