I have no idea what I'm doing.

[Former_Member]

Since I have opened up my shop I have only been getting a handful of views each day. I realize I have only been open a month, but I have been slowly working to improve every day.

I realize my descriptions need some work, but I feel like I never know what to say about my stuff without seeming braggy. I also realize that I don"t have a whole lot in my shop yet, but I am also working on that. My items usually take quite a bit of time to produce.

I have posted all of my products to wanelo, but it hasn't gotten me hardly any views on my actual shop. I have also tried pinning them to pinterest, but that hasn't worked either (going to be honest here, I have no idea how pinterest works).

The thing I have done which garnered my shop the most views was to post it to reddit, but reddit is used primarily by men. Not much of a demand for women's hats there.

So, I ask you, team members, does anyone have any specific advice for me?

[Former_Member]

Well, for social media, I use Pintrest, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, RebelMouse and some others, I also have a blog on wordpress, and up here on Etsy, I post to the teams that allow posting of items. That gets me a lot of visibility, and my tags and descriptions are decent enough along with my SEO that I am the third hit on Google.

More items means more interest, when I reached over 100 items, I began to get attention. Also, changing all of my pictures (or nearly all anyhow) got me more attention.

Raising my prices got me A LOT of attention. I'm still for the most part, under $20 on my items, but keep in mind, I had a lot of my things marked at first for $5 or $6. I doubled, and in some cases, tripled prices and BOOM, two weeks ago, the views really began to take off, and today I had my all time high of 200 views by 8 PM. For some reason, if you're too cheap, you're ignored.

Pictures. Before, I was taking them with my plain old digital camera. A friend agreed to use her digital SLR in exchange for some goodies, and I now have fairly uniform backgrounds that all pretty much match. Seems to work better than having 5 or 6 different backgrounds and I really didn't feel for myself that the all white background was the route to go.

But the only thing you can do? Be patient. Work on the things you are doing, keep at it steadily, keep adding things daily if possible. As you said, you've only been open a month, I've had an account since 2007 and it wasn't until this year that I actually decided to do anything but buy with it.

[Former_Member]

I have gotten a few views through rebelmouse, but I really have no idea how. I'm even more clueless about it that pinterest.

I am slowly building my inventory, but my items are labor intensive, and I am not sure if I would ever be able to make it to 100 at the same time.

As far as prices go, I have tried to match what similar sellers are asking. I worry that buyers won"t be interested if they can buy something very much like what I make cheaper from another seller.

[NancyBags4U]

Felicia,

You have a nice store and I love your hats. I have only been selling since March 2012. The first few months, nothing much happened. It really is true that the more items you have, the more you are seen. I, too, was advised to raise my prices and that scared me for the same reasons that it scares you--but I did raise prices by just a few dollars and oddly, I think it helped.

Your hats are really nice. Keep in mind that this is a VERY HOT summer and I don't think people are thinking of winter hats just yet. Use this down time to keep making more hats. I know what you mean when you way it's time consuming, but just keep creating. Listen to all the advice you can about titles and tags and really work to get seen.

Most important, and the hardest part of all, be patient. This is a slow process, but will be worth it all when you get that first sale....and many more after that.

Best of luck,
Nancy

[Former_Member]

Ah, if only pricing worked like that. I figured the cheaper I was, the more I'd sell. On Etsy, its the opposite. I have no idea why, and I fought it for a long time. Etsy works 100% the opposite of an auction site where you are trying to get the best deal.

Pintrest and RebelMouse simply give you exposure, no matter how it works, it works.

As for the inventory, that is up to you, but there's a few other knitters up here and I'm sure they could help much better on that but just today in some other threads inventory was being discussed, I believe the thread is called "How Many?" or something of the sort. You'll see there that the constant "magic number" spouted on Etsy is "100". Unless you have some other gimmick or novelty to draw people in, the bigger the shop, the more hits you'll get, and eventually the more sales.

But I agree, in the case of your hats, that's going to be tough to do, hopefully other knitters can help.

[Former_Member]

I'm in pretty much the same boat you are. I've had my shop here for 3 years, but I haven't always been able to give it the attention it needs. I've spent this whole summer working on my shop and promoting, but I feel like I'm not getting anywhere. Keep in mind that all traffic to your shop is good; even the guys on reddit can be your customers- they have wives, girlfriends, sisters and moms to buy for too! :)

As for what you can do for your shop, I think your biggest problem is the low inventory. Do you have any things that are quick to make that you could add to your shop to fill it out? Perhaps you could whip up some coffee cozies, headbands or cell phone covers? If you can add enough items to get up to at least 50 items, you should see more traffic coming to your shop. (It may also be a good way to use some scrap yarn you have laying around.)

Make sections for your shop. There may not be a whole lot to include in them right now, but they will help with your shop's SEO. It'll be easier to get your sections set up now rather than waiting for when you're shop is full of items. Shoppers will also be able to navigate through your shop easier.

Your photos are pretty good, but there may be some people who don't like to see someone wearing the hat that they're looking to buy. Perhaps you could find a different way to display your hats in your photos. Also, be sure to use all of your photo slots. You could always show a picture of your packaging if you need a filler photo.

As for the descriptions, go ahead and be braggy. You've made everything in your shop, so you are the best person to tell why someone should buy from you. You should also let people know if you have pets, people with allergies often won't consider buying unless they know whether you have them or not. Even if you have pets, you can let your customers know that you keep them away from your items and that you make sure that everything is clean when you send it off to them.

If your items really do take you quite some time to make, you need to make sure you're getting paid for your time. You should consider raising your prices, I've seen other shops with similar hats that sell them for as much as $30-40. Lower prices are often perceived on Etsy as being either low quality or re-sellers. Etsy shoppers are generally willing to pay more for a quality handmade item.

Another thing you may not have thought about, you are selling hats and scarves in the summer. Summer has been slow for everyone, and it's been very hot this year. The last thing on anyone's mind on a 90 degree day is looking for a hat and scarf for winter. You're sure to see more traffic and sales as we move towards cooler weather. Be patient, and just keep working on your shop so it's ready to roll when people do start buying.

Good luck!

[Former_Member]

Thank you! You guys are being very helpful!

[Former_Member]

Many sellers have a hard time "thinking like a buyer". Use your descriptions as a place to talk about exactly what your item is. For example:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/106151949/grey-braided-cable-earflap-hat-elven

- How large is this? If I'm going to buy something, I want to know it its going to fit. Talk about measurements.

- How does it feel? Is it soft? Silky? What's the texture like?

Also: you are not utilizing your keywords. They give you space to use 13 of them.. I'm counting 8 on this listing. Again, brainstorm keywords, think like a buyer. What would someone type into Etsy to find this item? Try to cover all the bases.

This can be very hard - it helps to either chat with friends, brainstorm with teams (Try the SEO and Relevancy Team), and use the Google AdWords keyword tool.

Your pricing looks good!

As far as social media goes, I do Pinterest, Reddit, Wanelo, Stumbleupon, LikeIt, RebelMouse, Twitter, Facebook... the list goes on. As long as its free, its worth trying, in my book.

Good luck to you :) Be patient - one month on Etsy is really very little time. It'll take a while to really get going!

[Former_Member]

Your hats are beautiful! Everyone else has already given great advice! I imagine your business will also pick up as the weather gets colder. I've been starting to look around for potential Christmas presents. It's been hard to get into the Christmas shopping mood (or shopping for knit items) with the 100+ degree weather we have going on. ;-)

[CaseyHPerez]

Don't give up, it does take some time to build a following and start getting steady views. The first thing I noticed was your titles. The first three words in your titles are the most important for you to show up on etsy searches. For example, I would probably start my titles as "slouchy hat grey ..etc". It may sound weird but it will come up on searches more.

Instead of thinking about your descriptions being braggy, try to think of it as being as descriptive as possible. Google uses your descriptions for search engines, so the more description you have the more likely you'll pop up there.

The more items you have the more likely you'll get found. Social media is great, I get the most views from twitter, facebook and wanelo. I post every new item onto all of them. Join more teams on etsy and get involved in the forums, most sellers on etsy are also buyers. They favorite your item, your item shows up on all their followers activity feed.

Your pictures could look better too. You want to make your hats really grabs someones attention while they are looking through thousands of hats. What I would do is look at other sellers who sell similar type products that are doing really well on etsy, and see what kind of pictures they are taking for ideas of how to do your own.

This team is really helpful. I have learned a lot in the past 6 months and buy implying things I've gotten from this team have turn my one sale a month to 8-10 a month (Constantly working to get better each month)

http://etsymentors.blogspot.com/p/critique-your-own-shop.html another seller posted this link in another thread, really helpful.

Don't worry! It takes time!

[Former_Member]

Yeah, that's a good point. Summer, in general is slower than other times of the year, and its BOILING hot most places right now.

I sell a lot of crochet items, and none of them have even got really any views... Not the right season!