About Me

My photo
Dorset, VT, United States

Friday, August 27, 2010

Tips for Sucess.

Although I am fairly new to Etsy -- 40 days old to be exact -- I thought I might as well spice up my blog a little and give a few tips.

I've gotten 43 sales in these 40 days...a few were trades, but still, I'm doing fairly well.

So how do I get my sales?

----------------------------
1) I am an active player of 5 Minute Featured Seller. It is a game that is played constantly on the Etsy Chat Rooms. One person is the "FS" for 5 minutes while everybody else in the room looks, posts, and hopefully buys only his or her items. At the end of 5 minutes, the first person to buy becomes the next FS.
Although this doesn't always get you sales, you get lots of exposure either way.

2) I post something new every dang day. I know this isn't practical for people who make very complex items, but for a jewelry maker such as myself it isn't unreasonable. I've gotten several sales within 10 minutes of posting a new item. Clearly somebody saw it on the main page and bought!

3) I use every single one of my tags when listing an item. The more tags you have, the more likely it is to pop up in a search. Etsy allows you to have 14 tags, and I fully recommend using every single one of them.

4) I have a Facebook page for my shop. I've sold several things to people who logged onto their personal facebook and just needed something. A good way to get followers is to first invite all your friends and then once you have enough people shorten your link here. It makes linking people to your page on the Forums or Chat that much easier. For example, my page can be found at www.facebook.com/4Leaves

5) I try to appeal to all ages and genders. I've started a Kids' Section in my Etsy shop, and make unisex bracelets. The bigger your customer base is, the better. Appeal to as many as possible.

6) I sell destash. What is destash? Why, it's leftover supplies. As a jeweler, I am forever getting beads in sets and not liking or needing all of them. I set up several lots with my leftovers or destash. This brings more people into my shop who would potentially buy finished products, and also frees up some space in my workroom and earns me some money to get new supplies.

7) I always leave feedback. Most of my buyers are sellers themselves, so every positive feedback they can get is good for them. If they pay right away, say so! Some don't leave you feedback unless you do it for them first, so take the 5 seconds and make somebody happy.

8) Finally..I try to be friendly. I know it's a cliche, but you really do catch more flies with honey. When you interact with people on the Forums or Chat, be friendly! Compliments can go a long way. I'm not saying be insincere, but a little bit of love can go a long way.


Thanks for reading guys :) I'll try to get my blog to be less boring!

6 comments:

  1. Welcome to Etsy and Congrats on your success! Thanks for the great tips!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great tips! I will definitely keep these in mind when I open my shop!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Congrats! Saw you on my etsy thread. Great tips!

    xo~tmar
    http://likepeterdesign.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow, lot of sells. Im very happy for you and thanks for posting these tips. Are very helpful. Best of success to you!

    Cheers from Kent, Washington.
    Maru
    http://estilopronta.etsy.com

    ReplyDelete
  5. 43 sales in 40 days? Wow, that's really good! Like really really. I wont even tell you how little I get sales because it'd make me cry lol! This is a great list to refer to. I finally have it all down after all this time, but you seem to have learned that real quick! Lucky you, wish I had known all that when I started :P Oh and thanks for the reminder of the FS game, I used to participate in those all the time but haven't so much anymore. It does get you lots of exposure! ^_^

    ReplyDelete