Today's guest post is from SF Etsy member Géraldine Adams who attended the Conference of Creative Entrepreneurs and wanted to share some helpful tips with the rest of us. Thanks, Géraldine!
I went to the CCEWest last weekend and I had the pleasure to attend two sessions held by Danielle from Etsy. She is the Seller Education Lead at Etsy and she organizes the programming for Etsy's Online Labs and writes the Etsy Success newsletter.
Following her presentations I made a list of some recommendations on how to make your Etsy store as successful as it can be.
It’s all about your brand:
o Share your story, your personality, and who you are through your store. You should wonder about what are you ready to share with the world and what does this work say about you.
o Your profile, shop title and location should be filled out.
o The banner should match your brand, but it is not the most important element.
o If you sell something in particular, then it should be mentioned everywhere in your profile, your tags, the first lines of your descriptions, etc…
o Send handwritten thank you notes to your buyers along with your business card.
o No empty sections! If you have a section with only 2 items, people tend to leave the store. It’s better to have full pages!
Have a good offer:
o Work on your quality. Ask yourself how you could enhance it even more.
o Really think about selling anything for less that $10, especially if it is a one-of-a-kind item. Even a buyer will wonder if it is worth their time checking out a single item under $5. If you are selling items under $10, think of selling them in sets of 3 or 5.
o Packaging: it encourages buyers to buy as a gift. It can also attract some wholesalers.
o Keep listing new and fresh items in your store. The more you have, the more likely you are to get found on the Internet.
o • You can list a very special item that is going to stay there, being indexed and attract people.
Take good pictures:
o Try to take different types of pictures to see what works the best.
o Show the texture, color, and size of the product. Props are great to show the scale.
o Try different angles to entice people to click on the picture.
o Show the product in context. A dress on a model, a ring on a finger, framed prints in a room… These pictures are very interesting for bloggers.
o If you have series, show them on the last picture for example.
o Always use natural light. Early morning and late afternoon are good moments.
o Set up a studio in your house so you have a consistent location and background for your pictures. You can read this article on how to set up a studio at home, from photojojo.
Description:
o Use bullet points for the visual look
o The first sentence should describe the item itself. You should write “I made this 8x10 print…” or “I created” and not “This listing is for an 8x10 print…” and explain how it connects to you.
o Use the keywords that are appropriate to your product.
o If it comes in a series, indicate it: “you might also like…”.
o Explain whom it is for. “It is a great gift for your girlfriend”. That can help someone to make a decision.
o Explain why it is unique and different from everything else.
o No specific terms, like “K3inks pigments”, but explain why it is great for the customer. Step back! Ask a friend to write the description for you or try to explain it via skype (you’ll have to simplify it).
o Add a link back to your shop main page. Some people land on the page from a Google search and don’t know where they are!
o Never say “convo me for” because they won’t. Try to answer all their questions right away.
o You can add a customer review in your description too.
o Write the description in a text editor, check the misspellings, and then copy/ paste it into the description.
Use all the tags:
o Describe the colors. They are useful for the treasury list maker.
o Use some of the words that are in the titles again.
Ship internationally. 1 in 4 sales on Etsy involves an international buyer or seller.
Enjoy the community!
o Make treasury lists.
o Read and participate in forums.
o Join teams.
Advertise:
o On Facebook, Twitter, Flikr, your blog, etc.
o Do not tweet: “new listing on Etsy …”, nobody is going to check it. Try to come up with an intriguing phrase instead.
o Talk about yourself. Share who you really are. That’s what makes you different from the others and people want to learn about it.
Here are some additional links:
o Etsy Help
o Etsy Selling Tips
o Etsy Community Online Tools
o Etsy Email Lists
Voilà! Thank you for reading! If you have other tips, please share and comment.
If you're an Etsy seller in the San Francisco Bay Area, contact Jen from Mama's Magic Studio about joining SFEtsy!
Sunday, August 14, 2011
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2 comments:
Thanks so much for sharing your notes. It sounds like it was a great conference!
love love love! thank you for sharing :)
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