Emcee Followup to "Make the Most of the Season: Holiday Prep" Online Lab

[stupidcats]

Hello everyone! I'm Michelle from stupidcats and I was delighted to be asked to be today’s Online Labs Emcee. I live in Nottinghamshire in the UK (sort of in the middle of England).

This thread is for us all to continue discussing the “Make the Most of the Season: Holiday Prep” Online Lab – don’t worry if you didn’t make the live broadcast, a link to it will be posted soon and this thread will stay open.

So! What was your top takeaway from today’s lab? Tell us all about it here - or perhaps you have a question that wasn’t answered, or didn’t quite get something? Share it here and as a team we’ll all try our best to help!

For me, the bit about internationally-festive-fit tagging at the beginning has to be my top takeaway (and not just because it was my question!). It led to a discussion on the live chat about getting Etsy sellers from other countries to critique our shops, so we're not just relying on advice from people in the country we're based in. Great idea!

I’m really looking forward to hearing all your thoughts and ideas, so without further ado I now declare this thread OPEN! ☺

[stupidcats]

There were a couple of worksheets discussed, here are the links to them:

Link to shop critique worksheet: http://t.co/uizvVBXIwJ
Link to Shipping Success guide: http://t.co/uSgYwZgnIh

[TalfourdJones]

I think the bit at the beginning regarding tags definately helped me. I just need to find the time to change some of my tags and titles, the big question is which tags should I delete in order to add some festive ones :o)

[stupidcats]

Yes, that's always an issue Henrietta!

I did hear somewhere recently that you can type all your tags in Word (for example) with a comma separating each one, then paste it all into the tag box and it will split them up into separate tags. That will save a lot of time retyping if it works!

[Former_Member]

Yep that's what I do for all my descriptions and tags. Word is really helpful with word count too! I know google only looks at the so many characters in your title and description when indexing keywords, so I use the word count to make sure all my titles and descriptions have the most relevant key words with in that space.

And Henrietta, I can relate I always have trouble trying to figure out which tags are best to keep and which aren't. Especially when the shop is new, its hard to gauge what people are more likely to search for.

In my old shop I would always go through every 6 months -1 year and make an excel spread sheet of my top 13 tags for each type of item, and then experiment with the bottom 3 tags.

[stupidcats]

Good point too re the character count in Word Courtney!

I also like the tip about making your banner seasonal - I'll be adding a santa hat to my logo for December!

[Former_Member]

Oh yeah, all the kittens in my banner will have Santa hats in November! I've also been brainstorming ideas for Autumn and Halloween

[stupidcats]

You're super organised Courtney!

[Former_Member]

Courtney, the tag spreadsheet review idea is wonderful! I'll be adding that to my To Do list. Thanks for sharing.

And Stupid, the santa hat banner addition is such a cute idea! I'll be checking it out.

[stupidcats]

I might even add some snowflakes Sandi (or is it Betty?)! Which bit of the lab did you find most useful?

[NouvelleMere]

Courtney, what a fabulous idea about the tag worksheet!
I'll be doing that for sure. I somehow made it through a surprising business boost last holiday - which I was not prepared for and always felt like I was flying by the seat of my pants. I determined to be much more prepared this year! This helps so much.

Something I decided to do that helped me a lot, was to go ahead and list a separate listing for each item, rather than simply offering variations- since I like to have ready-to-ship items, and there was no way to have qty options on the variations. (Example: 1 red in stock, 3 blue in stock, etc) That helped my stress level and chaos immensely! I also think that helped my sales- since I had more listings.

[stupidcats]

Hi Nicole! That's a good tip about listing variations. I have some handmade notebooks to list soon and was wondering whether to do bundled variations or separate listings. Great point about it meaning more listings, so your shop looks fuller. :-)

[Former_Member]

As for top takeaways, two of mine are:

* Parker's idea of including a reminder of production time in my auto-reply for sales

* and Stupidcats' adding holiday order cutoff dates to auto-replies for sales as well

In my experience, good to keep reminding people of those!

[NouvelleMere]

StupidCats, do you know whether Baby will be added to the options for categories? I have a very targeted market and "Home and Living" is not really a good fit. I see Kids and Baby on the Etsy home page, but when I go to update categories, that option is not there. Advice? Thanks

[stupidcats]

Both good 'uns Sandi! I mustn't forget to practice what I preach and dig out those last posting dates. I've been thinking about re-activating my custom picture listing, so if I do, I'll be taking Parker's advice there too.

[Former_Member]

Oh Stupid, I love snowflakes! Thy can carryover into the new year too.

And it's Sandi here (forgot to include that...head is spinning from all the ideas & input!)

Betty is my mom and she shares in the designing/creating/ production for our shop. She sews circles around me!

[stupidcats]

Nicole, that's a very good question. I've never looked at that myself as I'm not in that market, but I see what you mean - there's a "Kids and Baby" link on the home page, but no top level category. I've just had a peep on a couple of other similar sites, and there's not a mention of babies at all on their home pages or main categories- so I guess Etsy is one step ahead of them by at least having a link on the home page. Sounds like a suggestion to make to our team leader perhaps?

[stupidcats]

Sandi, now you have me thinking about doing four different banners - one for each season! How lovely that you're a mother and daughter team! :-)

[TalfourdJones]

Stupid, I read somewhere else about putting your tags in word and cutting and pasting them but I have yet t try it. My biggest problem is how many ways can you say makeup bag or cosmetic bag :o)

[stupidcats]

I'm going to try it Henrietta, and the spreadsheet too.

I've just had a look at a major high street store's website, and in their listings for make-up bags nearly every bag has a different descriptive name - toiletries bag, make-up pouch, pouch, small wash bag etc and interestingly they use "makeup", make-up", "make up"... this is very interesting!

[Former_Member]

@Henrietta - It really is tough. You have to get creative. I always ask myself, if I were searching for this bag then what would I write? ie, a bag for makeup, small bag. I also do this search in Etsy and see what comes up. Then I click on the items that are most similar to mine and see what they have used as keywords. It has helped.

[stupidcats]

Keep your feedback, thoughts and questions coming - I'm taking a break now for dinner, will be back later! :-)

[Former_Member]

I have a question that I hope is sort of on topic, I've tried searching for it in the discussions because I'm sure it's been talked about but it must be buried. I make beach inspired jewelry, which means I usually work with pearls and blues and sea themed whatnot. However, I was thinking about ordering some things that are my usual materials, like pearls, in fall colors and Christmas colors, and doing seasonal/holiday variations of the jewelry I usually make. Is that a good idea for the holiday season, or do people usually have better luck with marketing/re-branding the products they normally make as gifts?

The part of the lab that talked about tags was super helpful btw, and I love the idea of having seasonal banners!

[TalfourdJones]

@ Janice, I have to admit, that I do the same thing. I tend to test out keywords and see what my response is in searches. If I see a product that is comparable to mine, then I will have a little peek at their tags to see if they have something that I haven't thought of. I only hope it doesn't look as if I am 'stealing' their tags. I had actually never thought about using "small bag for makeup, or even using a hyphen, I will definately gives those a try. Anyway back to work, I have 2 wristlets and a tote bag to try to finish this afternoon :o)

[NouvelleMere]

Stupidcats, Yes, THANK YOU! How do we do that?