100 Hearts

It happened on Saturday, I had been holding at the 99 Hearts mark for what seemed like forever (actually 4 days) and then, there is was, 100 hearts.

However, hearts do not always equal sales. I wish you were allowed to send notices or sales information to these 100 fans, but in the World of Etsy this is considered spamming.

Oh well, off to work on my next 100 hearts, which hopefully will not take another 1 1/2 to accomplish.

Look What I Found

So this morning I was reading through The Storque section in Etsy regarding shop makeovers and browsing the forums for some business tips when someone's question caught my eye. She had asked if there was a way to quickly copy a similiar item in their shop when creating a new listing . Another shop owner mentioned an individual who built some very cool tools for his wife's Etsy Shop.

If you currently have a presence on Etsy, you should check him out...

#!etsyhacks

Below are some of his popular hacks:

• copy listing - create a new listing based on an existing one.
• item zoom - adds a zoom icon to images in search and shop listings.
• edit this item - edit or delete a listing from the View Listing page.
• buyer info - add extra information to the "buyer" box on a receipt page.
• forum wrangler - add extra features to the Etsy forum pages.

Now if he could only write a script to let you edit an expired listing before relisting...

Back to Work

Now that Hurricane Ike is moving past South Florida, it's time for me to get back to work. I will hope that the storm just dies out in the Gulf, but I'm afraid the news may not be good for the folks along the Gulf states.



I've been working on some projects which I will be photographing and posting this week on Esty. I also have a few things going on to grow my business again and attract an audience in time for the holiday shopping season. Some of those items (which I be writing about in the upcoming weeks) include:

• Project Wonderful
• Frequent listings and relisting on Etsy
• Count Me in Campaign
• Indie Designer Showcase
• Indie Holiday Gift Guide

To Storque or Not To Storque - Part 2

The other day I posted on the topic of purchasing two weekend spots on Etsy's Storque Showcase. I decided that I was going to keep track of hearts, sales and views (however I forgot to track the views from the previous week). I also participated in the Saturday Night Special, (I ran a 20% off on my Words of Wisdom Collection http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5628867&section_id=5496899). To further complicate things, I also listed an item, but since it has only received 4 views as of this morning, I am going to guess that it was not a major draw to my site. http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14355343

So the results are:

Sales - 0

Favorite Seller Hearts - 7 (I believe one was from the SNS)

Views (since this past Saturday) The first column is the previous views (* denotes the Words of Wisdom Items), the second column is the number of views as of this morning:

14 / 51

9 / 16

31 / 40

19 / 33

11 / 14

58 / 62

22 / 24

26 / 29

74 / 82*

66 / 73*

282 / 285

120 / 123

73 / 78*

85 / 92*

90 / 95*

So what are the lessons that we have learned? Well as a comment from Silver Canyons: Personally, I think it would be better to relist one or two items a day. That will keep you active and get people to see your store more frequently that just showcasing for a day. At $0.20 a pop to relist, it sounds like the better way to go. Think of how many items you can relist. It would be way cheaper than dropping $7-$15 dollars just hoping someone see's you shop. I personally never even look at showcases. Just my humble opinion :):)

Silver Canyons...so true...Sigh

Smokey Quartz and Hammered Silver Necklace

Trying to follow some of the tips I have listed on previous posts:

http://hmmills.blogspot.com/2008/07/avatar-question-product-photo-or-shop.html

http://hmmills.blogspot.com/2008/07/success-on-etsy.html

...I have added a listing the other day to my Esty Shop: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=13537512.

Last week there was a post in the Etsy Forums regarding the Treasury, someone wanted to know why it always seems that the same artists appear in Treasuries that are then post on the home front page. A successful artist responded that it was a combination of a great product, but most importantly she has great photos which is why folk pick her items for a treasury. (Wish I had Bookmarked that post.)

So, as I am looking at this pic, I am still debating the white background verse a texture or printed background. I think this pic looks washed-out and is just, oh how to say it....boring, unimaginative and doesn't shout out, "Buy Me!" I added this item on 7/20/2008 and in four days I have had four views.

Oh how the Picture Taking Gods mock me!