Using Etsy Effectively - FRIDAY FINDS

Today’s Friday finds is for the Etsy shop that made me fall in love with Etsy in the first place!

www.etsy.com/shop/mudcards

Mud Cards by Keren Mudahi is located in Tel Aviv, Isreal. 

Mud Cards creates amazingly adorable wedding cake toppers out of clay!  She asks you to send her a picture of yourself and your fiancé.  You then send a picture (or describe) your planned wedding outfits, flowers, and wedding veil style. You can choose to add your child, a pet, or a shout out to a hobby that you share as a couple.

I used a cake topper from Mud Cards for my own wedding back in March 2014.  My personal topper included myself, my now-husband, and our cat, Athena.  Keren managed to capture our likenesses perfectly! It was so much fun to see myself turned into a Claymation character!  She even got my wedding dress down perfectly. Every detail of my dress was carefully included, such as the shape of the bodice, and the sparkly details throughout the gown. 

The cake topper was a big hit at the wedding. Many of my guests felt compelled to take pictures of it!

Keren takes a couple of weeks to create your cake topper and then ships it to you using 3 week regular shipping, or 1 week express shipping. I procrastinated on my purchase and she was extremely helpful in making sure that I chose express shipping so that I received my cake topper in time for my wedding.

Overall, Keren provided amazing customer service. I sent her a message on Etsy to ask questions about her work, and she answered my query in a matter of hours.  Before she listed the cake topper on Etsy for me to purchase, she sent me an image to double check that all the details were correct.  At first I was disappointed to see that the little cat had been painted more brown than grey, a detail that was lost because of the quality of the image that I had sent her of my cat.  However, Keren was great about this! She simply informed me that she would need a day or two to fix it, and re-painted the cat to perfectly match Athena!  I was amazed by her quick responses and attention to detail!

My cake topper ended up being my favorite piece of decoration from my wedding. It now lives on top of my dresser, so that I can see it every day! If you are in the market for a cute, unique wedding cake topper, check out www.etsy.com/shop/mudcards.

Thank you for reading this week's Friday Finds. I hope everyone has an amazing weekend! My husband and I are off to celebrate the long Columbus day weekend by visiting my brother and his girlfriend in New York City! Remember to check out my Etsy shop at  www.etsy.com/shop/peartreestitches

How to Use Social Media for Your Etsy Shop: FACEBOOK FAN PAGES

Yesterday, I embarked on an epic social media frenzy, and it is already a little overwhelming.  I am familiar with Facebook and Pinterest, but my social media expertise pretty much ends there.  I have had a personal Instagram for about a year and a half, but I never remember to use hashtags. As a result my only followers are some of my real life friends.  I created a Twitter years ago, but I have only ever tweeted out two tweets.  So yesterday it was time to do some research and dive in! Here is what I have learned so far!

Social media is really important for an Etsy business.  Sure, people will find your Etsy shop by searching on Etsy, but those finds will be few and far between.  Also, if you simply post your wares to Etsy and do not advertise them anywhere else, the only people who will ever buy your products are people who already regularly use Etsy.  To be successful, you need to show off your crafts to a wider demographic.  Creating an Etsy account to buy an item that you love is quick and easy and likely will not deter any tech savvy people who see an item that you posted on Facebook and just have to have it!

The tricky part of social media is that each platform is different. Each has it’s own unique demographic of regular users, and each has it’s own best methods for making sure that your posts get out there and get seen. Over the next few posts, I will break down what I have learned so far about each social media site. Today, I am starting off with Facebook!

Facebook –  www.facebook.com/PearTreeStitches

Facebook is great for introducing all of your friends and family to your new Etsy shop.  You can quickly create a fan page, invite all of your Facebook friends, and load up your fan page with pictures of your products and links to your store.

I like to create albums for each type of product that I sell on Etsy.  In these albums, I post my Etsy project pictures with a unique link to that product’s Etsy page in the photo’s description.

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 I try to limit my Facebook posts to twice a day. One in the morning, so that people will see it when they are scrolling through their phones on their coffee breaks at work, and one at around 4 or 5 pm.  I do not want to post more frequently than this because I do not want to lose Facebook fans by cluttering up people’s new feed with my overzealous crafting posts!

I also do not bother to post on the weekends. Facebook fan pages track how many people have seen your post, and I have found that when I post on weekday afternoons, I am able to reach a lot of people, but when I post between 5 pm on Friday and 8 am on Monday, hardly anyone sees my post at all .

Facebook basically boils down to knowing when to post, and making it as easy as possible for your Facebook fans to navigate their way from an image of a product that they like on Facebook to the ability to purchase the item on Etsy. 

So far, I have made 7 sales and ALL OF THEM have happened because one of my Facebook fans discovered something that they liked on Facebook BEFORE traveling over to Etsy to buy it.

I highly recommend creating a Facebook fan page for your Etsy shop! It is a great place to start when you are just beginning to build your Etsy following!

Next time, I will go over using Instagram! Until then, please check out my Etsy shop at: www.etsy.com/shop/PearTreeStitches.

Thank you for reading!

Building Your Etsy Business Tip #9 - Organizing Your Etsy Shop into Shop Sections

Personal Note: Every thing happens all at once. After I spent four months at home, patiently searching for a job while preparing to open my Etsy business, both efforts were rewarded at the same time! Unfortunately, for this blog that has meant a rocky start, as I have not had much extra time.  I now spend my days substitute teaching and my nights furiously sewing to build my Etsy inventory and to prepare for all of the upcoming craft fairs that I am now registered for.  This will mean inconsistent posts in this blog, as I work out the kinks of my suddenly extremely busy schedule. Thank you for bearing with me!

ETSY SHOP SECTIONS

Today I will be talking about setting up Shop Sections in your Etsy shop.

Your Etsy shop may contain mostly similar products. For example, all of my listings right now are fabric bags and purses.  Maybe you only make crochet items, or maybe you only make earrings. Even so, it is important to divide your Etsy shop into sections, because if an item catches a potential Etsy buyer’s eye, you want them to quickly and easily see all of the products that are most similar to the product they are interested in.  This is important because the entirety of your product line will not appeal to all of your customers all of the time.  For example in my shop, people who come to shop for sports-related items:

are probably not the same people who are going to buy a bag with owls, cats, or monsters printed on it:

To make it easier for Etsy shoppers to find the bag designs that they are most interested in, I have divided my Etsy Shop into Shop Categories.  You can always edit your categories, so just divide your projects into something that makes sense to you, and see if this organization system works for your shoppers!

As of October 7, 2014, my shop is divided into five sections; Sports Fan Bags, Pretty Print Bags, Halloween Bags, Christmas Bags, and Cute Critter Bags.  I have a few bags in the Halloween category that could work for the whole fall season or even year round. When Halloween is over, I will simply alter the category listing for these bags so that they are easier to find.

You can easily add your items to shop sections when you first list the item. However, this tutorial assumes that you have posted several items for sale without adding anything to the “Shop Section Category”.

Creating Shop Sections is really easy! Below, I have listed the steps required to do so!

1. Open an item on your Etsy page and select “Edit”.

2. Scroll down to below where you entered your product description and find the box labeled “Shop Section”

 3. Select “Add a section to your shop” and type in a name for your section. Remember, this name will be public, so make sure it is spelled correctly and will make sense to Etsy shoppers!

 If you want to add your item to a section that you have already created, simply select it from the drop down menu.

 4. Now scroll down, and select “Preview Listing”

5. You can now check if your item was placed in the correct Shop Section and Click “Publish”

6. Repeat this process for each of your Etsy items until your shop is organized!

It is best to start organizing your shop into sections in the early days of your Etsy business to save yourself the time that it will take to go through and edit each individual item later.

I hope that you find this tutorial helpful. Now get over to Etsy and start organizing!

Until next time, please check out my Etsy shop at www.etsy.com/shop/PearTreeStitches and follow me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/PearTreeStitches. Happy Crafting!

Starting an Etsy Business - FRIDAY FINDS!

Etsy is a community of crafters. One of the best ways to promote your own Etsy shop is to make connections with other Etsy sellers. Other Etsy sellers can offer advice on how to promote your listings, inspire you to create new items, and can offer you cute items to add to your own personal collection!

Starting this week, my Friday blog posts will be a review of another Etsy store that I love!  Usually, this review will be from an Etsy shop that I have either personally purchased an item from, or have been gifted an item from.

This week I would like to feature Jolene Elizs’ Stitches!  Jolene is a friend of mine who recently moved out to San Diego.  When she arrived, she started to dramatically rev up her Etsy business (www.etsy.com/shop/JoleneElizsStitches).

Jolene Elizs’ Stitches features unique hand-crochet items, including bowls, baskets, blankets, bracelets, decorative flowers and pet costumes.  Her designs are adorable, and her work is very high quality.

I recently purchased and received this amazing crochet pumpkin basket!

Unfortunately for you, this basket was one of a kind and I got it! However, the construction is very similar to Jolene Elizs’ Stitches other crochet bowls and baskets. Jolene uses two different strands of yarn for the base of her baskets and bowls to ensure that they remain sturdy. 

The shipping on this item from San Diego to Massachusetts was fast. Jolene Elizs’ Stitches packed my pumpkin basket in a sturdy box, so that it maintained its structure during the shipping process. I would definitely recommend that you check out her Etsy shop at (www.etsy.com/shop/JoleneElizsStitches) and like her Facebook fan page at (www.facebook.com/JoleneElizsStitches) for all of your customized crochet needs!

Thank you for reading! Until next time, check out my Etsy shop at (www.etsy.com/shop/PearTreeStitches) and like Pear Tree Stitches on Facebook at (www.facebook.com/PearTreeStitches).