Constructive Critique

[Former_Member]

Pretty much all of us would like our shop to look better because a better looking shop gets what? More sales. ;)

If you are interested in having your shop critiqued (honestly and respectfully), then let us know. We'll all look and give feedback.

My plan is to get all the ideas that are put forward again and again together into a list that we can refer back to it, kind of like a self-check list.

[JackieGuttusoDesigns]

Great idea! I would love a critique!

Thanks for any input.

[Former_Member]

Hello,
I would love a critique. Any and every bit is greatly appriciated. Thank you for the time.
Meghan

[Former_Member]

Hi Jackie! I took a look and your shop is excellent! Your pictures are fantastic, your descriptions are complete, your tags are all used, your titles have a lot in them...you are doing everything right that I can tell.

What can I suggest? Well, someone once mentioned to me that updating your titles and tags to reflect upcoming holidays, etc. gets attention. Also, you can increase your exposure in 3 ways - teams, treasuries and circles.

Join teams and be active in them (not sure how many you are in right now). Promote in the available threads and get involved in treasury challenges and blitzes.

Make treasuries. The results may not be immediate but you will receive additional exposure when you curate.

Add people to your circles. Often people reciprocate but don't be concerned if they don't. Every person who does add you sees all of your activity in their feed and that's huge!

Really, that's all I have for you. Anyone else have suggestions?

[Former_Member]

Hi Meghan! Your photography, which is how our items sell, could use some work. Your goal is to give people a really clear, appealing look at your items. If a photo is good enough, it interests people enough to click.

This is a photo I really liked from your shop:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/104309712/honey-gold-and-cream-swirl-dangle

Your descriptions are good but make sure that you use all the tags available. We get 13...use them all.

Stick with that for now. It's a big job to rework photos. If you want to do more right away, I strongly suggest reading the network expansion ideas that I gave to Jackie.

Best of luck! :)

Anyone else?

[JackieGuttusoDesigns]

Ilona-Thank you so much for taking the time to look at my shop. I really appreciate your input!

[Former_Member]

Ilona,
Thank you so much for your time and suggestions. I really appreciate them and your ideas are super helpful.
Thank you!

[Former_Member]

I would love a critique as well. It's a great idea!

[Former_Member]

Please critique my shop as well. Thank you so much!

[Former_Member]

Other people can offer critiques as well. I'm just one person and other people might catch things I miss or have suggestions I hadn't even thought of. ;)

I'll keep doing critiques though, no worries. ;)

[Former_Member]

I'm always up for constuctive critique. I would love you to take a look at my shop and see what I can do differently or maybe incorporate :)

[JackieGuttusoDesigns]

Hi Stephanie,

You're shop is really nice. You have some unique items and I like your
profile. I noticed a few things that you might address:

A couple of your photos have shadows going across the image.

You've misspelled "rehabbed" as "rehabed".

In the shop announcement you should put as many keywords as possible to be found in search.

Good luck to you!

[Former_Member]

Hi ..We are a new shop to Etsy ...would love some feedback! Thx

[Former_Member]

Thank You Jackie! :) I went back and fixed the spelling. I'm not quite sure what to do with the shop announcement keywords. Are you talking of the 'About' page, and do I put them 'in' that piece or is there a place to place tags? Please Help.

P.S. I will also note and take some better lighted photos.

[JackieGuttusoDesigns]

Your shop announcement says "More treasures coming soon..."
To improve your chances of being found in a google search you should
use this space to describe your shop and the items you are selling using
keywords that you think someone will use to search for your item. You can edit your announcement by going to the "Info and Appearance" link which is under "Shop Setting" on the left hand side of the page.

Hope this helps.

[Former_Member]

Hi Melanie!

Generally, I think the look of your photos are great. A few have shadows or it's difficult to see the item well (although the pictures are very artistic - thinking of the bow on the little girl who is very far away specifically). You may want to redo those ones. As someone who makes treasuries, I have a really hard time with watermarks. I totally understand why they are there but they can be a distraction from the item. Not sure what the solution is.

Just got an email from Etsy and they suggest doing photos with a seasonal theme. Boy, it would be a lot of work to redo everything every season but I wonder if it helps get people into the mood of holiday shopping, kind of like hearing Christmas music in stores.

Your shop description is solid and you're using all the tags. Looking at your tags, I noticed that you've got a team tag in there. I use those a lot myself but I'm starting to wonder if they are useful at all. I personally have NEVER used a team tag to find an item. Would it be better to add descriptive tags that could bring a customer to your product? I'm seriously thinking of redoing my own and using holiday, sale, extra descriptions instead of the team tags.

Same as I've mentioned already, exposure through treasuries, teams and circles is invaluable. :)

Anyone else have some thoughts?

[Former_Member]

Hi Angela,

I really like how you've chosen to display a lot of your products, except for the melts in packages but that's my preference. The lighting is inconsistent though. Sometimes the angle is a little too steep as well. You probably want to revisit that.

In your descriptions, make the emphasis on the scent. When it's something like Hawaiian Breeze, give a little info on what that is exactly. Is it floral? Is it fresh like a salt air breeze? No one gets to sniff the product so you have to describe it. Unfortunately, it's really difficult to describe fragrance.

Although your descriptions for your items are pretty good, I would suggest to include in your shop description, if it's applicable, if the fragrance comes from natural sources, if they are phthalate free, etc. The more information you can give about all that, the more confidence you inspire. Even if you know what everything is, not everyone will so it's important to educate in your descriptions.

[Former_Member]

Hi Stephanie,

I totally agree with Jackie's suggestions. I noticed that you put your shop name as one of your item tags. If people search with your shop name, your shop comes up. It might be redundant to have that as a tag. Other than that, I can't really offer anything.

Nice items!

Oh, I've said treasuries, teams and circles already but another form of treasury that can get you a lot of exposure is a BNS, BNR, TNR or PNR. We've got a sign up going on for a BNS for our own team if you want to test those waters. That goes for everyone here. :)

[Former_Member]

Hey there Kissy...sorry, are you ok with me calling you that? ;)

Love your product, your pictures are very good, your descriptions rock, you use your tags...all you need is to be seen. You are new but you're already doing well. Treasuries, teams and circles...and a team BNS if you're interested...are all great ways to get more people seeing your items.

Well done!

[Former_Member]

Thank you so much! What does team BNS mean? Thx again!

[Former_Member]

Oh, a BNS is a special type of board. It's a Buy and Stay. What happens is that the board is active until it fills up (x number of spots). People buy something from the featured shops to get featured on the next board (they take 1 available spot). People who participate can often win spots as well. Different boards have different rules.

You'll also see BNR (Buy and Replace - shop that buys takes the place immediately of the one they bought from ), TNR (trade and replace) and PNR (promote and replace).

These boards get a LOT of traffic in a very short span of time. They can also be a lot of fun to participate in.

Since this will be our team's first BNS, anyone who wants to be in, can be. There will also be a space reserved for a random team member (limited somehow to those who want to be in because we do have a lot of dormant members here).

Hope that helps. ;)

[Former_Member]

Thx for your help!

[Former_Member]

Thanks Ilona Busch for the critique!
I don't exactly care for watermarks either, but I've learned that without them, it is much easier for people to steal your photographs to use them for their purposes. Especially with Pinterest, I've noticed people claiming the work as their own. I wish there was a way around it, like on Flickr, you can set it so that no one can right-click and save your image. It would be great if Etsy had that option.
thanks again!

[Former_Member]

Kissy - That is some of the cutest stuff I've seen, on Etsy or in stores!!!

Ilona, I'll take a critique if you have time :)

[Former_Member]

Has anyone given thought to team tags rather than descriptive ones? Do you think it adds value?