Anyone Have An Etsy Shop?

[HellcatLeathers]

Does anyone on here have an Etsy shop? I just signed up and opened one and put a few items in there for starters.

Check it out and let me know what you think: http://www.etsy.com/shop/HellcatLeathers

Any suggestions on how to promote my Etsy shop? I'm putting it all over my Facebook page and my Hellcat Leathers Facebook page as well.

Oh well, time to get back to the tooling bench.....this little elf has some belts to make this weekend!

Ciao!

[Matthew S]

I have a shop. Check out this book (literally, your local library might have a copy...mine did):

How To Sell Your Crafts Online

It has a heavy focus on Etsy and provides a lot of good ideas and tips for marketing your store.

Good luck.

[azrider]

I didn't really start getting traffic on Etsy untill I had about 100 items in the shop. They just don't show up in the searches. The big thing I noticed on your shop was that your listings don't say that you take paypal. If you are listing online, most people want the buy it now options. I would recomend adding paypal, and a lot more inventory. It took me almost a year to build my inventory, take pictures, and make new listings. Check out your shop stats through Etsy or google analytics. See what people are searching for, and make sure you use every tag you can, and have the key ones in the listing title. Good luck!

[HellcatLeathers]

I didn't really start getting traffic on Etsy untill I had about 100 items in the shop. They just don't show up in the searches. The big thing I noticed on your shop was that your listings don't say that you take paypal. If you are listing online, most people want the buy it now options. I would recomend adding paypal, and a lot more inventory. It took me almost a year to build my inventory, take pictures, and make new listings. Check out your shop stats through Etsy or google analytics. See what people are searching for, and make sure you use every tag you can, and have the key ones in the listing title. Good luck!

Thanks for your comments and advice! I thought it would motivate me more to get more inventory going by putting the shop on Etsy first, then building the inventory as I go. I don't take Paypal and I never will. I know this will impact sales, but that is okay for now. Eventually I hope to be able to accept credit card payments. (Paypal and Ebay have screwed me out of so much money in the past I will never use either one of them again.)

I have a shop. Check out this book (literally, your local library might have a copy...mine did):

How To Sell Your Crafts Online

It has a heavy focus on Etsy and provides a lot of good ideas and tips for marketing your store.

Good luck.

Thanks for the tip on that book. I put it in my Amazon cart already.

Can I search for your Etsy shop by name?

[Matthew S]

Can I search for your Etsy shop by name?

Yup. Marotte Leather. It should come up, and if it doesn't, please let me know. :-)

[Ann McGrath]

I also have an Etsy shop, although I haven't managed to sell anything through it yet.

Must go back and photograph stuff, write descriptions (that's the part I do badly), post the photos and descriptions, and see if anything happens this time.

[Spinner]

If you want a great example of how to make Etsy work, check out Tom Banwell's shop. Aside from having popular products, he also has very nice photos and the description & title are complete & to the point. Someone doesn't get 26,000+ admirers and 6000+ sales without doing something very right. http://www.etsy.com/shop/TomBanwell

No Paypal or credit card acceptance are going to be huge lost sales points though. Not many folks go for the order online & send me a check thing these days.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Spinner

[CicadaLeatherDesigns]

I have an Etsy shop. I opened it a few months ago so it has yet to be profitable. I hope that with time, increased amount of products, and a little exposure, it will all be worth it. I am not sure that Etsy is the best place for me. It requires both Etsy membership and paypal account so I worry that that is a deterrent for customers. So I made a separate website on Big Cartel. Time will tell which is best for me.

http://cicadaleathercompany.bigcartel.com/

http://www.etsy.com/shop/CicadaLeatherCompany?ref=si_shop

[electrathon]

It is hard to imagine anyone buying in this day if you do not take paypal or credit cards. The me, if someone says they will not take credit cards what I hear is that they do horrible work and get tons of complaints so they get charge backs. In order to stop this they demand money orders so that no matter how unreputible they are, money gets collected.

This may not be the case with you, but as a consumer, I assume it to be true. I then buy from someone else.

I buy and have sold many thousands of dollars worth of stuff online in hundreds of transactions. I have been ripped off once (ironically from a guy on this site). He convinced me he would not use paypal, I sent him money, never got the tool I bought. I will never again send anyone money directly.

[benlilly1]

As far as Ebay and Paypal screwing you...do you mean the charges for selling and using their system? If I've ever had a problem Ebay and Paypal have ALWAYS fixed it for me. I haven't had trouble with them. If we didn't use Ebay my husbands business would be 3/4 of what it is. I think the charges are cheap for getting it in the face of millions! It has also increased his hits and sales on his website. I feel safe with both Ebay and Paypal. Just my opinion.

Thanks for your comments and advice! I thought it would motivate me more to get more inventory going by putting the shop on Etsy first, then building the inventory as I go. I don't take Paypal and I never will. I know this will impact sales, but that is okay for now. Eventually I hope to be able to accept credit card payments. (Paypal and Ebay have screwed me out of so much money in the past I will never use either one of them again.)

Thanks for the tip on that book. I put it in my Amazon cart already.

Can I search for your Etsy shop by name?