Need help!

[AspieTees]

I need help with my shop! My sales are almost non-existent and I am not sure what to do. My shop is http://www.etsy.com/shop/AspieTees

I opened an Etsy account because I knew that a friend was using it. Life got busy and I kind of forgot about it. Then one day in December, my iPad made a “chaching” sound. I had made my first sale on Etsy! I refocused on Etsy and joined the team that Marisa was so pleased with. I promoted a few of the half dozen or so items I had in the store and viola, another sale. I thought this Etsy thing is great and with a little effort I should get a decent little income from this venture....famous last words.

I was getting about a sale every other day until Christmas. Then nothing. I started adding product to my shop, worked on better graphics, descriptions, research postage rates, reviewed competitor sites to improve mine, and paid for Etsy advertising. I have been active with the team and worked on creating treasuries. I have been getting an amazing number of favorites. At the beginning of the year, I had just over 200 favorites and now I have 754 favorites. I still have no sales since Christmas. I feel like I am flapping in the wind.

These are the things I have identified as needing improvement and am working on them.

1-SEO - putting more terms in the titles.

2-Keywords - moving away from one word keywords and using short phrases

3-Zooming in on my artwork and making the first picture contrast more with the design. -This should make the artwork stand out more.

4-I have been adding more types of shirts for the designs. Maybe I am making things more confusing?

1-Mens Classic Tees
2-Women’s Classic Tees
3-Mens Soft Spun Fashion Fit (Super soft form fitting tshirts similar to American
Apparel)
4-Women’s Soft Spun Fashion Fit (Super soft form fitting tshirts similar to American
Apparel)

I would appreciate any feedback. I am from the east coast and would appreciate if everyone would be very direct in their criticism. You will not hurt my feelings, I promise.

Maybe what it comes down to is that my designs are not as appealing as I thought they would be.

Thanks,
Charles
http://www.etsy.com/shop/AspieTees

[Former_Member]

Charles,
I honestly don't think you need to have the entire tshirt in all your images. If you do the close up picture in half of the images, I feel you would get a nice contrast in your shop if you do this.

Make sure your titles are also optimized by SEO- you don't want the titles you dubbed your items in the title (at least in the beginning) an example of what I would do would be screen printed women's t shirt - classic tee - s,m,l,Xl, etc.

Also, when using Twitter, make sure your hash tags are relevant, something someone would type into twitter. To help you with this take a look at this page:
https://twitter.com/search type anything in you might think would work well with your tweet, and if its worth using :)

Lastly, I think you need to describe your process a little bit. Maybe take some photos of your equipment and add it to your listings to show these are actually handmade with love (as cheesy as it sounds) I feel like your shop looks a little manufactured instead of having that handmade feeling. Dont get me wrong your product is great! I would keep some of those white backgrounds, but adding people in an actual environment would work, too.

I hope this helps :)
Kelly

[Former_Member]

Hang in there you made sales before so why not now, don't forget that January is a quiet month for all. after a spending spree for Christmas most people are on short purse strings til the next pay day.
have you tried Facebook pintrest other sites outside etsy, keep at it keep tweaking the sales will come again

[AspieTees]

Thanks so much for the feedback. The reason the shirts look manufactured is because I can't take a good picture to save my life but I can photoshop the heck out of a picture. So I just photoshop my designed on stock models and shirts. I will try to get some real photos of the shirts if it may help. Getting pictures of the shop and describing the process is a great idea. I will work to get the SEO optimized as well. Thanks again for taking the time to look and give me feedback. It is greatly appreciated.