Happy new year!
I've decided to set a goal to make more sales this year and even *ack* pay for some advertising if I have to. So this morning I started reading a really great forum thread (here) and came across some great ideas. Honestly, when the brainstorming starts I usually don't know how I ended up where I end up so I will try to keep track of everything here and share all the links.
Have you made the front page today?
One thing that I do that does seem to help to get me into treasuries is to watch on craftopolis.com when the next treasury will open up. When it gets pretty close, within the hour, I make sure I renew a couple of items in my shop or list something new. It takes you to the top of the category list and when those treasury curators are looking for things to put into their treasuries your items are at the top of the list. It works!
There is another useful website called Statsy which will email you if you make the front page. Pretty cool!
Another cool website is CraftCult. It tells you how many people and who hearted your shop or items. It also tells you how many views you've had. It's nice to have it all in one place to look at. It's also useful to take a look after you've either been in the forums or have listed new items to just see how many people actually looked at them.
Tedious
Something that I find so tedious on etsy and I wish they would make it easier to list is entering your tags! You have to do each one individually--type, click, type, click. And this is especially tedious if you are listing something similar to other items (which usually you are within your shop) and only want to change a few of them. Enter Etsyhacks. I wish I could use their Greasemonkey program but I do not use firefox. Hopefully he will get a version for internet explorer up soon. But he does have bookmarks you can use, especially for tagging, which speeds things up. You can find all the bookmarklets here and there is a super easy step by step guide on how to save and use them. This way you can enter all your tags with just comas in between and copy and paste them from other listings too. A real timesaver.
Full Time Etsy Crafters Team Website
Another great resource I have found is on the above team's website where successful full time sellers share info. Most of them say to be active in the forums, renew listings often, take great photos of your products, and some of the tips I've listed above. Etsy is a community and I've noticed that if you network in the forums, create treasuries, feature people on your blog, other sellers will reciprocate. Feel the love people! There have been times that I have been in the virtual labs too and contacted someone I saw there and the next day ended up in one of their treasuries. I am never afraid to contact someone with questions either. If you see a successful seller and really admire what they are doing-contact them! It never hurts to ask questions.
List!
Another theme that keeps popping up over and over again both in the forums and also on the Full Time Etsy Team's website is to list everything you have and list often. Fill your shop up. I am on the fence about this one. As a shopper when I am browsing others' shops, if there are pages upon pages of items I don't usually get past page 2 or 3. On the other hand, if someone really likes your stuff and has decided to make an actual purchase it is better to give them a lot of options so you don't loose that sale. Sometimes I feel like I have too many photos to look at in my photography shop...
Website
This is something I have been thinking about doing for a while now. I want to have my own website to direct people to. But the cost has had me hesitating. In the above forum thread, etsy seller minipotterybyanita said that she purchased a website domain that's sole purpose is to redirect to her etsy site. This way she can not only have people type in http://www.anitaspottery.com/ and have it get redirected to her etsy site but she also comes up double in google searches. She says it is $14.95 a month to do this so if that is in your budget she says to contact her and she will let you know who her host is. This is a great tutorial and seems very easy to do (albeit complicated) and it only costs about $10 for the year. I am definitely going to try it out and will let you know the results.
This is all that I have learned and I'm on only page 4 out of 53 pages in that etsy forum thread! You can learn so much in the forums and the virtual labs. I will be sure to share more as it comes up too. If you have any tips or tricks please leave a comment and share!