How to get more followers and admirers?

[Faerique]

Hi there! Welcome to 'I am new on Etsy' and thank you very much for joining!!!

I opened my shop *Faerique* 3 weeks ago and I decided to create this group because I think this is the perfect place to meet people and to invite members to visit each others shops and to support newcomers!!!

Please, share with us what has worked for you to get more visible on Etsy!!! Everyone's questions and tips are very appreciated!!!

[Former_Member]

Hi, I opened my shop only 3 days ago and so I'm feeling slightly over whelmed by it all at the moment. I've bought a couple of items of other sellers for two reasons,
1) because I wanted what they were selling :-)
2) so I could see how what my customers will need to do in order to hopefully buy from me.
I'm just browsing around the site atm looking for advice.
Sue

[Former_Member]

Hi, Diana & Sue!
Nice to meet you both! I try to advertise my Etsy via "facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, by flyers around my town and through my current employment. I've gotten a handful of sales already but it has slowed down. I'm hoping Mother's Day coming up might help with sales....from what I hear it's slow at first...but once you do get the sales...then word of mouth builds and then repeat customers...so I think it's all about patience, constant advertising and posting your link to your shop, etc...I wish you both lots of success!

April

[Former_Member]

Hi, I opened my shop less than a month ago. I must admit that I'm getting pretty discouraged. No sale yet and not much traffic. I know part of my problem may be my lack of social networking. My husband and I have made a decision to not participate in the "facebook" world due to various personal reasons. Can anyone suggest other ways to get some sales coming my way? Any suggestions would be very much appreciated. Thanks, Mindy

[Former_Member]

Hi, I opened my shop about two weeks ago. I have to say, I have never worked so darn hard in my life. I just can't find enough time to craft, photograph and get to know others. I need at least two more hours a day that I can devote to perfecting my skills, photographic abilities and devote time to Etsy...period.

How do you manage to do all of this?

[Former_Member]

Hi Carole, I know what you mean. It seems like my house work has sort of taken a back seat :) I'm still figuring it out. Mindy

[SpareTimeDesignsMI]

I agree with everyone. All my chores have taken a back seat. I keep telling my self "Dedication".

[MadeWithLoveByGlama]

Mindy I Know how you feel, I wasn't sure what a good time frame was for selling, wasn't sure what is considered too long of a wait on here and what is pretty fast for first sales, I started my shop on March 18th and my first sale (actually 3 sales, she bought 3 items) was April 9th, so 21 days later, but I too was starting to question myself and if I'd have any success on here.

Still not sure if this will be a success or not but, I initially started My Craft again as a means of Relaxation, but soon ran out of people to give things to as gifts, then I came across Etsy and thought, well since I'm Crocheting for Relaxation...if I sell things, Great! If not...I'd be crocheting anyway as a form of Self destressing Therapy. But, I do hope to be Successful on Here ; )

I think what may have helped is I was asked to join 2 other groups and they helped boost my Shop by Favoriting my Items...and I did the same to their items in return. Since Favorited items shows up there shops...anyone visiting their shop will see my items that they favorited of mine.

Good Luck to All, I look forward to learning tons from y'all...so keep sharing!

Leticia

[Faerique]

Hi everyone!

I think that is a great idea, Leticia!!! We can help each other by favoriting our shops and items! I will favorite you and follow you right now! Please, do the same for me :)

I know what you mean Mindy, I had problems with Facebook sometime ago and I was hesitant about giving it a second chance. I just created a Facebook business account and I'll tell you how it goes

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Faerique/438360539592020

I will avoid any personal information or photos, though. Anyway Mindy, I think you can try twitter or a blog instead and try to keep it as impersonal as possible. It is important to go social now a days but I am sure you can have a lot of success without those networks too!

Sue, I think that is a good think to try! I will buy something too to try how it works!

Hi April! Congratulations for your sales! I guess you are right, we need to be patient and constant, but please tell us more about how you got your first sales :)

Hey Carol! yeah, I know how you feel!!! it's been quite hard for me too! but I think you've made a lovely job with your photographs!!! What has worked for me is to have a to-do-list for everyday with me and then do it at the same time as I watch tv or listen to music. I try to categorize and do things in group (like to translate a shop section at a time or to craft all the chains at the same time and then to decorate all the gift boxes, etc).

Hi Robin! thank you very much for joining our group! yes, I agree on dedication too, i just wished it wasn't this hard, hahaha.

Diana

[BJGCREATIONS]

Hi I'm glad to be part of a team, it's sooooooo hard to get people to not only view at my product, but able to see it's a perfect item for preschoolers, I'm sure kids would love taking naps on decorative sheets instead of plain white cot sheets. Due to slow sales I'm almost ready to close shop. Any advice?

[esquivelvanessa]

I am so glad I found this group!! I open my shop a little over a week now. I been overwhelmed by the whole thing, between making more of my jewelry, taking pictures, my kids extra-curricular activities, work, etc.

I started following a few shops, but now I know to start favoriting their items. That is a great idea!!!! I have my page linked in facebook and created an ad in there so everytime I post something in my facebook store page it goes out to people that likes the type item that I sell. But i have only got followers in facebook and no one in the store yet.

BJG- I love that my daughter will love them too. And it will be a perfect gift for a mommy to be too.

[Faerique]

Hi BJG! I am happy you joined us! Don't worry, we will support each other to get more views and followers :) I already favorites your items and we can all help each other.

I noticed that you only have 3 listings but each of them has pictures of different designs. My advise would be to add more listings with the pictures and items you already have, so your customers have colors and patterns to choose from. This would make your shop more eye-catching at first sight. And that would also boost your visibility on the searching engines.

Then if you want, you could add some photos of additional fabric samples to bring even more variety.

My second piece of advise is to be more descriptive with the titles, for example "Hypo-allergenic 100% cotton cot sheets" or something similar according to each design.

I hope that was helpful :)

[Faerique]

Hi Vanessa, welcome to 'I am new on Etsy'! You have a really nice Facebook page! I just created one too, but I don't know what to post -except from photos, hahaha. Any advise? I favorited you on Etsy :)

I wish you a lot of success!!!

Diana

[PaintedSongbird]

Hi
We've just started building our shop and finishing some items before we officially launch our shop.
I'm so glad we've found this group. Hopefully we can use some of the advice on these discussion boards and share some of our own experiences too.
We're currently building our web site and hoping to link it to a new facebook page and twitter account. I believe that if we blog on one the rest will automatically update - design still in progress..
Its been great to read some comments from you all to give us a flavour for what we are letting ourselves in for.
Exciting times.

[Former_Member]

Thank you for the replys and all the great comments and suggestions. I've noticed an increase in traffic to my shop since joining a couple of teams. By favoriting each other I hope this will help. I will continue to be patient for the sales to start. Thanks again.

[MadeWithLoveByGlama]

Yes, from the short time I've been on Etsy, that is what the Benefit of being on a team is all about Favoriting Shops & Items of your team Members...to boost sales, as well as playing games like...someone starting it off usually the Captain or one of the team leaders...they play a game called ABC they choose a members shop and and find something in there shop to favorite that starts with A and they post that pic on here then the next person who plays chooses an item from the previous persons shop and looks for a B item to favorite and they post that on here...but the point is to favorite things of our team members to help promote each other

[SpareTimeDesignsMI]

After reading these posts I joined a couple of teams and in almost no time at all I had my items being selected as favorites. No sales yet but I now know I am not the only person looking at my shop.

Thanks for the advice!

[Former_Member]

Diana & Everyone else here... :)
Just having a shop on Etsy is not really going to get you sales....once you upload your items, they get lost almost in the first day of entering them....the more and more people post new items, when people search for particular products, for the most part, the new entries hit the first page in the search...and more than likely they buy before getting to further pages....
My initial sales came from my facebook and twitter posts....I started announcing that I would be having an Etsy account for sales of my products way before I actually had my storefront....so the anticipation was already there from people waiting to get my scrubs.... The only true way to get people to go to your shop is to "advertise"...flyers, postcards, leaving samples with people, etc....Every weekend I have been going around my town asking if I can leave my flyer in their stores, leaving samples with some places too. For me places like Nail Salons that do pedicures I have been hitting. Letting them try my scrubs as an upsale to their pedicures and I have actually just landed a nice order by doing just that....I convinced them that they could make a lot of extra money by upselling a foot/leg scrub to their clients...they tried my product and loved it....so now I've gotten that order from them....very exciting actually....It takes a lot of patience and hard work...and I myself work a fulltime job & work at home at night too doing graphic work. So, the only time I have is on weekends to do my advertising stuff.....but it's all worth the effort I feel. This is one of my passions and I want to see it be successful....I worked a lot of years truly trying to perfect my product...and I will try my hardest for it to succeed. Just social networking will not do it alone....outside advertising on everyone's part will further push your sales....even newspaper ads, etc...there are many avenues to advertise for FREE! - Once people start buying your products, word of mouth will get around if they like what they are getting, then you'll eventually get more sales that way too....and of course there is the repeat happy customers...if you ship right away, they love your product...trust me, they will come back to your shop for their next gift, or present, or holiday to purchase more....Stay determined everyone!! Anything is possible, but you'll have to work a little at getting it going. Best of luck to everyone!!! Hang in there....April
P.S. and it does help when you have a community that helps support each other!!! That can go very far!!

[MadeWithLoveByGlama]

I am also building My Inventory of the items I offer and I will be hitting a few Craft Shows Every weekend to get my products out there, and then hopefully by word of mouth I will get Requests & Orders ( ha ha hopefully LOTS of Mouths Spreading Good Words about my products...ALL that purchased my items at the craft shows)

[Former_Member]

HI, All newbies. I opened my shop 2 days ago (I think) I've been so overwhelmed with putting my crafts online that I've lost track of time. I have some problems with the pictures and with keywords - seems like I use too few . Knowing what to charge, how to price the shipping details, and trying to decide on a plan for the ads is mind boggling. I'm not sure I understand how the paid ads work., Say for $14.00 a week , they would only run one week? Has anyone tried it and do they really help you?
Looking forward to learning from the group.

[Former_Member]

hi i opened a shop in march i'm from a very small island called Malta and wanted to see if i can make it into the big blue marble :) i enjoy making handmade cards, jewellery and decorated boxes for now. I love to draw, and also read and take photos.
I've already made 2sales and well i hope for the best nice to meet you all

[Former_Member]

Whew! I am just able to come back and read everyone's responses. I tried to fave, follow all of us here. If I missed someone, I apologize.

I did have my first sale on 4/15. It helped to boost my confidence.

Joining a team was great advice in the handbook. I feel like I am not alone. Also, I reached out to someone who favorited a creation and I have asked her to critique my shop. She was fabulous. She had great advice. The best advice was getting a banner and/or digital package. Yes, it can be pricey, but the analogy is....would you open a bricks and mortar store and not have a sign? BINGO...I am spending the money. I am waiting for my digital package

I really thing another important factor that I am noticing in terms of search engine optimization is the key words. I needed to stop and think like a bride or a mother of a bride. Then, I re-did all of my key words and titles. I was over thinking the key words and needed to just go basic. It has helped me find myself in say, Shabby Chic on the first four pages.

The business articles are very helpful too.

Sooo.....ahh....I still have an issue with keeping up with the housework. My dining room (a.k.a. my workshop) looks like who did it and ran.

ANd....Thanks to all for the list suggestion. I am at work, when I am in the dining room. lolol

[Former_Member]

Leticia, your book covers are so beautiful!!!
I was thinking you could also offer custom made size, and charge per square inch for example, or something like that!

[Crystalscraftycorner]

Hi!

I opened my shop in February and three days later sold my first magnet. I was so excited, but since then have sold nothing. The traffic is very little. I do try and post to face book and I am getting some cards made up to try an hand out to locals. I also do the treasury and have joined another team, but they don't seem to be very active. Do you know of anything else I may try, or could you take a look at my shop and see if I need to do something different to it? I would appreciate any help offered.

Thanks so much
Crystal

[Former_Member]

Hi everyone

I'm new in Etsy my shop is : Arttheway: open 3 day i come from thailand and i'm happy to join this team

nice to meet this team ^ - ^