Made With Love: Labeling Your Handmade Products

Do you know what makes a handmade product even more awesome?  Cool packaging that sets it apart from its commercially made counterparts.  One of the reasons why people are shopping on etsy is because they value handmade objects and if you don't mark your product as such, you may be missing out on a great branding opportunity.

In my own etsy shop, I use "made with love" as my label.  For example, when I sell wine markers, I tie a little "made with love" charm to the bag.  This is a super cute and super cost effective way to remind the buyer that they are getting something that was made by hand, not in a factory.

I bought the charms above at the craft store, or you can get similar ones on etsy, including these cute antique bronze "handmade" charms (only $1.50 for 50 charms!).  I used my Silhouette Cameo cutting machine to print and cut the kraft tags on the package above, but you can easily buy your own tags on etsy and use one of these cute stamps to put your own handmade message on it:

Clockwise, starting at the top left: Made Just For You stamp with UPC ($7.50), Made With Love rubber stamp ($4.20), set of two "Handmade" stamps with stitching detail and sewing needle ($12.90), personalized rubber stamp for knitters ($10.50)

There are lots of other clever ways to brand your products as handmade.  When I package my buttons, I put them in a little glassine bag and seal with with "made with love" washi tape.  Have you ever thought of using a wax seal?  What about some stickers that you can print up at home for some instant labeling gratification?  (Or how about FREE printable labels??)  Do you want to DIY your own fabric labels for sewn items? (Or buy some really nice custom ones!)

You're a creative person - so use that creativity to come up with a clever packaging concept showing off a key element of your creation: that's YOU, the maker.

Do you label your products as handmade?  (feel free to leave a link to an item in your shop showing off your packaging!)

How To Get a Free Critique of Your Etsy Shop Banner

Your shop banner is a huge part of your etsy shop and it is important to make sure it is conveying the message you want your readers to hear.  But sometimes it's hard to get objective feedback on these sorts of things.  You are probably too personally invested in your logo to meaningfully analyze it and it's rare to find friends who are going to tell you the whole truth without trying to sugar coat it just a little.  Wouldn't it be cool if you could show it to absolute strangers and get their first impressions about what your logo says about you?  You can!

Check out the Usability Hub.  It's a place where you can go to upload your logos to get some honest FREE feedback.  How does it work?  You upload your design and then prepare a series of questions to ask the people who view it.  Your random testers will look at your design for five seconds, then answer the questions.  How is it free?  You earn points by giving feedback on other people's designs and you can use these points to test your own designs.  If you'd like to control who is taking your test a bit more, you can get a link and just give it to who you want to give feedback.

So, I put my logo for one of my etsy shops to the test.  In my shop, Creative Counsel Blog Design, one of the main aspects of my business is providing tech support, so I was interested to know if my business looks like someone who provided that.  I also often need people to give me their passwords to their accounts, so I wanted to make extra sure that my logo made me look professional and trustworthy.

I'm going to share some of my feedback with you.  It helps to have a thick skin because the feedback wasn't as glowing as I wanted it to be, but I think in the end it was really helpful.  I always thought my logo was just fine, but now I think I'm going to make some modifications to it based on what I heard from the testers at Usability Hub.

Here is my shop banner:

Here are the questions I asked and some of the feedback I received:

What service do you think this company provides?

• blog consulting
• blogging capabilities
• graphic design for blogs
• blog design (6)
• copy writing

I was happy that most people nailed what I did.  (Though, this was was sort of a gimme because the word "blog design" is right there in my logo).  However, some of the feedback was interesting.  I don't really think of myself as a graphic designer, yet, one person guessed that I what I primarily did (maybe because the word "design" is in there).  I do think of myself as more of a consultant because I do full blog makeovers as well as tech support, so I was happy to see someone suggested that.  I don't really want to change the name of my company, but I may add a second line saying in something like blog consulting or blog tech support so more people immediately associate me with that service.

Does this company look trustworthy?

• not really
• yes (x6)
• not sure - logo as it stands is a little amateurish but could easily upgrade to professional
• don't know (x2)

Yikes.  Someone said I don't look trustworthy?  That hurts.  I think the third comment I shared gives a little more feedback - it is a bit amateurish, but could easily be upgraded to be more professional.  I think a really simple way to do this would be to change the "blog design" text out of a handwriting font.  I never considered that before, but that does make me look a bit amateurish.  Maybe if the logo looks more professional, I will look more trustworthy.

Does this company seem professional?

• no
• yes (x6)
• maybe
• sort of, but the sketch design tells me its trying to look amateur.
• getting there but not there yet

Six people said I look professional with two people on the fence, so that is promising!  I think I'm going to disregard the fourth comment I shared because I like the sketch design.  I chose it because I think all designs start with a sketch.  And I think it makes me look more technically-minded.  I guess you can't please everyone! The last comment is encouraging.  Again, I think replacing the handwriting font will help.

Would you trust this company to provide quality tech support as well as design services?

• yes (x3)
• no (x4)
• not sure (x3)

Uh oh.  This is a big problem.  Not only is tech support a huge part of my business, it is also my favorite part of my business!  I think maybe the things I've already noted above would help: adding a second line to my logo indicating that I do tech support, and changing the handwriting font to something a bit more modern.  And, as I already said, I think the sketch font makes me look more technical... but maybe I'm wrong?

What do you think?  Are you brave enough to put your logo to the test??

How To Market Your Etsy Shop With Instagram

I came across a great archived article on the etsy blog recently about how to market your etsy shop with instagram.  The article suggests six great tips to get started using instagram to market your shop, based on the experience of successful Etsyier Martha Porter of Buried Diamond.

I hadn't really thought much about using instagram to promote my shop, but it could be a good option for me.  The reason I never considered using it before is because I don't release unique new products very often, so if I just used instagram to post pics of my products, it would get old really fast as you see the same seven sets of buttons repeated over and over.  But, I never considered that I could use my instagram feed much like I use my Pinterest account, to show images related to the creative hobbies I promote with my buttons.  Except, with my instagram feed, I could show aspects of my personal creative life.  I think I may give it a try.

Have you used instagram to market your creative business?  Was it worth the effort?

Hello Again!

Oh goodness!  It has been almost a year since I last posted.  The other day I was thinking about this blog and feeling bad that I abandoned it because I thought it was really fun, so I'm going to try taking it up again!

I'm back in the saddle again!

When I last left you, I was half way through tracking my yearly goal to sell 200 sets of buttons.  Did I do it??  YES!  (Practically....)  I sold 194 sets of buttons through etsy in 2013 - a figure I am super proud of!  I know that 194 is not 200, but, actually, I had some wholesale orders that I didn't count in that total, so I feel justified in saying that I met my goal.

My most popular items were my knitting products, I sold 65 sets each of both my knitting buttons and more knitting buttons.  Late in the year, I released a third set, even more knitting buttons, and they have also been very popular.

I'll write some more posts later letting you know what else has changed!  Lots of fun stuff going on in the shop!

Mid-Year Check In

Back in January I announced my goal of doubling my sales from last year, which means selling an average of four items a week to reach 205 sales by the end of the year.  I stopped giving weekly updates, but I thought I'd check in now at the half-year point (almost) to let you know how I'm doing.

I'm proud to report that I am on track to reach my goal!  So far I have made 77 sales, which comes to an average of 2.96 sales a week.  Why am I saying that I'm on track even though I'm down about 25 sales?  Because I would estimate at least a third of my sales for the year all happen in November and December.  I think the fact that I am already at almost 40% of my goal by the end of June is amazing!  I have no doubt that I will reach 205 sales at this point.  (Looks like I'm going to have to buy more envelopes!)

Also, in case you are interested, I'm getting an average of 144 views and 11 hearts per week.  (That doesn't include views or hearts brought in my my etsy search ads... for some reason etsy tracks those separately and I just ignore them because I don't want to do the math).

So far, my most popular selling items are still both sets of my knitting buttons, making up 78% of my sales (represented by the blue and mint green portions of the pie chart below):

And because I love graphs, here is a bar graph of how many units I have sold:

That is 30 sets of knitting buttons, 28 sets of more knitting buttons, 6 sets of crochet buttons, 4 sets of knitting magnets, 3 sets of quilting buttons, 2 sets of more knitting magnets, and 5 sets of various wine charms.

What does this analysis tell me?  Well, whatever I'm doing with the knitting buttons, I'm doing it right. So, now I need to focus on moving my other products.  I'm especially disappointed that I haven't sold a single set of my crafty buttons.  I think they are so freakin' cute!  Time to brainstorm ideas for how to boost sales of the rest of my products.  I'd love to see an explosion of sales for all the products this holiday season!  Wouldn't that be wonderful?

p.s. the charts are brought to you courtesy of Stitch Labs, which is an awesome way to track your orders, inventory, customers, profits, expenses, you name it!  They used to offer both free and premium accounts, but now they only offer premium accounts.  However, I was grandfathered in with my free account.  I think the paid accounts are a bit cost-prohibitive for a small etsy shop, but if you are a big etsy shop, I highly recommend it!

"Frequently Bought Together" Items on Your Etsy Listings

Whoah!  I just looked at my etsy shop without being logged in to my account and I noticed a neat new feature!  At the bottom of the listing there is a little section that highlights items that are frequently bought together and invites your customers to add both items to their cart at once.  Pretty spiffy!  I've been reading about this in the forums and I can't quite pinpoint how long this has been around, but it seems to be a fairly recent addition, like since March.

I can't find a lot of information on it, but here is how I think it works.  If you have sold the item in the listing with another item in your shop, they will show up as "frequently bought together" (even if it's only happened once, I imagine).

I really like this idea and I hope it will lead to greater sales.  A lot of the items in my shop complement each other and this is a great way to get customers to drop them both in their carts with one click.

Here is a close-up.....

On the other hand, I have a listing in my shop that I have never sold before and the FBT prompt does not show up at the bottom of the screen, because it has never been bought together with any item.  Instead,  the old "related items in this shop" picture is there:

How to Save Big Money Using Etsy Shipping Labels

If you're not using etsy shipping labels, you're missing out.  I don't know how long this service has been around, but I only discovered it this year and I'm totally hooked.  It saves me almost 10% on postage, I don't have to address envelopes anymore, it fills out customs forms for me when I do international shipments, and I never have to go to the post office again. Oh, and it's totally FREE.  Thank you etsy!

What is a picture worth?

A picture is worth a thousand words, the old adage goes.  Etsy sellers would heartily agree that not only is a picture worth a thousand words, but a great product picture can be worth a thousand dollars too!  (Or, don't we wish....)  So, this brings me to my question: how much would you be willing to pay to have great photography in your etsy shop?  Are you willing to invest in all the photography equipment you need to get a great shot?  Or, here is something you might not have considered: Are you willing to pay a professional to take the pictures for you??

A quick etsy search for "product photography" will reveal a whole host of options for you, ranging from this listing for 10 pics for $15 to this listing for 10 pics for $115.  There are even super specialized photographers out there: this seller will take a picture of your products modeled by dogs, and this one specializes in taking pictures of products on American Girl Dolls.

I accidentally came across this genre of etsy sellers when I was shopping for photography equipment on etsy.  I was looking for a light box and I stumbled upon a whole list of professional (or semi-professional) photographers with lightboxes willing to take the pics for you.  I ended up buying the light box instead of hiring any of these people, but let me tell you: I kind of regret that.  The truth is, I don't have a very nice camera and I don't really know what I'm doing in terms of "stylizing" my items.  This is one of those situations where I should just get professional help.

My shop would actually be a perfect candidate for this kind of service because I sell multiples of the same product.  That means I can spread out the cost of a single photo against the profits from several sales.  If you sell one-of-a-kind jewelry or something like that, it could be prohibitively expensive to pay a professional photographer to photograph each item when you will never be able to use the photo again after you sell the item.

A few things to keep in mind before you buy into these services:

1.  You Get What You Pay For (Sometimes).  One of the primarily truths I have learned in my life as a consumer is that most of the time, you are gonna get what you pay for.  That's not to say that there aren't great bargains out there, but, more often than not, the best rule of thumb is to spend the most money you can afford rather than try to get an inferior product on the cheap.  Just look before you leap, is all I'm saying.

2.  Apples for Apples.  Make sure the photographer you are hiring has experience photographing the type of product you sell.  For example, I sell buttons which are a pain in the behind to photograph because they are shiny and reflect light all over the place.  The photographer I pick may have a wonderful portfolio of beautifully photographed hand-knits, but, before I sign on with them, I'm going to want assurances that they have photographed shiny stuff before.

3.  Communicate . . . and Be Specific.  Give the photographer the most specific instructions you can in terms of how you want your products to be staged.  You are both going to be a lot happier if you are on the same page from the beginning.

That's just a few things I'm going to consider before I try out this service.  What other advice do you have to offer?

Brighten Your Whites With FotoFuze!

Remember when I showed you a neat trick using photoshop where you could take a photo with a dull white background and make it even whiter using the levels feature on photoshop?

Well, what if I told you that you could go even WHITER??  And you don't even need photoshop to make your background look like this:

Pretty neat, huh?  Let me tell you about a great web application called FotoFuze.  It is super easy to use, and it's semi-free.  Here is how it works: you start with a photo that has either a black or a white solid background, then you use a little brush to color in the subject of your photo, then presto-chango, the program makes your background super white... just like the pics on the front page of etsy.  Try it!  You'll love it!

So, here's where the semi-free part comes in.  It's free to use and you can download a low-quality version of your changed photo, which might be totally fine for you.  I wanted the higher quality images, so I signed up for a premium account.  How much does it cost, you ask?  You decide!  They trust you to enter a monthly figure that you think reflects what the program is worth to you.  Cool business model.  I entered a relatively low amount because I don't anticipate using it a lot.

Do you use FotoFuze for your photo editing or do you use another program?  I'm interested to hear what you think about the best way to edit your photo!

What Would I Do With $20K?

I recently read a great article by Lisa Jacobs which asked the question, "What would you do if you had $20,000 to invest in your business?"  This little prompt is supposed to help you think about expanding your business and making some long-term goals, so I'm going to go ahead and make my own list:

What would I do if I had $20,000 to invest in Buttons and Things?

1.  NEW EQUIPMENT: The button press that I own is not the fanciest, but it is perfectly fine for the sales volume I have right now.  However, one updated piece of equipment that I could use right now is an automatic circle cutter, which would speed up button production immensely.

2.  MY OWN WEBSITE: I already have a website set up for my shop that points users to etsy.  What I'm talking about here is a full-on e-commerce website where I can cut out the middle-man.  That would be cool.

3.  ADS EVERYWHERE: The only place I advertise right now is through etsy's search ads.  I have dabbled with placing ads on facebook and on ravelry, but never stuck with it because I was getting a pretty low ROI....  but wouldn't it be cool if ROI wasn't a factor (initially) and I had an unlimited advertising budget so I could try out lots of places to reach knitters and other creative people?

4.  HIRE A VIRTUAL ASSISTANT: Sometimes I get really into my social media efforts, and other times I just let all my networks languish.  Wouldn't it be great to have a virtual assistant on call who could monitor your social media marketing whenever you just aren't feeling it?

5.  CUT MY HOURS BACK AT MY DAY JOB: Right now I would classify my etsy shop as more of a hobby than an actual business. What's the difference?  A hobby is something you do when you (1) feel like it and (2) have spare time.  On the other hand, a business is something that you need to tend to even if you are busy and even if you're really not feeling it today.  It's hard to treat my shop as anything other than a hobby when I'm already working a full time job, so, if I really had $20K to spend, I'd invest a good portion of it on subsidizing my income so I could devote a few "business hours" each day to the shop and not try to cram everything in during my "free time."

Where does this leave me?

Honestly, I'm a little lost on how I can take this list and turn it into actionable goals.  I guess I would have to say that, of the five things listed, number five is probably my biggest priority.  I think that having more quality time to devote to my business is going to be the most important thing to it's growth.  I don't really need the fancy equipment or hired help as much as I need to put my full effort into the shop.  Since I don't have $20K (yet!) I can't afford to devote several hours a week to this, but maybe I could convince myself to just find as little as 15 minutes a day, every day, to devote to my biz.  This is such a small amount of time that it won't require me to cut back my hours at my day job, but it won't (inordinately) cut into my free time either.  OK!  It's a plan!

What do you think?  What would you do if you had $20K?

Another little etsy shop!

I'm happy to announce that I am opening another little etsy shop!  It's my own blog design business, Creative Counsel Blog Design!  Yay!  In this blog, I'm still just going to be focusing on the growth of my main etsy shop, Buttons and Things, but I just wanted to let you know that I'm running another shop which I may refer to from time to time.

The challenge with this new shop is that blog design is an extremely saturated market on etsy, so I think it's going to be tough standing out from the crowd.  Luckily, this is just something I want to do on a very part-time basis, so I will be fine with a low sales volume.

When It's Time to Seek Professional Help

I like to think of myself as a jack-of-all trades, and I think a lot of etsy sellers feel the same - we are all crafty, entrepreneurial spirits, unafraid to take on new challenges.  Sometimes it's hard for us to admit that there are things we just can't do on our own and admit it's time to seek professional help.  For me, it was designing a new logo.  I like to think that I have some pretty mad graphic design skills, and I'm sure that if I really applied myself I could have designed a great new logo myself, but, for the reasons I outlined below, I decided to punt the project to a professional.  And I'm so glad I did!

It's time to seek professional help when you could do it yourself, BUT....

1.  You have more money than time.  Sometimes it's just a matter of dollars and cents.  Your time is valuable, and you need to prioritize how you spend it.  For me, I have a day job that pays by the hour.  I estimated that it would take me X number of hours to design my own logo vs. Y dollars to pay someone to do it for me.  It turns out that it was cheaper to just pick up a few extra hours at work and hire a professional to do the project, rather than doing it myself.

2.  You just aren't that excited about the project.  Sometimes it's not just a matter of dollars and cents.  If something sounds fun, then who cares if it is more economical to pay someone else to do it?  But if the project doesn't sound fun... then it's time to ask yourself if it would be worth it to just delegate.  In my situation, I tried to sit down and design a new logo several times, but I just couldn't get into it.  It felt more like a chore than a creative opportunity.  Even thought I  could do it, I didn't want to.

3. You need a professional eye.  As much as us creative-types like to think we are good at everything, the truth is that sometimes a professional is simply going to do a better job.  I designed my first logo and I never really cared for it, and I wanted my new logo to be something I would love, so I decided it would be worth it to pay someone to make me a high quality logo that I can be proud of.

4.  You want to support another entrepreneur.  Do you like someone else's work?  Then why not give them some business?  There's absolutely nothing wrong with with being a consumer as well as a producer.  It's how the economy works.  Embrace it.

Your Little Business Plan

The first topic I'd like to tackle in my Etsy 101 series is the benefit of having a business plan.  Let me preface this discussion by saying that I did not have a business plan when I started my shop... and it showed.  I ran my business with an if-it-feels-good-do-it mentality.  What can I say?  I was a liberal arts major in college and I never took a business class.  My plan for my etsy shop looked something like this:

1.  Make buttons
2.  ???
3.  Profit

See that step number two, with all the question marks?  That is the spot where your business plan goes.

If you run the words "business plan" through google, you are going to get a lot of information on how to write a formal business plan.  And if that's what you want to do, go for it!  It certainly wouldn't be a waste of time.  But, personally, I think a 10-page, 16-part business plan is overkill for a little etsy shop.  So, I'm going to tell you how to write a little business plan.

There are three major components to your little business plan.

The first, and most important, component is your Mission Statement.  To write your mission statement, just ask yourself the question: "why am I doing this?"  Is your primary motivation just that you like making stuff and you need a way to unload everything you create?  Or are you in it for profit?  If so, how much profit?  For many etsy sellers, the goal is just to create a self-sustaining hobby.  For others, the goal is to be a professional artist and to make a living by selling your wares.  For most, it is probably somewhere in between.

The next part of your business plan is pretty easy.  What are you selling?  That's your Product.  Consider what you are selling both literally (hand-knit cashmere scarves) and figuratively (warmth, luxury, beauty, etc.)

Finally, you need to figure out where is your Market.  Who is going to buy your stuff?  If you sell baby clothes, your market is probably going to be new mothers.  Try to get as specific as you can when you are defining your market.

And that's it.  That's really all you need for your little business plan.  Just consult these three components whenever you have to make a business decision and you'll be on the right path.

Happy Valentine's Day My Little Biz!

I interrupt your day to share something special with you....

That is all!

Etsy 101

I'm going to share one of my etsy-related goals with you.  It's kind of a strange one... are you ready?  The thing is, I do a lot of research on etsy business development because I want to boost my own sales, and also just because I find the subject interesting, so, my goal is to eventually teach an adult community ed class on how to sell your stuff on etsy.  Doesn't that sound fun?  (You don't get paid to teach the class... so it would just purely be for nerdy fun).

As I sit here making up a lesson plan for my imaginary class, it occurs to me that I should be using this blog in a more organized way.  So, what I'm going to try out from now on is to pick a topic that I might discuss in my class, and then present the information here.  I'll also try to point out some good resources and articles that I discover along the way.

Here are a few of the major topics that I think I should cover:

1.  Business Planning
2.  Branding
3.  Pricing Your Work
4.  Product Photography
5.  Writing Product Descriptions
6.  How to Use Etsy/Paypal/Etc.
7.  SEO & Advertising
8.  Shop Promotion/Social Networking

Sound like a plan?  Ready, set, go!

A Social Media Checklist

I just happened upon this awesome checklist for your social media marketing strategy.  I try to do something on each channel every day, but it never occurred to me to make up a checklist like this.  Very helpful!

Courtesy of: The Whole Brain Group

Week 3: Seven Sales (woot! woot!)

I'm overjoyed to report that I had seven sales last week!  That's almost double my goal!  For a little etsy shop like mine, seven sales in one week is definitely cause to celebrate!

{celebrate banner by AllSmilesShoppe on Etsy}

When I see a rise in sales like this, I always wonder, what caused it?  Is it just luck or did I do something differently?  This is an extremely difficult question to answer, but one thing I do to try to figure it out is to keep a marketing journal.  Every day I write down anything I did to market my business, for example "tweeted pic of crochet buttons," or "mentioned my shop on my knitting blog."  Then the following day, I check my etsy stats and record my views, hearts, and sales right next to that date.  (I used to do this on a weekly basis, but this year I started doing it daily and I think it is more effective).  I keep track of all this information in a spreadsheet so I will eventually be able to analyze the data with formulas and charts and stuff.  As a bonus, keeping this log is a nice reminder that I should be doing at least one thing every day to market my shop.

How do you try to make sense of what is impacting your sales?  Do you keep a journal too, or have you figured out some other great method?  I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

Product Photography Tip: Using Levels in Photoshop

I know that one of the key things I need to do to increase my sales is improve my product photography.  I am not a skilled photographer and I also have kind of a crappy camera, but luckily I have photoshop, which helps immensely... when I take the time to learn how to use it!  I found a neat tip the other day about how to use the levels adjustment in photoshop when you are photographing against a white background.  I tried it out this week and I'm really happy with the results!

Here is an example of my knitting wine charms in what I thought was a perfectly nice photo:

And here is the same photo with the levels adjusted:

Can you believe the difference??  I was blown away!  Read the article.  It tells you how you can play with the levels in your picture even if you don't have photoshop.

That's a lot of envelopes!

I am committed to making 205 sales this year.  I believe that once you set a goal like that for yourself, the best thing to do is to find a way to make yourself accountable for it.  One way I am making myself accountable is by starting this blog, but I wanted to do something more concrete.  I wanted to find a way to put my money where my mouth is.  And then it hit me....

I am going to buy 205 envelopes.

Once I have 205 envelopes sitting in my office, it is no longer going to be a lofty goal that I am going to make 205 sales, it is going to be a reality - something that I planned and am prepared for.  The envelopes are there to serve as a tangible reminder of the commitment I have made to myself. (Not to mention, it will be fun to watch the pile shrink as the year goes on!)

What about you?  How do you hold yourself accountable for your sales goals?

p.s.  I did a lot of research on the best prices for a quantity of 200 envelopes and it looks like the best deal is right there on etsy itself, through the Shipping Guru.

Week 2: Four Sales

I was in doubt last week that I would make my sales goal, but.... I did it!  The numbers this week are looking pretty good.  I got in four sales, which less than last week, but four sales a week is all I need to be on target for my yearly goal, so I can't complain.  I also managed 419 views and 46 hearts, which I'm psyched about (especially for all those hearts!).

So, I guess the lesson learned here is: believe more, doubt less.

{print by Aga's Box of Miracles on etsy}