Do I Offend?

[beevintageredux]

I'm going to be honest right up front here: I do not put the energy into having a highly successful Etsy shop. Between the making, the promoting, the going out and physically doing shows most weekends of the year, and trying to actually live my life, I just can't. However. I do put a good amount of energy, and more importantly, love into it. It's the slow season, I do realize that. The number one indicator being that I am home on the weekends instead of out physically selling my work, and trying like crazy to take photographs and write listings that actually make you want what I have to offer. I've managed to get over 100 listings into my shop (huge for me. It's usually way less than even half of that.). However. As of 10:00 this morning I had zero...ZERO...views in my shop. Granted, my daily shop views aren't often (ever) stratospheric. But zero? I honestly wondered if I had done, or forgotten to do something that resulted in my shop being taken out of search. So I listed 2 new items, over an hour apart. Still nada. I finally tweeted the listings, and got a couple of views on each item. Which were more than likely bot views (happening within seconds of sending the tweets).

I'm not here to complain about low views. I'm not a mega shop, and most of what I sell is jewelry in an overly saturated jewelry market. It is what it is and I'm fine with that. But zero views for a nearly 12 hour stretch is more than a little disconcerting.
It just feels so deflating. It's a lot of work for so little return. Most days, whatever. But today, it's got me pretty down. And I felt the need to rant. Thanks for listening.

[CatchingWaves]

Hi Heather,

Congratulations on getting to 100 listings! Your shop is truly lovely. I was very taken with the vintage hankie bags. I also love your rings with vintage buttons and flowers.

My views have been down for most of the summer. And I have been pretty discouraged at times too--I totally get the rant!

I did get a big boost from the Christmas in July sale, which was heavily promoted by two of the teams I'm on. That's one thing I wondered about--are you participating in many teams? I believe I get a small but steady increase in views from team treasuries I'm in. It's true that making treasuries for teammates is one more thing to do but if you use a free app called Treasury Box, it's much faster and easier.

One small suggestion--I would use all two word tags so that each tag is more specific to your item. For example, instead of "cotton," I would only use "cotton bag" and for your rings, I wouldn't use "adjustable" by itself since it's such a broad term. You could try "shabby chic wedding" or "shabby chic bridal" or "boho bridal" for some of your jewelry and the hankie bags. I also noticed I got more hits with "hankie," but people might also search for handkerchief or hanky so you could include those at least once.

I will pin a few of your pieces to my Wedding board on Pinterest.

Hope you don't mind the advice.

I think we all need to rant sometimes!

[LoveJewelryByJ]

i agree with Karen about the SEO tags

also, your photo's could use improving. Let's take this one
https://www.etsy.com/listing/166888839/white-beaded-hoop-earrings-shabby-chic?ref=listing-0

The earrings itself are what you're selling, and yet, the background is the one that's in focus.

I totally understand about it being hard to live your life - I have two small children - one of which is only 4 months!

I try to improve one thing in my listing - not every day or every week, but just aim for one thing. once you do that, I move on to the next thing.

For example, over the years, I've improved my pictures waaaaaay more as well as my tags, but they didn't happen over night. The better your pictures and your tags, the more your views and possibly a sale. Just remember that it's hard to get people to purchase over the internet - they can't see, touch or feel the item before they buy, so you need good listings and more importantly, great photos to draw them in.

[Former_Member]

Hi Heather,

I think your shop is really pretty, I love that you use a filter to make everything look cohesive. I agree with a poster above however, that it's hard in some of the photos to tell what is actually for sale. Also, as far as SEO goes, are you keeping in mind that the first 3 words are the most important? Are you replicating search terms in the title, description and tags? And most importantly are you using popular search terms as found in the search dropdown menu?

Also, July sucks for sales!! LOL. But hang in there, it's almost over :)