How to survive difficult times in your business...

[SummerSpinner]

I have opened my shop on ETSY for 4 months. I try to promo my shop's page on all social media like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest,...but I find out it is hard to reach customers and it is difficult to keep my business....

I would like to get some advice from you: How to survive difficult times in your business.

Thanks for Sharing.

[LeedsRadio]

Lyna-
You are at the very beginning so there's a lot that you will have to learn by trail and error.

A few observations; You have very few items in your shop and most of them are more or less the same thing and that thing is a seasonal. You even reinforce this with your shops name.

If you are having problems selling in July/August, what will it be like in January?

As far as social media goes, I don't believe the return is worth the effort for very small businesses. For example, if you are on twitter and all you do is post items for sale you will not get many followers, so you end up posting a bunch of social posts and throw in an occasional promo for an item. This takes a ton of time and yields very little sale.

Social media works great for big companies because 1) They already have a following and 2) they have people whose sole job is to post on social media. For a one man/woman operation time is the most important thing and it's better coming up with new products, refining old ones, and making the descriptions and titles the best they can be.

I have over 3000 tweets on twitter and can point to only 2 sales from them. If each tweet took only 10 seconds, I took over 8 hours of time. Not worth it.

[Former_Member]

Richard you give some good advice - I am also struggling with my little store. I opened last year as a sort of hobby shop but after much thought and hard I have finally decided on what I want to sell:
I have renamed my shop
I designed the shop banner and logo
I created new products and am always working on creating new ones to list
I created a facebook page
I have joined several teams on etsy relevant to me eg toys, first sales, boost your sales and even the trading team.
I also promote my items through etsy but I cannot seem to get any interest at all...
what am I doing wrong?
any advice?

[LeedsRadio]

Noor-
From looking at your shop I cannot tell if you have it as a hobby or if you want to make it a full fledged, profit making business. Either is fine. But if it is the latter you have to purge ANY that makes it look/seem like a hobby.

Example:
"This is a Trade Friendly Shop, so if you are interested in trading items from your Etsy store send me a message :)"

Have you ever seen a real business that does trades? People will think they have (cars, cameras, tech) but in reality they don't do trades they do trade-ins. They buy (credit) the item a wholesale price and sell the new one at a retail. So when they sell you the new old they make a profit and when the sell the one they got from you they make a profit again.

Also:
"$10 off Coupon for liking my Facebook Page! Use FACEBOOKLIKE1 coupon at checkout!"

Some of your items cost less than $10. If someone gets that coupon you'll be giving them something for free.

You cannot be in a position where you do a transaction and don't get paid for it.

And there are some issues with your product photos. When I first looked I though "Oh, refrigerator magnets in the shape of fruit and thy look real. Very nice." Then I clicked and saw that the magnets were 2 dimensional and rectangular - there's nothing wrong with that but if someone has the expectation that I had and then clicks, the let down might make them go elsewhere.

You might also ratchet down the cutesy a bit. You are selling things for children but you are selling them to adults.

You need more items and more diversity.

[MariasWorkshop]

Richard, great comments. Thank you. Through trial and error I found out that, in my case at least, I get better results by listing items often and keeping my shop well stocked. Good photos are a must, as well. The advice you gave to Lyna helped me greatly. I was considering promoting on social media, but had many doubts. I think my efforts are better used in other areas.

[Former_Member]

thank you for the good advice :)

[Plektra]

I agree with Richard's points too. I also find social media way too time consuming bringing very little rewards. I'm not a big fan in general and haven't spent that much time there. I find the effort to connect and stay connected and work around the changes (especially to make you pay to be seen) very exhausting. I'm also not keen on the idea of 'dumping' my work and whoever sees it, great.

We need to try for more targeted marketing, non pushy and not expecting a direct sale. The idea of marketing to let people know we exist. If they are interested, then they'll have our details.

Therefore, it's best to have your shop on top form, be available to reply to queries and work on various areas internally so when people visit, there will be more chances of them buying. Word of mouth is the most powerful way of promoting, I think!

[WithinTheClouds]

Great advice! I have just created a page on facebook but I was wondering if it is worth.. I think is a long better to spend time improving my shop..If people will see a nice shop with good photos of many items maybe they will buy something..I still have much to learn and do..

[PaperBoundLove]

I think Richard has a good point!

But I think social media gives you backlinks, which are important for SEOs. So, in short, if you have more links pointing to your shop from all over the web, you'll be ranked higher in search engines. So, even if no one ever likes your Facebook posts or retweet your tweets, you still get the benefit of having many backlinks.

At least that's what I've learnt from reading some posts from handmadeology.com. Just search "backlinks handmadeology" and you'll find a few good articles. (:

So I still use social media to post links to my shop/listings, although my accounts don't get as many activities. I have close to 10k fans on my Facebook page, but unless I do paid-promotions, I hardly ever get clicks...

- Khin J (:

[SummerSpinner]

Your comment hurts me a little bit, but it is very helpful. I very much appreciate your advice.
"There is No “Magic Etsy” Button"

[Former_Member]

Best advice I ever saw in a forum by a hugely successful shop: sell what people buy :) If you absolutely love pinwheels and want to focus on them as your product, this could mean thinking about them in a different light and selling them as such. For example, pinwheels as a baby shower or birthday party theme, pinwheels as wedding favors, tiny pinwheels as pen toppers to brighten someone's day. Take a thought and expand on it - think about how you can photograph your pinwheel to highlight its use as a wedding favor, how you can describe it in your titles and tags, how you can offer custom color options, etc.

As for social, I am finding the backlinks to be a good thing, but just sticking repetitive shots of your products out there doesn't work. To make the best use of social, you need to think about your channel-specific audience and what they are interested in. For example, most people on Pinterest are looking for DIY ideas and tutorials while Instagram seems more aligned with stunning photography and Facebook is more about who you are and what you are doing at the moment. That means your content needs to grab attention in different ways in those places. For example, say you offer pinwheels for wedding favors in your shop. On Pinterest, you may want to create a tall pin showing a few ideas of how to decorate the wedding reception with them. On Instagram, a single bokeh happy shot of a smiling bride with her pinwheel. On Facebook, a studio shot of you making pinwheels (you could double use this on Instagram). On all three channels, link back to your product listing.

Hope this helps! :)

[Former_Member]

Hi Lyna!

It's normal to go through such times and although I've been running my business since 2012 but I still do go through difficult times every now and then. You just have to build up your store, edit your titles and tags along the way, and approach your target audience the correct way.

Another good factor to consider is social media. Use it correctly and you'll see how it'll reflect positively on your store.

I hope I was of help and good luck :)

[Former_Member]

Hi Lyna, this is a link to a great thread that has a lot of good links to resources you can use to help you improve your titles, tags, descriptions, photos, etc:
https://www.etsy.com/teams/5002/etsy-success/discuss/16149239/page/1?ref=team_page

That being said, Chris has a great suggestion. I too suggest you try to expand pinwheels across different occasions such as weddings, baby showers, maybe even christmas ornaments, etc, otherwise there is a good chance that your sales will do a lot worse the other 3 seasons out of the year. Plus adding more items increases your chances of being found and - in your case - may widen your demographic and chances of sales. You also need to improve your titles which is something you can read more about in the link I pasted. I also suggest that, for your listings where you are selling 4 pinwheels, you have the first picture be of 4 pinwheels. Upon first glance, people who are focused more on the photo, may think you are charging $10 for 1 pinwheel.

[KIVVERS]

Pinwheels are fascinating to watch while they're spinning! If you could make your lead photo of the pinwheels actually spinning, that would look awesome! You would have to play with slower shutter speeds. The blurred effect of the pinwheel would give the photos a sense of motion, which...let's face it, that's what pinwheels are all about!

I agree with expanding on different buyers. Who are you tying to sell to? Branch out and have your photos reflect that. I liked the wedding idea. That would really be a neat idea for an outdoor wedding! How large can you make them? Giant ones could line the pathway where the Bride makes her entrance.

Have pen and paper. Jot down your wildest thoughts on where someone might use pinwheels. Later, come back to reality and see which ideas are feasible. Play with it! (pun intended!)

[SummerSpinner]

Thank you so much !!!
Thank you for taking your time helping me. I very much appreciate your advice.
Your shops are good examples for me to learn.
♥♥♥