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!