A couple of weeks ago I dropped off some of my handmade jewelry and ornaments for an annual artist sale in my hometown. I recognized the staff person who took my items, but she didn't recognize me. I participated in the sale last year, too, but I'm not a regular shop customer. There's really no reason she should know me. It didn't bother or surprise me in the least.
What did surprise me was when she opened up my box of items and immediately recognized them. These are different items than I sold last year, but the style—the funny or inspirational phrases, the quirky lettering style—was still the same. "Oh! It's you! We love your stuff!" She immediately launched into a monologue about the best place to display my work.
It's hard to describe how happy those few minutes made me. I've been in a bit of a design funk lately. I'm developing a new line and struggling to define my style. This brief encounter reminded me that sometimes it's hard to see your own work. You don't need to fill out lengthy questionnaires or take an 8-week course on how to find your style. You are already present in everything you make, even if it takes an outsider to point it out to you.
Where Nobody Knows Your Name
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Should You List Every Day on Etsy?
If you're looking for a quick answer to this question, here it is: maybe.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, for the month of August, I challenged myself to list five items (either renew expired or sold out items or list new ones) a day. It's now October and I'm sharing my results.
The Numbers ... and Success!
In August, I listed 24 new items, renewed 46 expired items, and renewed 53 sold out items. I also had 56 items auto-renewed; those were items that had multiple quantities, so if one sold, another would automatically relist without me doing anything. That's 179 total items, more than the 155 that was my goal.
As you may know, Etsy charges 20 cents per item to list, so for you number crunchers, this experiment cost me $35.80 to run.
I didn't do anything differently (other than list
consistently) than I normally do. I didn't do any advertising or
promotion through Etsy teams or paid ads. I didn't blast Facebook or
Twitter with my new listings. I didn't launch any new product lines
that were significantly different than what I normally sell. I just
listed and listed and listed.
I had 31% more orders this August than last August and my gross dollar amount was up 58%. So it worked, right?
Wait ... Not So Fast!
Here are some of the reasons it's hard to make a firm conclusion about the necessity of listing every day on Etsy:
- Etsy experiments heavily with their website layout and functionality. It's possible that one or more of their changes influenced the results. I'll never know for sure since they keep those experiments heavily guarded.
- I had one item go crazy with views when someone posted it on Instagram during the month of August. It was a sold out item, but it's possible that it brought in traffic that resulted in more sales of other items. That's the kind of variable that is impossible to control.
- It would make a stronger case if I had some data on months with no listing activity at all for comparison, but I'm not willing to do that at this point.
- I looked at my numbers for July and September, the months before and after my experiment. For both those months, it was "business as usual" which meant that I renewed and relisted on a random basis. Here's what I found:
- In July, the number of sales were up 44% and the gross dollar amount was up 34% over last July.
- In September, the number of sales went down 3% but the gross dollar amount was up 48% over last September.
- In July and September, I listed fewer items than I did in August.
- By just looking at the number of sales, August (the experimental month) was my biggest month of the three, but I actually earned more money in September.
What I Learned
I'm still glad I did this experiment, even if the results were inconclusive. Here's what I learned:
- Give yourself a daily quota. Five items was definitely ambitious. Some days it was very hard to get to that number. Five is not a sustainable number for me (especially with the deadlines for the two books I'm editing), but it did prove to me that posting one or two items a day is doable. Having a firm quota to meet can be helpful. Sometimes with an online shop you feel like you are never finished working on it. A listing quota gave me a way to focus without being overwhelmed.
- Make yourself accountable. You helped me meet my quota on difficult days. Yes, you! Even if you're a reader who never comments, I still thought about how I would let you down if I didn't meet my goal for a very good reason. (Just saying that I felt lazy wouldn't cut it!) If you want to try a similar experiment, I'd recommend that you tell as many people as possible.
- Change up your routine if needed. Normally I use the "draft" listing mode on Etsy quite heavily. I like to do a bunch of tagging all at once or work on photos for several listings. I rarely work on a single listing from start to finish at one go, but I did it a few times in August in order to meet my quota. I'm not sure if it was better or worse for me, but it was different.
- Results are not instant. The first three days that I tried this experiment I had no sales at all. This made me feel a little panicked and I almost gave up the experiment. It was a good reminder that you can't expect instant results when you make a change.
- Newness doesn't matter. The number of sales (or lack of sales) didn't seem to relate to whether I was listing a completely new item or whether I was renewing something that had sold out or expired. (I never renewed items that were currently active, by the way.) There seemed to be no correlation between the two that I could find.
- More listings, more sales? My highest sales days (between 8-9 sales a day) were on days when I had listed between 6-11 items that day (more than my normal quota). That's interesting, but maybe not conclusive. There were other days that I listed 6 items where I had one sale. Still, it makes me wonder what might happen if I tried upping my listing count. If I listed ten items a day instead of five, would my results be significantly different?
- Track patterns. One of the most important things I got from this experiment was just writing down the number of sales on my paper calendar every day. Looking at it, I can see that there are definitely trends to more sales on certain days of the week and fewer on other days. I'm sure if I mapped out several months, I'd also see patterns for sales occurring at certain times of the month.
I'd love to hear what you've discovered about listing on Etsy. Do you do it every day? Why or why not?
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Quick Tips for Social Media Success
I've sold my jewelry using Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook, but I'll be the first to admit that the process is a little mysterious to me. Why does it work sometimes but not other times? That's why I was excited to research and write the article, "Boost Your Social Media Savvy: Using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram to Sell Your Jewelry and Get Inspired" for the new issue of Beadwork Quick + Easy.
For the article, I interviewed jewelry designers Heather Powers, Jill Wiseman, Heather O'Cain, Eliza George, and Donna Luehrs on how they used social media for selling work or finding inspiration. In the article, I share their specific tips for using those specific social media platforms. When I interviewed them, I found certain themes came up repeatedly:
- Be yourself. If you try to adopt a special online persona that is different than your natural one, people will know and shy away from you.
- Share more than products for sale. Even if your main goal is to sell online, if every post or message is "sell, sell, sell," you'll drive people away. It's better to use a natural approach, sharing work in-progress, talking about your mistakes or innovations, and asking for feedback and opinions. It's even better to share a bit about your life outside of jewelry making, whether it's a funny photo of your dog or your kid's graduation.
- Find something you enjoy. You'll be most successful at social media if you enjoy it. All the interviewees talked about making connections with others as one of the aspects they loved about being online. They all genuinely liked the back-and-forth that comes with social media. You need to get something out of it besides feeling like you "should" be online because "they" said you should be. It shouldn't feel like a chore.
If you're interested in more social media tips, I hope you'll check out Beadwork Quick + Easy!
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