Etsy - Marketing Tips

This is another hard one, because some of it just comes down to having a good sense of things. You can't teach that. But I'll try to help.

Today we are going to talk about the actual Etsy listings. Specifically, the pictures and the text.

(Sorry about the weird hugeness of this picture. I wanted you to be able to see it well.)

Pictures

The main picture is the most important. It's the one that shows up as the thumbnail when you're searching, and it's the very first impression that anyone will get of your product. It should look good in both thumbnail and large size. It should also be well taken. (More later.)

The side pictures, while not as critical, are still important. Don't just load one or two. Use all five slots every time. People are buying this online. They won't make the purchase unless they're convinced by the listing that it's something they'll like when they handle it in real life. The best way to do that is to give as many pictures as possible. 

The hardest part about a post on pictures is teaching what's good and what's not. If you don't know anything about photography, you won't notice little things that make all the difference to someone else. 

I'm certainly no expert, but I've lived with several photographers in my various apartments. So I consider myself a professional amateur. In other words, I have no idea what I'm doing in terms of real art. I couldn't even take someone's bridal pics without making a mess of it. 

BUT

I do know just enough to give me an edge when we're talking about regular every day people. 

I'm going to give some good examples and some bad examples. I'll try to explain them a little, but I'm afraid a lot of this will be up to you, since it's mainly a visual thing.

2 Disclaimers:

- These are my pics, but I usually delete the worst of the worst, so I don't have any really excellent personal examples of terrible things. We're going to have to make due with semi-terrible examples. 

- This isn't a "how to make professional pictures" course. Remember that cool black backgrounded hallows pic from yesterday? Yeah, that's not what we're doing. My point is to give a few tips to people who don't have a studio and a 500 dollar camera. So every time I say "good" I mean perfectly decent for the average person.

Good. Reasons: It looks good as a thumbnail, the colors are bright but natural, and it very clearly shows exactly what the purchaser will get.

Bad. Reason: weird shadows. People very frequently forget to check for weird shadows. 

Good. Reasons: Framing. (Mostly. Admittedly it isn't perfect, but it's pretty good.) All of the things in this picture are cut off at some point, but they're in it at angles and in positions that make it look nice instead of "whoops, I zoomed in too far."

Bad. Reasons: All sorts of washed out. The flash was too close, so it smothered everything with bright light. You can't see any of the details because it's just too... whited out. 

Bad. Reason: Blurry. Yes, it's only very slightly blurry. You can't even really tell when the picture is small. So no biggie, right? Most people won't notice it. Well, they won't ... not outright anyway. But they will notice that something seems weird. It's hard to look at it. People don't like to buy things from blurry pictures. It turns them off and doesn't give your work a chance to shine. Blurry pictures are the worst kind. And slightly blurry pictures are the biggest problem within that category.

Bad. Reason: Too dark. When there's not enough lighting, it's just as bad as when the flash washes it out. You can't see the details and the colors the way they need to be. 

Good. Reason: Because interesting things are going on. It's not just a straight shot of the bookmark on a boring solid background. It's being shown in use, with other related objects around it to set a scene. 

Well, I think that's the best we can do with the pictures. I hope it helped a little.

Text

This text part is going to be much easier. I only have a few tips here which I think will cover everything important. 

First, the title. 

It has to be descriptive enough to interest people, but short, sweet, and easy enough to be quickly taken in. 

12 3/4" Bellatrix Lestrange Wand

That is a good title. Tells you exactly what you get without verbosity. Or

12" Harry Potter Wand - Leather Grip

Again, gives us an idea and showcases one of the interesting features, but doesn't over-do it. 

What would be a bad title?

Gorgeous wand of approximately 12 inches in the style of that used by Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter movies

This is a real one that I just got off of etsy at random:

Love Bracelet : Dear Diary... Original Silver Handwritten Cursive Wire LOVE Bracelet with Brown Cotton Cord, Adjustable Closure, Crimp Beads

Bad, bad, bad. Why? 

A) Too dang long. People don't want to have to wade through bad prose or lengthy discourses just to see what objects are for sale. (With the one I snatched from etsy, I had to try three times just to read it all the way through. I kept wandering off.) 

The title is not the place for tag lines, witty hooks, or sealing the deal on the purchase. They just have to catch your eye (quickly and easily) and spark your interest.

B) Again with the search engines. People aren't going to type gorgeous wand into the box. The more clear and specific you are, the better the chance that their keywords will catch your product. 

These are common problems with the description as well. 

Now, I have read a few blogs and etsy help pages that tell you to flower it up in your item description. After all, it is a sales pitch. This is where you want to give all the information that a person will need to decide whether to buy your product. 

But honestly, I'm gonna go with a 'don't do it' on this one. Just don't. When you get all prosey, it makes you sound like those radio commercials for Kay Jewellers or something. And no one listens to those. It also makes you sound pretentious. 

(Real from etsy) Example:

Deep deep red and beautifully faceted quartz gemstones
sit on matte silver rings and hang from sterling silver hoops. The 
gemstones measure 12 x 13 mm and have a timeless appeal to them 
and make a perfect Valentine's Day gift......

A) She needed to back off on her ellipses a little. Also the run-on sentence.

B) When I am considering buying something, I just want to know what it is, how big it is, what it's made of, etc. It's harder to find that stuff when it's encased in timeless appeals and beautiful facets. If the facets really are beautiful, I can tell from the picture. You don't need to remind me, in case I forgot in the 3 seconds since I was just looking at it. 

I personally do a list with a short catch line. (See picture above.)

Yeah, I know. It's not very artsy. But it gets all the information there in an easy list, and allows people more time to look at the pictures, and less time deciphering what I mean by deep deep red. (As opposed to just deep red, which is different apparently). 

Having a list instead of prose will not lose you any sales. Most people won't decide not to buy your product based solely on the lack of fancy wording. However, having unintelligible prose might actually drive customers away. They won't buy what they can't understand. 

Well, that's all I've got for now. If anyone has any more etsy questions, feel free to ask. (I can't guarantee that I'll know the answer, but you certainly are welcome to ask anyway.)

Etsy - Product

In this post we're going to talk a little about two things: Quality and Pricing.

Quality:

Not everyone is cut out to sell their craft experiments. Unfortunately, these people often try to anyway. Let's start out with some show and tell. These are real products from etsy. (Yes, one is mine, but the rest are not.)


Actually quite cool.

The Worst. Ever. I don't even know what to say about this.










Nice. Decent. (I admit, this is the one that's mine. Yes, I'm using it as the good example.)






Heinous. And really, really tiny. What the heck are you supposed to do with a 1 inch wand and a resurrection stone the size of a fingernail?





No, I'm sorry, but this is not Johnny Depp.

Also, I'm pretty sure his eyes actually line up with each other. I will not pay 135$ for a portrait of Quasi Modo.












Neither is this.

I mean, if we were going for abstract or surrealist or something, this would be great. But selling this as Johnny Depp? Just... No.

This... This is what Johnny looks like. This is good. This I would buy. (If I wasn't broke.) It's like 1/3 of the price of the others, too.











Are you getting the idea?

It's hard. There's not really I lot I can say about quality. How do you tell someone to only make quality things without just saying "only make quality things"? Anyway, quality is one of those things that is really obvious in other people's stuff, and hardly ever in our own.

Just make sure you're not selling lame crap and pretending it's good. Be hard on yourself. I'm my own worst critic, but I think that's what makes me produce marketable stuff.


Price:


We're going to start with a photo example on this one too, but there will actually be words following it.

This is $4.99, but actually very nice looking.

(I'm going to refer back to this one tomorrow when I talk about pictures.)






This is $210

Which would you get?







And these, I just had to add because of their what-the-heck factor:

$157? Maybe it's supposed to be high art of some kind?













And this is only $8, but why is it even real? Why? (I'm coming back to this one later.)






Pricing products for etsy is really hard to do. You have make it cost enough to cover your expenses and make it worth your time. But you also have to make it cheap enough that people will consider getting it.

The first two
are examples of how price can affect your choice of product. This seems kind of obvious and common sensical, but hear me out.

When I see the 210 dollar hallows sign I say "Cool. Dang, it's $210. Oh well." (And sometimes I go on to wonder how it could possibly cost that much to make such a little thing in the first place.)

But when I see the 4.99 one (or honestly, any of the nice looking ones under 20$) I actually stop and think "I could get that. Should I get that? No, I shouldn't. But I want to. I could. Maybe if I... No, I shouldn't. But I want to..."

That's what you want people to do. If the price fits the product just right, you'll drag people in. And people who have a little more money and a little less self control won't even get that far. They'll just hit buy, pay for it, and think later.

Humans are total suckers for good price deals. Make something a bargain, and they can't resist, even if they know they don't need it.

The second two
pictures demonstrate this: know your product.

I saw a shawl the other say that was selling for 1,250 U.S. dollars. Yes, I know that knitting isn't easy. It's time consuming, and it's detailed work. But no one, and I really mean no one, should ever have to pay a thousand dollars for a woolen shawl. And there aren't a lot of people who are going to.

Shawls are not big buck items.

For some reason, people will really shell out for paintings, but they have to actually be good. They are big buck items.

Charm bracelets are not.

Photographs are. (Again, only if they're good.)

Hairbows are not.

Keychains are not.

Quality jewelry is.

Plush toys are not.

That ugly 1 inch wand and resurrection stone (sliver, more like)... girl was asking 49.95 for it. Honest. You can look it up. Will anyone ever pay it? Maybe when those flying pigs advance into space travel.

It's the hard truth. But even if you spend forty agonizing hours on your harry potter wand (which, lets really hope you didn't), and plan on charging minimum wage, people just aren't going to buy it for 300 dollars. They just aren't.

This is where that heinous deathly hallows sign comes back in. There are other hallows signs that are nice, made of metal, are obviously well crafted. People would gladly pay 8 dollars for them. But that one? Cheap, fragile, and downright ugly. Not worth 8 dollars even if you threw in free shipping.

Be smart about it. If you want to sell, you have to be reasonable in your pricing. It might hurt a little, when you think of hours spent, effort expended, the care and the hard work that you put in. And by all means, do not cheat yourself. If  raw materials cost you 10 bucks, never charge less than 10 bucks.

But the rich and famous don't shop on etsy. Mike Tyson isn't here to spend a ten billion dollar paycheck on some bling.

Like I said, choosing the right price is hard to do. Especially for artists. We have some kind of inner need to price our stuff like it was in a museum and not an online trinket store. But don't do it.

Make it cost enough to cover your expenses. Give yourself a decent profit margin. And stop while you're ahead.



That is all for today. I have one more coming tomorrow. Tune in for some marketing tips, including photography and wording.

Etsy - Platform

The first thing you need when you want to start an etsy shop is a good platform. It needs to be specific and unique. After all, you're competing against about a zillion other crafty people out there who all think that they have something worth buying. What is it about your stuff that makes it stand out?

Ask yourself these questions:

• What am I selling?
• Who will buy it?
• Why will they buy it?

My Shop:

My shop is successful. I define success loosely, of course. I don't make millions, and will never be an independent corporation. But in my case it means that 44 people from 6 different countries have bought and loved what I sell. Some of them come back for more. When I post items, people buy them. I turn a profit, even if it's not on a large scale.

What am I selling?

Harry Potter Wands, and occasional other nerdy paraphernalia. But mainly wands. This is an important aspect to note. A shop that has a motley collection of everything is going to have a harder time selling things.

There are a lot of reasons for this. One of them is Skill. Practice one thing, and you get good at it. You learn and grow and become able to really excel.

Another is reputation. If you get good at something, people will come back for more. But if you just tinker in any random thing, without any sort of logical connection, you're forgettable.

A third reason is the search engine. This is an online business. People browse by keyword. If they want to look at wands, and I only have one wand amongst a million other things, they might not even see it. But if they do, they probably won't stay. I don't want to look through 45 hair bows and 16 combs just to get to a deathly hallows symbol. 

Specific. Focused. That will get you started.

Who Will Buy It?

My target audience is nerds, obviously. But that isn't quite good enough. There is a whole wide internet world of nerdy goods that are ready for the buying. I need to narrow my focus.

So my target audience, specifically, is young nerds. College students who don't have money to buy 100$ wands. Teens who live on babysitting money. Moms who wouldn't dream of handing a fancy schmancy 75$ stick of wood to their 6-year-old.

Again, specific and focused.

Why Will They Buy It?

This is the crux of the platform. What is it about your product that will make it different from all of the other choices out there? Why should someone pick yours?

My unique catch is really about the money. It's easy to find wands online, but it isn't easy to find nice ones that cost less than 50$. Trust me, I looked. In fact, looking is what got me into making wands in the first place. I said to myself "That much? Are you kidding me? Jeez, I could make it myself for less than that... hey! That's an idea."

Wands everywhere, even on etsy, are either nice but exorbitantly priced, or crap (and sometimes still exorbitantly priced.) That's where I come in. I make wands that look good.

(Not to toot my own horn, but they do.)

And I don't charge through the nose for them.

Yes, I could ask for more. The hours I put into them certainly justifies that. But I wouldn't sell so many if I did. Broke nerds deserve just as much of a chance to be ridiculous as rich nerds. And 6-year-olds shouldn't be stuck with ugly plastic junk, just because people are more concerned with money than fun.

At any rate, it does NOT cost 70 bucks to make those wands. Most of those people do it on a lathe, too. Plug in the machine, hold a knife to the wood, and bam, suddenly the 2$ stick becomes a precious gem. Whatever.

Anyway, that's my main selling point. That's what keeps people coming back. That's what makes them choose me instead of someone else.

What is your platform?

Coming tomorrow: Product, a discussion on quality and pricing.