October Shop Goals / September Lessons Learned

[Former_Member]

Hi everyone!

It's already time to start planning out October's shop goals. So feel free to list your goals for October and your lessons learned for September.

My October Goals:
1. 75+ sales (super lofty, but when you shoot for the moon...)
2. Release my new necklace line
3. Stockpile more supplies for the Holidays

Lessons learned:
1. If the listing isn't broken don't fix it. Sometimes listings with shorter titles and/or one word tags work. I don't know why, but the sales don't lie. Ha! That rhymes.

2. Custom orders are the business! I just need to figure out how to blatantly advertise that I do them....

3. Days off encourage creativity. I can't work 7 days a week. I definitely hit sleep deprivation by day 4. So I have spent all of September taking the weekends off to just create/chill. Great decision. I've created so many designs during these times.

Can't wait to read everyone's goals and lessons.

Brittany

[TheDorothyDays]

I have had one of my most successful months on Etsy this month which I am thrilled about some my goals are:

* To continue listing for Christmas
* To keep up the sales pace of this month
* To make some more business cards to go in my orders

[Former_Member]

My goals for October would be to

*Make it to 20 sales (ambitious for me and I'm probably dreaming)
*Work on retaking some photos I am not particularly in love with
*Continue to try to make my shop relevant by listing, SEO, and promoting.

[Former_Member]

Mine are:

*Make it to 10 sales
*Get over 70 items in my inventory
*Find more selling venues outside of Etsy

[bapsicrafts]

• reach 10 sales
• have at least 15 ready to ship items for the holiday season
• get halfway to my fund goal to meet my boyfriend

[ThePlaidPineconeCo · Accepted solution]

Lesson learned: It ain't over 'til it's over. I was lamenting my 0 sales for the month just 5 days ago. Since then I've had 6. Also learned to raise shipping prices to what they need to be (wasn't paying myself for handling).

October goal: make $1000+ from my candles at my 2 weekend craft fairs. And get as close to 100 vintage items as possible (that would mean adding another 30).

[StefanieSheehan]

*make it to 10 sales
*keep working on SEO to get found
*get prepared and ready for christmas season! Can't wait!

[ForgedMettleJewelry]

I would love to have 5 sales for October, preferably all jewelry, but if some of those sales are on supplies that's okay too.

I'd also like to get a couple more new items listed, though I still need to figure out what to make.

This month I learned that I AM indeed able to make outragious custom pieces and there are people out there will to pay the $500 for them, they are just far a few between, but that's entirely okay because the whole experience is kind of scary, working on a piece that has to live up to the expectations of the buyer, instead of just making something you love and hoping someone else will like it...

[Former_Member]

Goals-
*Make it to five sales (that seems like a lot for me, but when I set the goal for this month, it happened)
*Add at least one listing a week, more if I get those sales
*Continue to work on SEO to get found in twice the amount of searches
*Get ornament hangers and make Christmas ornaments

Lessons learned from September
*Goals can work!! I made my one sale!
*White backgrounds may be nice, but I need to do what works for my product
*It's not worth it to make all this if I price my time at $5.00 an hour (except all the fun I get out of it)

[Former_Member]

My goal to list at least another 50 items to my shop and making some awesome sales!! :) :D

[Former_Member]

I love this thread!

[ColorMyWorldCrochet]

Goals for October:

1. Continue adding 4-6 items per week. More if possible.
2. Make 1 more sale than September's total (22 so far).
3. Update photos on some older listings as they renew and tweak tags and titles as necessary.

September Lessons Learned:

1. Don't freak out if you go 6 days between sales. I have learned how easy it is to get obsessed when the sales start coming in regularly.
2. I just learned this one the other day.......do better research on supply costs. Just found out that I could get my poly mailers for much cheaper than what I paid. Unfortunately learned this lesson after I order 100 mailers.

[Former_Member]

Oct Goals:
-I'd be happy if I sold one hat a week.
-Continue to take modeled pictures of pieces

Sept Lessons:
-Custom orders are where it's at!

THANK YOU Brittany for reaffirming my belief that long titles are stupid.

THANK YOU Wandering Ewe for the white backgrounds comment. I HATE white backgrounds. They make my stuff look like CRAP. Sorry Etsy, but if the shoe fits...
I've seen stuff on the front page and shops with a gazillion sales that don't stuff their titles with keywords AND they hardly ever use white backgrounds. SO there.

[Former_Member]

Awesome goals and lessons so far.

This lesson from Patti is great (story of my life):
I just learned this one the other day.......do better research on supply costs. Just found out that I could get my poly mailers for much cheaper than what I paid. Unfortunately learned this lesson after I order 100 mailers.

Jennifer: boo trends! Do what works for your items.

[Former_Member]

September has been our best month with five items sold!!!

Lessons learned from September:
Use USPS Priority Flat Rate shipping when items are to heavy for first class. It's only $5.15 regardless of weight within the US

October Goals:
Increase listings to 200 and work on holiday related items.

[Former_Member]

October goals:

get at least 90 listings in the shop to gear up for Christmas/holidays
keep improving on pictures, tags, seo
Make at least $200 in sales

[Former_Member]

*Start posting Christmas items.
*Make it to 15 sales (That's pushing it for me, but it will make me work harder to get there)
*Get at least 1/2 way to the purchase of my new camera. (I'm pretty pumped about that, so it's a pretty motivating goal).

Lessons Learned:

*Help others out in there shop (I've gotten more shop views when I am promoting someone else's fb page/etsy shop/etc. than I did when I was promoting my own.

*Don't stress about no (or low) sales unless you intend on doing something about them.

*Brittany Bevelle: Have you tried adding something on your banner stating that you accept custom orders? I have it in all my listings like this so it stands out from the rest of my listing description:

***********************************
CUSTOM MADE TUTUS
***********************************

If you see a tutu you like, but would like a different size, color, type, etc. don't hesitate to ask. I custom make tutus as well.

So far I have only had 2 or 3 orders that were not custom orders, so it's definitely worth advertising

[Former_Member]

I'm going to edit my descriptions right now. Thanks Karen :)

[Former_Member]

September Lessons:
- I can actually make a living on this! Between Etsy and my website I have had a very good month sales wise.
- I set up that I will be selling my stuff in a dance studio and having a tv presenter wear a piece of mine!!!! YAY!!!
- I continue to learn that I need to find a way to take a day off, still haven't had one in 4-5 months.


October Goals:
- Raise Prices
- Research LLC
- Start my Super Awesome Kawaii Fun Time Line (its a lot to explain lol)
- Get on top of and ahead of my orders (build stock)
- TAKE TIME OFF!!!! (I'm hoping to take one day a week completely off)
- Set up my pieces to sell in the dance studio
- Make specialty piece for Kpop tv presenter

[Former_Member]

I learned alot this september. mainly that SEO works! I've seen huge increases on Google hits and searches!

For October:
Since I sold absolutely nothing...Maybe I won't make a sales goal. I made a goal for myself to get to 5, making it one a week for a total four. Maybe I should just hope for one...

I want to get to 72 listings (3 pages full).

I am going to redo photos yet again.

[EuraLee]

My goals are more cash than amount of items. My plan is to work on packaging and make my listing work, and get these items in nice photographs posted and not procrastinated. Let's hope!

[eaststreettins]

Goals:

15 sales
work on new bracelet design
find more sources for recycled mailers
love each new piece I make
hit 90 listings

phew, have a cup of tea

[Former_Member]

October goals:
- Get a personal SEO shop review
- Items up to 125 in shop
- Expand Celtic Line
- Begin fall craft shows
- reach 20 in shop sales

September lessons:
Believe in yourself. Determine your own destiny and work hard to achieve it. Discouragement for a day is normal. More than that can hurt your business.

[Former_Member]

I have had am having an awesome September so I am setting some really big goals (at least big for me) for October:

- Double income from sales
- Streamline my shipping process
- Get and keep my listings above 50

The biggest thing I learned this month is that I need a better shipping process it is a big difference in shipping two items a month and having to ship a few items a day. I realized I am spending way to much time getting items packaged and ready to take to the post office.

Wishing everyone a great end to September and a even better October!

[Former_Member]

September lesson-worrying/stressing doesn't sell anything. I was so nervous about how slow my shop was in the beginning of the month, but now it has been my best month ever. Worried for nothing :)

October goals:
- keep my lead time down to a reasonable wait
-somehow keep my shop stocked
-try to make two at a time of everything so that I'm not up to my eyeballs with made to order stuff come November!
-beat this months revenue