Wednesday 29 July 2009

My Etsy Experiment- Part 3


You may well be wondering where I've been for the last couple of weeks and the answer is simple. Sat at my desk surrounded by tissue, ribbon and scellotape! On the 17th my "Lacy" bracelet was featured on Etsys Weekend deals email and I have had 38 sales since then! It has been a a delight wrapping all these pieces of jewellery and writing little notes and sending them off to their new owners all around the world.

Once I got all my packages shipped I decided I needed to do a little stock take of supplies and work out what items I needed to restock. So I've had lots of little packages arrive in the last couple of days with beautiful little charms and chains.

I have also had 3 new wholesale orders and have just started working on an excisting wholesale re-order. The customer is looking for lots of pieces from my shop so I'm working on new designs to replace them with, to try and keep my listings at about 80. So I have been juggling creating new pieces and filling these orders. During all this I have decided that it is time for a bit of re-branding so I have designed a new logo, headed paper and inserts for the boxes for my jewels to hang on. I'll let you see them when the boxes arrive.
My ation plan for the next 2 weeks is:
-Make, package and ship all my wholesale orders
-Design, make, list 20 new pieces for the shop
-Design a gift certificate for the shop
-Make up a daily check list for marketing and promotional things I want to do each day
I'll let you know how I'm getting on x

Monday 20 July 2009

Green Fingers

My heart is filled with excited flutters.

It all began on Sunday.

A neighbour popped by with 6 lettices and a bag of peas and beans.


On Monday the sun was bursting through the clouds, streaming onto my little garden. My hands were covered in soil and I was surrounded by little pots, bags of seeds and hope.


Stuart assembled a little green house for me, Pablo oversaw the whole operation, of course!


I re potted my tomato plants and 3 tiny pepper plants. I planted 50 basil seeds and these are now all housed in their nifty new home.




The lettice is already looking lush and I am going to have a beautiful salad this weekend with home made dressing.


But thing the tiny thing that has me so ecxited is this:

Either a pea or a bean sprout, poking it's little head up through the soil!



As you can tell from my almost child like emotions about my little garden and growing things I can eat, that I am new to all of this. I have been reading this great bit of the BBCs Gardeners World website, Grow your own grub! And I have a vision. I have established my herbs, am moving on to salads and next year I'm aiming for veggies! (I am 31 not 60, but am so into this right now, maybe I need to make a collection of jewels to garden in!)


Do you have a green thumb? What are you growing just now?

Thursday 16 July 2009

A little Thank You


"Cupcake Embroidery Decor" by Kattydiddy

This post is a dedication to all my loyal followers, visitors and folks who have been featuring me and my jewellery over the last week. Firstly I would like to thank Laura Bray of the http://Kattydid.com creative emporium. Laura featured "My Etsy Experiment" part 1 in her monthly Ezine.
Laura Cameron a Uk based artist and designer awarded me a "One Lovely Blog" Award. Thank you!
And Tracey of Tracey Loves Pattern did a post on my new range.

"Home Sweet Home" by Tracey from http://strawberrymagpie.etsy.com

"China England 10" by Lousise Broomhead - etsy shop

Louise Broomhead posted one of my necklace that she bought and wore to a friend's wedding. (I bought this beautiful card from Louise last month and have it on my mantle peice awaiting a frame!
Thank you to everyone who has become a follower recently and to all my faithful readers. Visiting you all is always so inspiring and helps keep me connected to other creative people all over the world!
xxx



Tuesday 14 July 2009

Etsy Experiment - part 2


This weeks instalment of my Etsy experiment has a few interesting findings. I launched my new collection last week and learned so much in the process. I carried on with my tweeting, posting in the forums, listing and renewing. But I'm missing something.

My stats on GA are showing a steady decline in visits to my shop even although I'm not doing much different to my first 2 weeks of the experiment. My % has dropped down to 45% visitor rate!!! So I'm taking a step back to look at the whole picture. Who, what, where, when?

Who - who is my target market?
What- what are my potential customers look for from me?
Where- where are they, where do they shop, where can I reach them?
When - when are my potential customers looking for a purchase from me?

This has given me so much to think about just with these 4 questions. I have decided to carry on with the experiment, baring in mind it is summer holiday time and with the realisation that I am going to work 100 times harder at bring new customers to my Etsy, from outside other sources.

I currently have my work in 4 shops/ boutiques, but I think now is the time to boost that up a little maybe to 6 before Christmas. I am going to start planning now for some "Girls Night" parties for the festive shopping season. I am going to research contacting blogs to see if they will feature me, (I read a Storque article about this but can't seem to find it, will keep looking!) I am going to commit to 3 blog posts a week, me, work, life and just as importantly I'm going to stop by and visit all my followers and friends.

So my round up this week is yet again more reaserching, I found Seth Godin's blog again and am going to re read his words of wisdom.

My question of the day is : How can I bring potential customers to my shop?
(When I have some clear answers on this I'll let you know!)

UPDATE: One way to do this is to have kind fellow bloggers and Etsy sellers like Katydiddys, who so kindly used my "Etsy Experiment" in her July Ezine! Head over to her blog and say hi, she is a lady full of creativity and great business advice. Thank you KD!

Wednesday 8 July 2009

Update


I am listing more new pieces for "Let Me Tell You A Story". Yesterday did not go as planned. My model couldn't make it, she has a sicky bug so I have another beautiful girlie who can help me tonight. But I decided to put the images I have up anyway. Then, all day and until about 1am I struggled to get anything listed on Etsy, and at that point gave up.
But today is a new day and I'm getting things up no problem now. Thank you to everyone who stopped by for a look at the new jewellery. If you haven't had a chance yet they are here.


I am going to start working on a painting commission this evening, a beautiful house built in 1850 I think. I am quite excited about it, from the photos it looks like soft blonde sandstone and it is being hugged by lushious trees. I let you have a look once I'm started.



Before


On the home front everything is good. Pablo is stripped and still thinks he's the man. He has been very wingey over the last couple of days and I can't work out why. We have played so many games, hidden treats and his normal big walks. We had my friends' dog to stay last weekend and Stu thinks he may be looking for company. He meets and plays with so many other other dogs everyday, but I suppose it's not the same as snuggling up at home.

After

I have been bitten by a nasty mosquito, I know, who'd have thought it in Paisley! But there seems to be a family of them living in our back garden. It is right on my ankle bone and is soooo itchy and swollen, yuk!

So my things to do today are:
List some more jewellery on Etsy
Tidy my desk
Take a note of my stats for the day
Make up some new earrings
Do a spot of online shopping (I have my eye on this top)
Show my little garden a bit of love. I have lettice to plant and some beans!
Do some sketches for the commission


What are your plans for today?
xoxox

Monday 6 July 2009

Let me tell you a story.....

Only 1 day to go untill my new range "Let me tell you a story" is available from the shop! I have been combining gold and aged brass frames with crystal, jet and mother of pearl stones. And I am so excitied about sharing them with you. It feels like this range has been such a long time coming together.


I have had so much fun working on these new designs and it has inspired me to add some new creations to Papier Delights too. (I'll be listing these over the next few days.) I'll away for just now and get everything ready. But I'll hopefully see you tomorrow.

Thursday 2 July 2009

My Etsy Experiment


This necklace, "Evening Garden" is going to be listed tonight in my Etsy shop. It is a beautiful gothic inspired design, using a row of 5 beautiful semiprecious moss agate cubes. The neckalce chain is a fine gunmetal and measures 18".

It's priced at $20, but for all you lovely blog readers, it will be $10! Just type "EG09" into 'notes for seller' and I'll refund you through Paypal. I only have materials to make 5 of these and when they are gone, they are gone!
I'm still working on my new range "Let me tell you a story" an eclectic mixture of my collages and jewellery. I'll be launching the jewels on Tue 7th July at 8am GMT and reopening "Papier Delights" then too.
But now a little insight into how my Etsy experiment has been going, what has worked and what just has not! Brace yourself it's a long one, maybe grab a glass of cold juice.
Week 1 25.05.09 - 01.06.09
My starting stats:
75 sales,
605 hearts
a -10% drop in visits on my Google Analytics report
opening my shop on 1st Oct 2007


I decided on that day that I was going to invest £10 / $16.40 into listing new items and renewing excisting items. And that I was going to read everything I could about selling on Etsy including the Etsy seller handbook, forum posts on marketing, and all the articles in the Storque. This as you can imagine took time, lots of time, but I feel it has really paid off.
*ESH - http://www.etsy.com/storque/how-to/the-etsy-seller-handbook-all-our-how-tos-about-selling-2383/ . I decided on my goal for the experiment - a sale a day. (This always helps to keep me focused.)
Then I decided that if I was going to list 3 new items a day 5 days a week that I better start making! I made up 15 new picecs and started photographing them. It was at this point that I decided I needed to find a new background and retook all my shop listing photos for continuity.
I signed up for Twitter http://www.titter.com/laurabaillie and started looking for some interesting people to follow and started posting little random snippits of infor about my day, and commenting on other peoples posts. I posted a Tweet when I listed a new item and found my item views jumped from 0-5 to 10-15 depending on the time of day. My biggest tip here is not to post links to your shop all the time. It gets dull for your followers and I have found myself unfollowing people who do this.
This led me to look more into my GA stats. I could see there that there were definate times when I was getting more visitors to the shop and decided to capitalise on this, listing at these times. For me here in the UK this meant a few last nights! I could also see more clearly how people were finding my shop, by keywords and referring sites. This allowed me to adapt my tsy listings tags and put more effort into the places people were finding me. Read more here http://www.etsy.com/storque/search/title/google-analytics/ to get the most from your GA stats.

This was where I invested my time in week one, keeping a daily note of all the promoting I did, hearts and sales. And I made 3 sales in my jewellery shop and 4 in my other etsy shop http://www.laurabailliedesigns2.etsy.com so that was 7 sales in total.

My shop hearts had risen to 646 (up by 41) and my GA view % was up to 200%

Ok, so a lot of work for only 7 sales, but for me this was amazing. It was working out as a sale a day which is my new goal and I was delighted!

Week 2

02.06.09 - 09.06.09 I carried on with the same amount of listing, renewing and kept up with Twitter and my GA stats. I went through all my listings and sorted out their tags. Making them more rlevant to the piece. This article really helped me out -http://www.etsy.com/storque/how-to/guidelines-tips-tagging-on-etsy-281/ .This week I made another 13 sales. That is almost 2 sales a day! By this point I was dancing around with every new sale! My shop hearts rose again to 670.

Week 3 10.06.09 - 17.06.09

I made 3 sales, a dramatic drop. This was around the time Etsy changed the way the search engines found our shops. I'm not going into all this here and now but I saw a dramatic drop in views on items, and visiors to my shop. I made a decision this week, there have to be ways around this and good uses of my time just now while things are slow. I dropped the amount of new listings I was putting up and renewing I was doing. This was a difficult decision to make, I wanted to keep myself at the top of categories but at the same time wanted to keep within my budget. I felt a bit discouraged this week, things had been going so well and the SEO thingy just seemed to be messing up my experiment. So I decided to turn this negative to a postive and come up with some new designs and started working on my new range "Let me tell you a story" (launching on 7th July) (shameless plug!!!). My hearts this week rose again to 690.

Week 4 18.06.09 - 25.06.09

Again this week things moved really slowly, another dramatic drop in my views, visits and all round interest. I am totally aware of how things go up and down in retail and the effect the SEO was having on lots of sellers, but again I did not give up. I did still keep listing and renewing to 3 or 4 a day just a my highest visitor times. I kept tweeting and finding new people to follow. So many interesting folks out there, well worth a shot. And generally just tried to keep my spirits hight and focus on the bigger picture - my goal - a sale a day.

This week I made 10 sales. A huge 7 to one customer who found me on someones blog who featured my paper shop and this led them to my jewellery shop. This proved to me how when I keep positive and focused things do happen. Again I spent more time planning my new range and found some new consignment/ wholesale customers. My hearts at the end of this week were 725.

Week 5 26.06.09 - tomorrow

This week has been different to the past 4, I have had computer trouble, which is sorted now. This threw me off a little but meant I have been focused more on making and planning. All systems go again with my internet and I have been listing more and renewing. I am still Tweeting, but definately less than weeks 1 -3. I have spent quite a lot of time this week exploring new venues to sell on, new boutiques to contact (inspired by Plumeadore's forum post http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6201294) And planning my for the launch and my next rough 4 week plan. This week I have made 1 sale and now have 742 shop hearts. This week I have seen quite clearly that when I step back from the intensive promoting and listing new designs, I get less views.

I'm going to carry on this method and will keep posting updates every Friday on my blog http://www.laurabailliedesigns.blogspot.com. Trying new things and tracking what is working and what is not. Overall I have learned some valuable things:

1. The more time, energy and commitment I invest in my Etsy shop the more sales I get.

2. Not to let myself get drawn down when things hit a slump. Use this time to refocus, make and plan.

3. There is so much help and advice aound, taking the time to read it and use it pays off!

xoxox