Etsy for Everyone

The avatar dilemma

An avatar is the small picture (75px by 75px) that is displayed in your profile and whenever you are posting in the forums. If you change your avatar, the picture will change in all of your past posts as well.

So the avatar is your signature, so to speak - people will remember you by your avatar, and if it looks interesting enough, people are also more likely to click on it to have a look around your shop.

There has always been a hot discussion on what a good avatar is - but here are your basic choices:

Picture of yourself
It's nice to see the face behind the art, so to speak. If you choose a picture of yourself, make sure it is clear, looks good and doesn't change too often.

Picture of a signature product
Even if the product is not for sale anymore - having a great looking product that sums up your shop in just a couple of pixels is great advertisement.

Picture of a product for sale
One of the first items I sold was my avatar. It's a great form of advertising, but since that product changes frequently, it might not be as recognizable as one steady signature product.

Changing, but recognizable avatars
See those pictures? That's Blossom, my spokesmonkey. She will change avatars frequently, indicating when she is asleep or celebrating certain holidays. Other people choose a certain style of photography, announce when they are taking a vacation or having a sale.

Labels: Shop advice

The difference betweens sales, revenue, and profit

One of the most common questions on Etsy is "How can I reach 1,000 sales?". The answer: Start selling supplies.

The actual question for any shop should be "How can I maximize my revenue and profit?"

This is basic math. Shop A sells 100 items at $10, and therefore makes $1,000 revenue. Minus materials, overhead and wage, that's his profit.
Seller B with similar items will sell these for $20. He actually only has to sell 50 pieces where seller A has to sell 100, for the same revenue.

Notice how I am not mentioning profit in this example?

The other question that pops up a lot is "How can that shop sell so cheap?" The answer is "I don't know". There are so many deciding factors, and none of them are set in stone.

Buying in bulk
Again, Etsy is no different from any other commercial venue. Go into a store today and buy one pack of sugar. Go into a wholesale store and buy 100. And then contact the manufacturer what the price for 100,000 packs of sugar would be.

If a shop sells a lot, chances are that they are buying in bulk, and their material costs will therefore be way lower than what you might be paying in your local craft store or even on eBay.

Streamlined process
Are you selling one item per week? Then once a week, you get into a flutter, pack everything up, and go to the post office. All for one package. Are you selling 20 items a day? Then you are probably packing everything up in batches and taking only one trip to ship everything.

What seems logical for shipping is the same for creating. If you have enough buyers so you can make your pendants in batches, for example, then the time spent on each pendant is a lot less than if you were making them one at a time.

Hobby or business
Many Etsy sellers would be shocked to learn that they are losing money on every single transaction. I am not talking about not paying themselves a wage, but about losing money. These are the costs that occur in any case:

• Materials (incl. shipping when ordering)
• Etsy fees (listing plus commission)
• Paypal fees
• Packaging materials
• Gas for driving to the post office
• Taxes
  

Plus thank you notes, batteries for taking pictures, electricity when listing the item, possibly labels, business cards, a website, giving out samples, and so on.

That's why many shop do this as a hobby, and usually stop selling altogether after a while, because the more you sell, the more you will probably be losing money.

If you are doing this as a business, or at least to make some sort of money, you will need to use a pricing structure (more to come later.) And you will quickly find out that you are probably selling without paying yourself a wage, let alone allowing for a profit margin.

Sales, revenue, and profit
Do not be obsessed with the sales figures of other shops. Look at your own shop and see how you can increase your sales without going broke on advertising or cut-throat prices.

Remember that sales do not equal revenue. You will only have to make one item where your competitor might have to make and sell two.

Price your items so that you are not losing money. If this is just a hobby, your profit/ wage will probably be lower - but don't work for nothing.

Labels: Business

You think this place is a mess?

Well, you are right, of course. It is almost midnight over here in Germany, and I'm off to bed.

The blog will start being really, really helpful as soon as I have written down most of the info in separate posts. After that, I can start cataloging all the info so that the blog will navigate like a website, more or less. It's still a blog, but still - the table of contents should work, as well as some helpful tags that still need to be determined.

Don't expect this to be done by tomorrow, but stop on by occasionally to see how things are going?

Labels: Internal

Shop checklist (in lieu of critique)

People are always asking for a shop critique in the forums - before doing that, why not go through this checklist?

It's pretty much what people critiquing your store would do as well.

General appearance

• Do you have a clear, appealing banner?
  If not, go here for some info on how to make one in Powerpoint, or possibly choose one from some talented Etsy sellers right here.
• Do you have a nice, matching avatar?
• Is your shop separated into logical sections?
• Is your shop announcement too long/ too short?
• Have you selected three featured items?
  

Photos

• Does your first picture pop out, in gallery as well as list view? If you aren't sure - search for your item and see if your listing stands out among everyone else's.
  
• Is the item easy to see or overpowered by the background?
• Are you using all five picture slots? Do you show the item from all sides?

Item Description

• Have you included measurements? Metric as well as US?
• Do you have spelling or grammar errors?
• Have you copied the text from eBay auctions?
• Does the description appeal to buyers?
• Have you used the right tags and listed your materials?

Listing

• Are you listing daily or close to that?
  

Shipping

• Are you offering international shipping?
• Do your shipping costs seem fair?

Profile

• Have you filled in your profile?
• Have you added your location (city, state, country)?
  
• Have you added some personal info?
• Do you provide business-relevant info, like shipping & returns?
  

You will notice that I have not included "pricing" in this list. Pricing is something that will be explained somewhere else, but it boils down to one simple statement: Only you know how much materials were and how much time you have spent on one item. So only you can determine how much an item needs to be.

Banner design (Powerpoint)

Many, many Etsy sellers have difficulty when creating their own banner, which is why many sellers (me included) offer professional banner design. But - I do realize that this might not be worth it if you are just starting out.

The easiest way to make a banner is probably with Powerpoint, since almost everyone has that software. Scarlettcat has posted a great tutorial on the forums.

I've taken the liberty of coming up with some easy designs, incorporated them in Powerpoint and added them to my website. They will be slightly blurry and nowhere close to what I usually do, but that's Powerpoint - but they do look good enough to get started.

You will find the designs below (all with prepared text fields); this is how you can use them.

1) Right-click in the one you like and select "Save target as..."
2) Save the Powerpoint file to your computer
3) Open with Powerpoint - add your company name & change the font
4) If you want to add a product, go to Insert-> Picture from file
5) When adding a picture, be sure to choose a design that allows for that
6) When you are done, go to "Save as...", then select GIF from the dropdown menu
7) Go to Your Etsy, Shop Appearance, and upload the new banner from your computer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Showcase

Update 5-12-07 - since writing this article, additional showcases have been introduced for each category and the gift guide. Plus, the main showcase has been raised to $15.

________________________________

Where is it? Here. (Etsy's main Showcase) Here. (The Storque Showcase)

What is it?
The Showcase is Etsy's way of selling paid advertisements. For $7, you get one of 36 spots for the duration of one day. The product featured on the first first spot will be displayed, if that one sells, the next featured product will take its place.

Since The Storque got launched, there are actually two showcases - one linking from the main page, the other placed within The Storque.

How do I get a spot?
The Showcase spots go on sale twice a month, the exact date is announced in the forums. You can buy up to two spots for the period going on sale, but not two spots on the same day. They are sold on a first come-first serve basis and usually sell out within an hour or less.

Treasury

Where is it? Here.

What is it?

The Treasury is nothing else than a huge number of wish lists, so to speak. Every Treasury features 12 Etsy products from different sellers, with an additional 4 products selected as alternatives. Treasuries usually have some theme, for example a certain color, a certain plant/ animal/ fruit etc.

Why is it important?
Have you noticed the changing products on the front page of Etsy? Those are from one of the treasuries. If you ever want to be featured there, you need to make it into a Treasury.

Who selects it?
Anyone who is registered on Etsy can curate (that's what it's called) a Treasury.

Who gets featured?
That is up to the curator. He will usually select products that fit the theme and have an outstanding product picture as a first image, something that grabs your attention when viewed in gallery mode. This is one of the reasons why it is so important to have great photos as well as sensible tags.

How do I know if I'm in a Treasury?
When you browse the pages, you will immediately see if you are in one of the Treasuries. A blue star next to a Treasury means you are the curator, a gold star means you are featured, and a gray star that you are one of the alternatives.

What are the rules?
The Treasury is not meant for self-promotion. Admin has stated so far that you can feature ONE of your own items if it completely fits the theme. And definitely none of your own items if you are curating a so-called Buy and Replace (explanation will follow).

DO NOT contact people by convo to tell them that you have added one of their products in your Treasury. This is considered spam.

How can I curate one?
The Treasuries are a part of Etsy where demand is greater than supply, so to speak. Meaning, if you just stroll by from time to time, you will always get the message that the Treasury is full right now. The limit of treasuries is currently set to 222.

In order to snatch a spot, you need to calculate how many more treasuries have to expire before the number hits 221. Currently, that means the second treasury from the top on page 12.

Then go to the Treasury some time before that, sort it by expiration date and go to the very last page. Even after they have expired, Teasuries are still visible for a hsort time, with a gray "expired" next to them. Don't be patient now, do not refresh the page!

Eventually, a box will appear below, where you can enter your Treasuries name. This name cannot be changed, so think carefully before hitting Enter. The Treasury is actually created as soon as you have entered the first letter, so you can take some time to think about a catching title. Ideally, you will have prepared the items you want to feature in your Favorites.

Some tricks

• Your own comments can be edited.
• If you are the curator, you can delete comments (i.e. people promoting their own stuff)
• When adding items, you can copy & paste the WHOLE listing link instead of just the listing number.

Labels: Etsy

Some numbers

Etsy is a monster. There are currently 80.000 registered sellers, though of course not all of them are active. The jewelery category alone has app. 230.000 items for sale. Every day, 5.000 - 6.000 items are sold through Etsy, and probably two to three times as many listed.

Feel overwhelmed, swamped, and small yet? You should. :)

Are you interested in some stats? Then go on over to Etsy Tools. They will give you the number of listings and sales for a given time period, when it's a good time to list, and also the top sellers. Which are mainly supplies, by the way.

Labels: Etsy

Why this blog?

Being active on the Etsy forums, I notice a huge need for helpful information on how to sell on Etsy. The thing is - the information is out there, you just need to find it.

I will do my best to provide a resource for all the helpful information, point you to the right forums, and even add my own 2 cents as much as I can.

You might be wondering what gives me the right or knowledge to start a blog like this. I only got started on Etsy a little over a month ago, but am doing rather well, both on and off Etsy. The main reason for this might be found in my background - in a former life, I have worked as a marketing manager.

Etsy is no different than any other commercial venue. It is governed by supply and demand, and you need to get yourself noticed among a huge number of talented artists, artisans, and crafters. Not everyone will succeed - but you can tip the scales in your favor if you know what you are doing.

Labels: Internal