Tricks of the Trade....an Etsy help guide

Ok, so now you have a few tricks of the trade, outlined in my previous posting....what's next? A few other items to consider are the following:


PRICING: Pricing your items is an artform in itself. Crochet items? jewelry? There are many different opinions on this subject, and I am constantly getting someone telling me I don't charge enough. I try to look at it like this: If I were shopping for a piece of jewelry...what would I be willing to pay for it? then I figure in my materials, and a small amount of my time, and come up with a price I can live with, both as a seller, and a human being...I do not want to feel like I have purposefully ripped someone off, that's just not a feeling I want to have on my conscience...do you? Your pricing needs to be fair, both to you, and your customers.

RENEW: Renewing items at key times of the day just may help you make a sale! Yes, it will cost you the .20 cent re-listing fee, BUT, look at it as an investment in your future. So you have just spent an additional .20 cents, what if your 20.00 item sells? Then you have just made......19.60 on your item. I think...I can live with that. Renewing items will also help google see you better when it crawls Etsy, because you are staying active in your shop, this is important for google searches....you need to stay active in your shops, this cannot be stressed enough, and not just a day or 2 a week, but every day, every week, no matter what. Even if you can only find 5 minutes a day to renew 1 item, pick a key time of day to do it, and get it done no matter what.

WHOLESALE: This is another consideration. I have had a couple of people convo me and want wholesale pricing. You can choose whatever percentage you want, and set your own limits on what they have to spend to get that percentage, BUT, my products are already marked extremely low, compared to others out there, so my response is simple. If they spend 500.00 or more in one purchase, I will give them a flat 25% off rate, and free shipping. BUT, they must spend the 500.00 on product, not including shipping. These folks chose not to do it, but thats ok with me, I am not willing to lose money on my products, just to make a sale. This is an area where I am personally sticky. Again, this is something a person needs to decide for themselves, and what they feel they can live with, there is no set system, and all the advice in the world cannot change what you yourself can live with.

TITLING: So now you have made a beautiful necklace from beads and stones, and silver or gold. Much I have read says your titles NEED to be descriptive, and including words like "sale" or "10%off", will not help your item to be seen. If you are having a sale in your shop, create a new section and name it "clearance" or "sale items", regardless of how many times you title something with the word "sale" in it, it's not gonna help your product get "found". Descriptive words...however...will....so....WHAT did you make your necklace out of? My listings are done pretty blunt, and to the point, for instance, "Lake Superior Agate Sterling Silver Pendant". A lot of folks will try to put every key word they can in their descriptions, this actually will hinder your listing, instead of helping it. Try to think of it like this: what do you want people to search for when they find your product? necklace? wire wrapped? stone? or the actual name of the stone? USE THAT as your main ingredient for a listing title, titling something with 10 different key words will actually make your listing show up as # 1,000,000,000 on the google listings...for EACH keyword...I would much rather be in the top ten, for 1 or 2 keywords. This one was difficult for me to figure out, and took me a few months to do it too!

DESCRIPTIONS:  Have you ever thought about how you would "connect" to your buyers? Especially since you never actually meet them face to face? Ok...this is the way I try to think about it....think about the last garage sale you had at your house, remember that lady/man who came up and asked you about something, and you actually had to engage yourself in a conversation with her? Maybe you had to talk her in to it, by telling her that the toaster still worked, you just decided to buy a new one? well, it's the same type of phylosophy online. People want to "engage", or connect with you, so describe your items as tho you were looking at the person in the eyes, be honest, and detailed, but try to do it in a way that you may "connect" with someone online, whom you will never meet. You must convince them to buy it, with common, everyday words you would use if you were looking at them. I call this "smiling with words" .

Again, I cannot stress enough the importance of backlinks, and the building of your SEO online. Soon I will be offering ads on this blog for 2.00 a month, a clickable photo will be included with these ads, so if anyone is interested, you can just shout at me on Facebook! This is also an awesome backlink builder...ads...but we will get in to that next time around!