Yes, Pennee...that was even accounting for bots. :-)
Terri...that is true about more items...however, I have less items listed on Squarespace by a bunch than I do on Etsy. (105 items on Etsy, 43 on Squarespace). I have not noticed a big difference with repeatables. In fact, I can think of only one item out of the 10 repeatables that I have that is a consistent seller.
That's a big part of the reason why I'm frustrated with this site. I'm doing the SEO, I've added in repeatables, I've upped my inventory. I go back often and refresh and renew items. I've added in google ads and promoted listings. I've promoted on IG, Facebook and Pinterest. Doing all of these things takes a lot of time and I'm still not getting views. I'm at 0 views today, and I had a total of 7 views yesterday. (that is with promotion.) It's not paying for me to invest this heavily and not see any sort of return. I've barely broken even the past couple of months here. If it wasn't for my local and custom work (which is all local or pulled from Facebook), I would be dead in the water.
So...now add in the 5% fee on shipping...and increased fees of 2.0%...then pay $10 a month to be Plus, just to be seen...it just does not make good business sense for my situation. Maybe it's not much for the rest of you, but when you are barely having a sale a month, it really takes a bite.
Wow Chrissy, that's awful, I don't think I've ever had zero views- my conversion rate is low- loads of views to sales, but I sell similar to a lot of people and I'm not as inexpensive. But I pay my $30 a month to Shopify and get maybe 10 views a day legit- then every time I think of closing it, I get a huge sale- it makes me crazy! Unless you have a huge following with people looking for you by name- a website is nice but it will never generate the traffic you get here imho
I know most are upset- mostly about the shipping, but lets be honest- dollar wise- no one is going to stop feeding their family over a 1.5% increase. I've seen posts about a 40% increase- you can say what you want with statistics and try to make it sound like you are such a victim - but the dollars are the difference. And no one is losing that much over an additional 1.5% even adding in the 5% on shipping. What you actually put in your pocket is what matters. Etsy has been around for 13 years without an increase- no company does that. The only thing constant in the world is change- I just try to roll with it. And like Terri- I sell enough every month that even if I lost 15% of my sales, I'd still make more than standing in the heat 8 hours after getting up early to load crap, then unpack and set up and the reverse. My time is precious to me.
There was a time doing shows I figured out what it would cost to pay someone to set up the tent and put out the merchandise, stand all day making nice to people you don’t know and then pack it up. It made Etsy seem cheap.
Chrissi - the last few shows I did I started to direct my local customers to my Etsy shop and gave them a discount. It helped me get off the ground.
it's that whole talking to people thing- and smiling and being nice. After 20 years of sales- I am so done with that. If I don't like you I am not smiling or being nice- get away from me! Lord I have become such a hermit!
I didn’t mind the social part that much but more the packing the vehicle. Tables, tent, table covers, displays, merchandise, food, change, etc. and it took a good 2 hours with help to set up. And then if the weather was iffy.... ugh. And youd have to be there by 6:30 am to get it done by the time the show opened.
Shows are exhausting. And some of you even travel for shows and you have to add costs for driving and hotel. And the display! I always worry it doesn’t look good enough.
We did so much running around yesterday, I slept until 7, and I'm still tired. Hubs has apparently decided that every spare minute of my days need to be filled with taking children places this summer.
My kid put her foot down on that last year Erin- a few weeks for camps then done- she said- I need a summer school break too! Good luck, but the kids should enjoy the camps
It’s so different today than when we were young. Everything kids do seems to need to be an organized activity. There were a couple years of summer we did a few weeks of day camp but mostly we got dropped off at the community pool as soon as we were old enough to stay on our own. We did swim team early and then hung out all day swimming, playing card games or ping pong or practicing cartwheels or back bends on the grass. There was a snack bar to get lunch foods. There was always a group of kids and we planned our own things like baseball or water balloons, biking, jump rope, spud.
My girls never got into the organized activities. They did do volleyball during junior high and high school and 4H, but those were during the school year. Summers were free-time.
Not such a good morning. Had to call 911 at 2:30 this morning. M got up to go to the bathroom and blacked out for about a minute. They are keeping in the hospital for observation. I'm back home for a short nap, since I didn't go to bed until midnight, which means less than 2.5 hours of sleep.
ah Kit, I hope M is ok, and be sure to take care of you too!
We did both unplanned and a few camps. I worked, so no choice until my kid was older- just dropping her off for the day until she was like 13-14 I would have been arrested. And then I had a stay at home mom neighbor she could go to in an emergency while I was on the way even after she did stay by itself. It really is unfortunate Terri- most moms have become the helicopter variety or everything has to be under adult supervision. Today it seems parents have visions of child abduction and perverts everywhere, heaven forbid a kid go on a bike ride that isn't almost in front of the door (gone all day and not home until dinner- not going to happen much any more). We know darn well the same perverts and abductors were around when we were kids- you just didn't see it on the nightly news to inflame, frighten and make people crazy- no one knew if something like that happened even a state away- and we all somehow lived. I feel for both the kids and parents today- if you have a loose rein- then someone scrams child abuse or neglect- too tight and you end up with the kids in therapy and living at home until they're 30. Crazy world now
In retrospect I admire my and other parent that let their kids do whatever, whenever. It is very different now, and it feels to me there is some unspoken norm between parents on how much supervision there should be. It’s hard to be different. But it’s goid for kids to be left alone.
Plus, in the US, There's the very real chance of some horrendous busybody nowadays reporting you to Child Protective Services for what was normal a generation ago. I was trying to get rid of some Jehovah Witnesses yesterday, and K bebops up to the door wearing nothing but her underpants. The neighbors don't care, but I very serious fears of my kids being taken away from me over stupidity like that. It happens, all the time.
