Marketing your item on ebay, craigslist, etsy............

[CollinsMS]

I am going to give you some information that will be considered highly controversial. What I am going to tell you happens every day and is widely practiced by marketing companies that tailor to small business. I am not looking for business even though I do this type of work, and what I am going to tell you is almost considered a secret in my industry and my fellow workers would kill me for telling you this.

It doesn't matter were your selling your product. What matters is that you realize you are selling to the world. When you place an item for sale on the Internet your no longer in a defined area of the country, you are literally selling to the world. Everyone knows about ebay but not about you and your product. Ebay listings are so huge it may take a buyer all night to look at every listing for lets say a holster. Most people will do the best they can and use some key words when they want to buy a leather holster. They will then look through a few pages and then either give up or buy the first thing that is close to what they want. If you own your own web site this process is even worse. Now you have to rely on the search engines and hope they send a person your direction. If you don't know how to manipulate the search engines no one will find you.

So here is how small and even some medium sized business work. Lets say I am ABC company and I produce leather goods. However in the last month my Ruger holster sales have dropped. I want to promote that product on the internet. So I go out and hire Jane Marketing expert. She finds out about the details of my holster. She then goes to work promoting.

What Jane does is very controversial. She finds every forum related to shooting, SASS, Ruger, Cowboy Action, Reenactments, and others. She creates an account on every forum, this could be 100 forums. (( There is a forum for everything )) She then starts posting comments to conversations already going on the forum. Someone may say I like XYZ Ruger holster. She will post back saying XYZ is ok but I just purchased a holster from ABC and it is much better. Now she just made a bunch of people mad. However at the bottom of her post she puts a tag line. I just purchased my ABC holster from: www.website.com.

Next thing you know ABC company starts seeing their web hits go through the roof. Everyone wants to see the ABC holster even if they posted they like XYZ. So the ABC company is happy now their web site is being viewed, and their holster sales are up. Jane is happy because she just made a chunk of money and the client is happy with her work. It's possible to generate an extra 100 or more web site hits a day. Over a week the hits will drop off but their is always a forum member who has not checked in for a week or more, then the process starts all over again.

Now many of you are going to say that this practice is underhanded and should not be allowed..... It is marketing, period.. In the marketing world just about anything goes. The reason Jane is in business is it may take 2 -5 days to promote an item. As the manufacture you don't have time to spend 2-5 days marketing your item.

All forums have this happen. I have seen it on this forum and I chuckle when I see it. The only reason I am telling you this is because I am a 3rd generation leather worker. I don't sell my items because I am busy in the Internet world. I am also telling you this because mt last post about a Leather Consortium came with a lot of opposition. I am trying to help a group of people that I believe struggles with the import market and should know what they are up against.

Thanks

Mark

http://www.theleathercraftsman.com/catalog.html

[Johanna]

All forums have this happen. I have seen it on this forum and I chuckle when I see it. The only reason I am telling you this is because I am a 3rd generation leather worker. I don't sell my items because I am busy in the Internet world. I am also telling you this because mt last post about a Leather Consortium came with a lot of opposition. I am trying to help a group of people that I believe struggles with the import market and should know what they are up against.

Thanks

Mark

Hey Mark, I don't have a dog in this fight, and it feels like you are trying to pick a fight with me. No one at LW is discouraging you from your ambition. We wish you the best of luck with your catalog and hope leatherworkers sell a bunch of stuff! We remind people all the time why they should fill out their profiles, and put their links in their signatures here on LW, and we encourage people to introduce themselves and tell us what they do. Many of our members are not anonymous- they use their own name or their business name. I've been told that LW has generated a few sales. And that's one of the reasons LW was founded for in the first place....to keep leatherworkers from having to get day jobs. So knock off the negativity, apparently we both have benevolent goals, only you're coming off sounding rather confrontational. I have no idea what was said between you and the other members, but I've got no bones to pick with you. You aren't being censored or told what to do, and you're free to discuss your business on the board. We know trolling and spamming when we see it, and the folks in green are good at making the distinction. Otherwise you wouldn't be here, right?

I repeat GOOD LUCK with your project. You obviously understand SEO. This site gets about 2000 unique vistitors a day, and less than 5% of those come from search engines. Yet every day new members say they found us with Google. Obviously I have a lot to learn, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who would benefit from a tutorial written by you on how to increase website rankings and get search engines to find your site. Many of us are more adept at pounding cows than keyboards, so if you can teach us how to be better business people on the Internet, we would really appreciate it. When I had a shop there was no Internet, and we were limited to a certain geographical area for sales. No leatherworker needs to be limited like that- a website can be better than a yellow page ad or a billboard. Teach us how to build user friendly sites and market them well.

Your friend in leather,

Johanna

[CollinsMS]

Johanna I'm not fighting with you or trying to fight. I have been reading peoples posts about marketing and a lot of discussion about Etsy. After reading all the posts it became apparent that not everyone understands how people drive business to their web site or to their Etsy or ebay site. This post was informational only. If someone want's to post something on my site and send traffic back here then everyone is the winner and I welcome it. The internet is a global marketplace, if someone doesn't know how to drive traffic to your or my little part of the Internet then we are not found by customers.

Last night I had a meeting with my insurance agent. He plays guitar and want's a new guitar strap. He said he has been searching all over the net looking for a good hand tooled strap. He was trying to talk me into making him one. I told him I was to busy but I said if you go out to leatherworker.net there is several people that can help you. He asked what that site was. I told him it was a forum. He asked what is a forum?? THIS IS NOT A DIG!!!! He is Joe customer, joe customer has no idea what a forum is.

I am making this my last post. Apparently anything I say or do is going to be taken as I am trying to disrupt the leatherworker.net community. I play political games all day long every day and have no desire to play them here.

Good Luck to everyone.

Johanna please remove my account from this site.

[Mattmatt]

Dude I'm just a new nobody, but man you 2 sound like my parents. Actually your old enough to be my parents. Man no wonder this country has gone to hell.

[JustWakinUp]

Just what we all need, more internet drama.

[Jordan]

I'm sad...... I enjoyed reading this stuff.

[RunningRoan]

I don't believe that posting on forums and mentioning your products (in a professional way when it's appropriate for a particular thread) is underhanded or controversial. And the practice is no secret. I've read many articles and case studies geared toward small specialty retailers that encourage them to become part of online communities to market their business. I'm part of several forums that attract the kind of folks that are my target market. Heck, I am my target market! I join in the conversation and only occasionally mention my products. I also buy ads (if available) on the forum sites. I have gained new customers and plenty of insight and ideas for new products by doing this.

Although business owners must post responsibly. If ABC company bad-mouths XYZ company on a public forum, it tends to reflect poorly on ABC company. But if you're helpful, positive, and not using each post as a sales pitch, I have found that forum members appreciate your presence.

[Johanna]

Well said, RunningRoan. LW has no problems with anyone promoting their work, business, interests etc. that's one of the reasons we are here. Like obscenity, we know spam when we see it.

I am making this my last post. Apparently anything I say or do is going to be taken as I am trying to disrupt the leatherworker.net community. I play political games all day long every day and have no desire to play them here.

No one is playing politcal games with you. I thought I made it clear in my last post that we welcomed your input, and were glad to learn from you. I don't know what else to say except I hope when you've had a chance to think things over, that you reconsider and share some of your knowledge with us.

Johanna

[DCKNIVES]

I am sorry Mark, but your post struck a nerve.Your analogy of hiring someone to post false testimonials of your product is WAY underhanded, and if you think that is JUST marketing and everybody does it, I feel bad for you. Dishonesty is dishonesty, no matter what label you put on it.While I'm very sure that happens on forums and maybe more than I know it is still wrong.I have been at this and knifemaking almost 20 years and have found the majority of leatherworkers and knifemakers above average people who are helpful, honest,and hardworking.If you want testimonials get some product out there and see what happens.The people that frequent forums such as this are pretty acute in finding talented makers and what they want.Many forums have giveaways and fundraisers which not only helps a good cause but puts your work in someones hands.If they like what you do, they will say so.Well I have said enough, I just hope no one here thinks his business ideas are ethical.Dave

[JMnet]

I just joined this forum to defend a friend. You seam to have mistook what he was trying to tell you. I am in this business, it is legitimate marketing. The forum sites that people like I use are not sites like this. We use consumer sites. If any of you watch TV it happens every time a commercial comes on. Chevy is telling you they are better than Toyota, Ford is telling you they have the toughest truck on the market. One soup company tells you their soup is healthier than their competitor. This is the marketing world, there is not a place you go were marketing is not happening. Bus stops, taxi cabs, MSN, Yahoo, radio, movie theaters and on and on and on.

When I go to a forum site of consumers it is my job to nudge people to a product. I am not badmouthing the competition, but I may say I looked at some purse and thought it was very well made, but then I found this one. No bad words no cutting down. A consumer must make up their own mind what they want to do, but if they don't know the option is there they will never look at it. Hunter and Oklahoma leather are 2 big corporations in this country that are still successful. They are in every major sporting goods store or sporting goods web site. Many of those consumers would love to have a hand crafted holster, but they don't take the time or they just don't know how to find someone that hand crafts an item. Go out to a SASS or Cowboy shooter forum some time and read posts. These people are consumers, they are not crafters. They consume goods use them then go out and talk about them. They talk about why they like or dislike a product. They talk about their loyalty to a product. All I do is slip in a comment. ((I was looking on letherworker.net and found a guy who seams to make great holsters, his signon name is ????)) The seed is planted, then you watch to see if it grows. Most of the time people are so curious they can't help but take a look. That is called marketing. Yes there are people that go out and badmouth products to get attention, I won't work with that type and neither does my friend.

Also you ran off someone that wanted to help and had a reason. His great uncle was a well known saddle maker in the 30's and 40's. Made saddles for Roy Rogers, Gabby Hayes and other famous silver screen stars. Something went terribly wrong in his business, I don't know the entire story. I do no that he died absolutely broke living in some rat hole out west. His family didn't know because he cut off communications to the family. So my friend was on a mission to help people trying to make it in this business. His post was his passion coming out, he wasn't trying to destroy your community.

[Jordan]

Seems to me nobody ran anybody off. It was your friends personal choice not to participate on this forum any longer. Seems like there was a lot more communications between your friend and others than was posted for the general members here. So if that was the case and feathers were ruffled that is a personal issue between those individuals and not something the general population would have control over. I did not read anything that was out of line or antagonistic but reading something is alot different than speaking face to face.

[Rayban]

I found Collins' first post to be very insightful, as I am no Marketing guy, nor do I intend to be. But if I was interested in diving in full time, his info would be quite useful, and I would have not trouble putting it to use.

But as a casual Saturday morning coffee sipping observer to this thread, I can't see where he was "run off" either.

I would encourage him to strap on a pair and hang around. I would bet he has much more info that could benefit us all.

[CitizenKate]

If I had been run off by every person who ever had a differing point of view from my own, I'd be a recluse by now. I happen to like being in a place where people challenge each other to see things differently.

Kate

[David]

TO DAVE at DC knives

Well said, I agree whole heartedly

another Dave

[JMnet]

I have to say this is group seams to look at things,,, never mind.

Having a MODERATOR tell you they didn't bring a dog to this fight is more than confrontational. As we all know a moderator either owns, operates or has some authority on the board. I would place that as confrontational.

The two Dave's on this post. So you have never stood in a bar talking to your friends about what products you like and or dislike? You have never told someone on this board that you work with a specific brand of stain of finish? Or maybe a favorite tool? You are doing what the product manufacturer hopes you will do, you are marketing for free. We all do it and don't think about it.

So those that have posted and are against this type of marketing. I assume you never took a add in a magazine or a newspaper or on the internet. I personally dislike it in magazines when I am reading an article and then have to skip 20 pages to finish it because someone paid for a full page add in the middle of the article. Do you really think magazines or any other publication accidently puts an ad someplace. No they are placed to make it difficult for the reader. It is marketing.

[Denise]

Now many of you are going to say that this practice is underhanded and should not be allowed..... It is marketing, period.

It looks like what Mark said at the beginning is true. 1.) Some people see this as underhanded, and 2.) this is something that is done by marketers. (Now we'll be able to spot it!) I don't see his post as a personal promotion of marketing in this way, but just a post informing us of what is done in an industry that most of us are not part of.

While I personally disagree with posing as a "real person" strictly with the intent of marketing on forums, I do see a lot of benefit to being involved in forums to find a market for our goods. Two years ago I didn't know anything like forums existed. Since then I have found a few that have discussions on topics of interest to me. Some I just read. A very few I have joined, not to market, but because I have things to learn and to contribute. I see the major benefit as being the information I gain and the friendships I make, which is especially what LW.net is all about. At the same time I see it as being fair to tell others what we do for a living and why we know what we know. There is obnoxious, run-the-other-guy-down type of salesmanship practiced all over our world. We all tend to have a similar reaction to that. Then there is good information given that promotes your product – what is good about it and why you make it like you do. Being a participant on a forum who is involved in the discussions gives you credibility with the other members (and the lurkers) so when you do say something about your product, people will take note. It does not even have to be "promotion" as such. Often just helping people learn more about leather or holsters or saddles or masks or whatever will bring in inquiries. That is why Johanna is always encouraging people to put up their website addresses, fill out their profiles and put links into their signatures here. It just makes sense to let people know how to contact you (if the forum allows it, which some don't).

Regarding any controversy here: as I read it, it seems to be more of a misunderstanding resulting from the impersonal media of typed words on a screen rather than being about to see and hear each other. The thing I enjoy the most about LW is the welcoming, friendly atmosphere here. I suggest we just extend a little grace, give everyone the benefit of the doubt and move on.

[Shelly]

Interesting reading...I don't think he's been run off - I think everyone will have an opinion about this type of subject, and, if it doesn't agree with his, we should all happily 'agree to disagree', and take no slight from it...

Personally, I am always interested in the 'inner workings' of admen, etc, and why they get paid so much money - same with building websites, etc - can we do the deed ourselves?? Probably - if we know what we want in the end...I like knowing if it's worth my time to do something myself, or pay someone to do it...

[TwinOaks]

I am always interested in the 'inner workings' of admen, etc, and why they get paid so much money -

The administration of this website gets paid nothing. This is all volunteer work- a labor of love.

[UKRay]

If I had been run off by every person who ever had a differing point of view from my own, I'd be a recluse by now. I happen to like being in a place where people challenge each other to see things differently.

Kate

Well said, Kate. Long live freedom of speech and thought.

Now isn't it time for us all to move on to better things - what happened to all the lovely leatherwork? This pointless nonsense is using up valuable LW bandwidth!

[DCKNIVES]

The two Dave's on this post. So you have never stood in a bar talking to your friends about what products you like and or dislike? You have never told someone on this board that you work with a specific brand of stain of finish? Or maybe a favorite tool? You are doing what the product manufacturer hopes you will do, you are marketing for free. We all do it and don't think about it.

I am sorry if I offended but we obviously feel differently about the subect.I will leave it at that, but I will answer the question. Yes, to all, but the difference is that I have purchased, seen, handled or used said product or have a friend that has done the same.Dave

To the other Dave, thank you

[TwinOaks]

This is starting to look like it's turning into a TROLL thread- keeping an issue revived even after most folks would gladly let it pass.

Edited October 12, 2008 by TwinOaks

[Johanna]

Well, Mike, that was the point. Using LW to get more hits to his site. Efforts at diplomacy and cooperation have failed, this topic is now over. Anyone with something interesting or relevant to say can start a new thread.

Johanna