Not only that it is the world's most vibrant handmade marketplace and the place to buy and sell all the things handmade, but it is such a nice and friendly community, offering you a chance to meet many wonderful people, artist, buyers, journalists.....
I have 2 shops over there, and you can see them on the side bar in my blog. I have joined etsy in 2008. after selling my handmade items: accessories and clothes on ebay for more than 2 years, as we had a major strike organized over there and many sellers, due to the increased ebay fees for selling items, passed from ebay to etsy.
I have started selling mainly hair clips for girls (just like I started on Ebay), but due to the high postage and export duties that my country has (so never could be competitive regarding the postages within US), I never thought that I could make my shop being profitable(I was mainly or loosing money or selling things for nothing, regarding the hair clips) or noticeable by others, being emerged in the sea of the most beautiful handmade items, and some very similar to those I create. But time was passing and I was slowly learning about some tips and features on etsy and how to bring some attention to my items. So, the first and most important thing is the photography of the item, or how it is presented. It is something that attracts attention and make an item being desirable by the potential buyer, or eventually by some blogs and magazines, wanting to feature that item and in that way to promote it better.
After finally opening Iwannabe etsy shop and started selling some plexi ornaments , I begun thinking about listing more on etsy, so I have tried to create some more plexiglass items, as I see this material very inspiring and versatile for many designing ideas. So at the moment, I am working on creating a mobile with my ornaments and some clocks. So hopefully, will have them in the shop next week already:)
Also, those doily ornaments, brought me my first international journal feature, when they were featured in the Country Living magazine in theirs Holiday Dec/Jan. issue. I was contacted for this feature through the etsy and they suggested me finding someone in the US to carry my ornaments as I will have more sales. So I did, and my doily ornaments were produced directly in the USA and are shipping to some US clients and I have some great plans with them, but will see what happens.
I have also opened the third etsy shop where I will soon be selling some of my prints, photos and similar surface items:)
What I wanted to say is that if you have some nice ideas - handmade products, you should try etsy. There are some tips and links beside having the nice photo of your product and I will share them here as I got some convos from some people living near me, so this can be useful(I almost all of it learned from my friend Zorica of 3FUN ...THANK you Zoe!!!)
1. when listing an item, there are 14 tags-use them all, it will help your product being more visible for different search options
2. make TREASURY list or TREASURY WEST list and here is a link on how to create them
3. poster sketch
this link is the poster sketch - you can create your list of favourite items within it, arranging the items easily and than use to at the moment of getting your treasury list
4. links to see treasury lists: both those featured on the FP (Front page)and current treasury lists made by other etsy members
vault
craftopolis
5. promoving your etsy shop on facebook
Have a great weekend
♫♪ ♫♪ ♥♥♥ ♫♪ ♫♪
Katarina
Hvala ti za ove savete, bas puno znace nama koji se jos bojimo i ne razumemo mnogo Etsy :)
ReplyDeleteI vidis, kako se za takve sajtove mora vec unapred razmisljati ... sta je sledeci praznik.
Thanks! That was helpful information!
ReplyDeleteTHANK you;)))
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