Grand opening tips?

[laurenlynnboutique]

Hey guys, I'm going to be doing a grand opening here pretty soon, just curious if you had any tips or advice! Like best day/time to open, should I do a sale, etc. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! I've been an Etsy browser for quite a while, and excited now to open my own shop.

[Former_Member]

make wonderful treasuries to post great items you really love and to meet other shop owners whos work you admire
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/OTA1NzM3MXw2NjA2MzU0MjA/autumn-marketing-for-our-companys

[Former_Member]

Start marketing on FB, Twitter, Blogs and everywhere else you can NOW!

Unfortunately I wouldn't expect your grand opening to get a lot of views or sales otherwise... shops that have been around for a while (like mine!) can still have a pretty sad visitor and sales rate so don't expect too much on your first day and be very happy if you do get some sales.

Make sure your titles and tags will get your items good rankings in Etsy and google search results, and make sure your photography is great! Not too dark, not off-colored.

I have a blog post about fixing the most common problems I have with my etsy pictures if you're interested... let me know and I'll shoot you the link.

There are a few etsy promotion sites where you can advertise any sales you're having (forgot the names of them right now... maybe someone else can chime in...) so if you are going to do a sale, it will be more visible if you promote it on some of those sites.

And if you were going to start a blog I would do that now too so you can start building some steam behind it.

Well, that's my two cents, I really hope it helps!

[Former_Member]

Welcome and good luck!

As a very new shop owner I can advise:

1. try to take the best photos you can and then some more
2. never list items at the same time, space them through hours and even days

and this leads us to...
3. lots of patience

and haven fun!

[livjewellery]

The best thing you can do for your shop is to open with excellent photographs. Time and time again I see new sellers open their shop, then come into the forums after a week or a month and ask, "why have I not sold anything?" It is often the quality of their photos that is holding them back. Don't wait for perfection - just get them as good as you can by opening day. Good luck!

[laurenlynnboutique]

I have been doing photography for years now, so I'm not too worried about the photographs, built a light box just for my product. :)
How do you get your FB page and Twitter promoted? As in how do you get more people to see it? That's my hardest part, getting my page promoted.

[livjewellery]

If you have photography skills, you're well on your way! When I started on FB, I started fanning a lot of fellow sellers whose work I admired. They in turn fanned me back, then their fans and friends saw it and fanned me - it has a snowball effect. I put my facebook link in my profile, announcement, message from seller, and I include it at the bottom of every customer convo and e-mail. Finally, I did a couple of facebook giveaways on popular FB pages. For the chance to win a pair of earrings, people had to fan my page. That upped my fan number by 100 overnight. I hope those help you a bit.

I can't help you with twitter. I do tweet my new items but that's just because my tweets come up in google searches. I don't enjoy twitter, so I don't spend any time there. Looking forward to seeing your new shop - convo me on opening day, I'd love to check it out!