Saturday, November 10, 2012

ETSY make-over

I've hit one year with my ETSY store. This one year milestone is accompanied by a dry spell of orders. What could be going on? Here is the most common feedback that I am given when I ask trusted ones for suggestions/critiques...

- A dark background can be difficult to see the items
- My items are very high quality in-person
- My items are priced too low, which implies they are not as good of quality as they are
- There should be multiple items to show the breadth of my work, in each category

And thus, I am trying something new. Here are my new, very simple business plans...
- Have a regular number of items in the store. Something along the lines of: 12 pillows, 24 button bouquets, 8 coasters, 4 other specialty items. (The items list on the website as 4 wide, so this way, I can always manipulate how the store appears.)
- Have extra listing items ready to be added when someone buys something, to maintain the appearance and flow the site for how I want it.
- Use my light-box to photograph EVERYTHING. Have the main photo be the one with the white background.
- Price everything for sustaining profit for the business....so I can keep doing this!
- Price items based on their quality. Price the "better" fabrics higher, not a standard rate for everything.
- Use item descriptions that are easier to understand, yet also more comprehensive.

We'll see how it goes!

Here's the first most obvious listing change that I've done from this site re-vamp. The top one is what the item used to be and the bottom one is the new "re-vamped" listing.


Wednesday, November 7, 2012

making a new light box

I haven't made too many sales on my ETSY store lately. I think I'm going on 3 weeks of no sales. Big bummer. On the other hand, it allows (requires?) me to re-examine what I'm doing and to prepare for the "busy" season that I keep being told is coming. One of my biggest issues, I think is the lighting in my photos. After reading a few tutorials about light boxes, I decided to give it a try myself.

The photo on the LEFT is what the lighting on my store shots will look like from here on out, and the photo on the RIGHT is my old icky photography lighting, which was always difficult to edit.




I still need to smooth out the back, but at least the LIGHTING is working out! phew!

Here's the tutorial that helped me the most: DIY Photo Light Box from Ninth & Bird