Like every craft business I am trying to make my mark and get my items out there for sale. There is nothing like that little burst of pride when you hear the cha-ching of a sale on Etsy. Literally that's the noise it makes, letting you know someone has fallen in love with one of your creations.
If you want to give it a try please use this link for 40 free listings: http://etsy.me/1QFKDoj
My Shop is not long up and running but I am learning as I go. So far a few tips I have picked up are:
Creating your page
Profile pic: 400 x 400
Shop Icon: 500 x 500
Banner Size:Your banner will need to be exactly 760 pixels by 100 pixels in size. Save your banner image as a .jpg, .png, or .gif file format.
Item Listing photo: 800-1000 pixels wide.
Postage rates: check them out with your local post office or online and add a shipping profile to your account. This will help you go international.
Policies: Read through other shops policies and make yours tailored to your page, include returns policy etc.
Setting up your shop you might feel daunting and hardwork, but personally now that I have it done that was the easy bit. The items are not going to sell themselves, it takes a lot of active work on your page and promoting your items to get them noticed and increase your sales.
Getting Noticed!!!!
Getting your items noticed in listings takes time and effort, you may have to tweak your tags and words. If you google or research this it will come up as SEO - search engine optimisation or keywords.
An example here is my penguin lens buddy and the keywords I have attached to this listing.
Etsy’s search bar can give you a leg up on tracking what customers are searching? Start typing what you sell in the search bar. The words that appear are popular customer search terms. This will give you the exact keywords and phrases shoppers are searching, so be sure to use ones that are relevant to your product in your titles, tags and description.
Networking and Social Media
Use all available platforms open to you, there normally free and have a good exposure. I myself have the following and try share on them as much as possible. If you wish to leave any of your links in the comments below I will be glad to check out your pages.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/littlelidssiobhan
Twitter: https://twitter.com/littlelids1
Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/littlelidssiobhan
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/littlelidssd
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/littlelidssiobhan
While time consuming, using social media is quite cost effective and you will find many apps help you share. For instance if I put a picture on Instagram it gives me the options to share to Facebook, Twitter and Flickr directly without me having to replicate my work.
It is important to be active on these platforms once you have them set up. Its good to network and comment on other peoples page and profiles. Its a win win situation as you will gain followers and contacts for future business.
