My Etsy Shop

[Kate]

This is really brave of me. I haven't put it out there yet. I know I need to add more pictures of each item but I just wanted to get them listed. I still have so much more to list. Please - suggestions are welcome!

www.etsy.com/shop/KDTwistedElements?ref=si_shop

[Tela]

Good morning Kate Congratulations on getting your store up!! I know it is lots of hard work. And, I know it's nerve wracking.

Your pictures look good, better than most that I see on etsy or artfire. I would suggest for a few of the more expensive pieces to have a picture or two with a different background. It's more interesting to look at and shows how something will look with a different background. Just a suggestion, though.

The descriptions seem a little short to me. Like for the chainmaille you could mention how labor intensive it is or how it was tumbled for x time to ensure smoothness, etc. I've always been told that people like to read those things and that being chatty allows the customer to get to know the ARTIST behind the work. You could mention how long you've been doing maille, how much you personally enjoy it, etc. These are just suggestions. Some people don't like to read much at all, so I guess it's about trying to maintain a balance. Online, we can't talk to people so our ads have to sell the piece. Like for the Padparadscha earrings... are those Swarovski? If so, you could mention them by brand and the superior quality of them.

All in all, I think you did a great job! I just wanted to give you my 2 cents. Laura and Renate always have good advice. They have certainly given me some. Looking forward to hearing what they have to say. I know Laura will mention SEO. That's a whole nuther aspect to selling online-- the words you use to be picked up by search engines.

I have about another 100 pieces to put in my store and not looking forward to it. It's hard work. I really appreciate how much you've put into this.

[Renate]

Kate, I've only had a very brief look so far, and I love your shop! There are many things that I like: the shop name , the clean, uncluttered look. You are definitely on the right way!

[laura]

Hi fellow Etsian

Tela says I'll mention SEO, but she's wrong. I'll mention two of them One is for Etsy internal search engine, the other one is for the outside engines (google, bing, etc). Since it's incredibly difficult to optimize jewelry (or jewellery?! here's another headache in the already incredibly owerpopulated category), I'd say it's important to do your best to improve visibility on Etsy itself first. And Etsy search doesn't give a shit about descriptions, customers apparently don't read them too (they even tend to miss the measurements sometimes). What Etsy search is looking at is titles, tags and user behavior (the exact algorithm is unknown, but if they look for blue bird, and click on your item from search results that counts as a plus and at some point you'll rank higher than other blue birds). So you have to analyze the stats, see what words perform best and target those. Join the Etsy Shop Stats Beta team (prototype) to get more features on the stats page. If you're not getting hits from search, rethink and reword titles/tags. Try to think as a customer, use word combinations and repeat them in both tags and titles. Your titles are more or less ok, but many of the tags at the moment are doing nothing - if the words in tags are not in the title, they hardly help to get found (well, they would, but not in jewelry with ... "2,649,280 items in Jewelry" at this moment..).
You can have the most amazing pics, but they're worth nothing if your shop cannot be found in search (unless of course you have other ways of leading people to your shop). And I couldn't find your sky blue bracelet although there's only 2,245 of them in search results.

Another SEO is of course google and its friends, they care about how much title "matches" the text (description). If you have rabbits in the title, you must have rabbits in description for google robots to count that as something-important-about-rabbits. But they also care about tons of other things - incoming links, "weight" of those links and how relevant they are (if some well established rabbit oriented website links to your rabbit for sale - great), age of the content, etc. It's not only the number of words, but rather the "quality" of them. I still cannot figure how, but I've managed to hit page one on google with "sky blue crystal earrings". And the item description had just two short sentences. So more words ain't always better.

Oh, and the two SEOs don't play together too well.. Etsy doesn't care about keyword stuffing in titles and many sellers at the top of search results do that (some customers loathe that.. ), but google might get angry if the keyword density is "unnatural".
( www.hobo-web.co.uk/what-is-keyword-stuffing/ )

And with pics.. I've came to the conclusion that pictures with darker/textured/interesting backgrounds and props perform much better in search. Probably because there's too much of that washed out white stuff going on on Etsy, and so many similar looking items its hard to tell one shop from another. (here's my top views item .. almost black www.etsy.com/listing/82464079/ I'm moving to lighter background now, but thinking that might be a mistake.. )

[Renate]

That was very interesting, Laura. Glad to hear I'm not the only to loathe the keyword stuffing in the title.

It would be interesting to know how many actual sales come from google search, etsy search, or other ways to find a shop. But after reading that figure (...how many gazillions of jewelry items are there?) I think Kate and her fellow sellers should think hard about other ways than search engines to direct customers to the shop. Good bye google, hello social marketing... ;D
For me as a customer, blogs, communities and personal recommendation are the most important ways to find a shop, followed closely by daily browsing for eye candy prompted by the etsy newsletter.

Regarding the descriptions, as an experienced ebay buyer I know how important it is to read the description VERY carefully, and also read between the lines to avoid traps. At etsy I see the descriptions as an added bonus - sometimes they are really good and add that extra little bit that makes the difference. And I'm spoiled and disappointed if the description is too thin.

[laura]

Well, if you think that Etsy has a gazillion jewelry items, try searching google ;D At this moment there are "about 7.540.000" pages for "sky blue bracelet", and note that I'm quite specific with this search.. "jewelry" alone yields 1.190.000.000 results.
Btw, pleased to see my picture in first row of "water blue earrings" in google image search, I very rarely check how they're doing there because those numbers are just crazy .. and I'm promising myself to work on google SEO once I'm done with optimizing for Etsy (four months and counting..). Which is only logical - for this big SEO you have to work on titles/descriptions, and it's important to first nail the titles (which are important to Etsy) to then rework the text to google liking.

Another way is to work with Adwords Keyword Tool right from the start and target specific keywords that people are searching for, but I'm not yet sure how to use this effectively for jewelry.. or jewellery.. keyword tool suggests that considerable amount of people are using British spelling (20,400,000 vs 13,600,000 monthly searches).

I still think that search is the most important segment to focus on. If you get that, you reach people who are (quite likely) searching for stuff to buy, i.e., a target group. And internal Etsy search is quite straightforward to conquer, you just have to nail the right words. Not saying descriptions are not important, they are, but there's so much work to do get visibility that you have to have priorities set. For Etsy shop mine are Titles/tags>photos>descriptions. Maybe I got them all wrong But I know that there are tons of people searching Etsy every hour. Among those searching a good percentage is people looking for stuff to buy. And a big plus - they are already here, searching, and chances are they are half converted to buy.
Unless you are visible in search, there's no one to see your pics; unless your images stand out, no one's going to click on them; unless they click the thumbnail in search, they don't get to even see your description, let alone read it..

Guess for every shop it's different and reflects what strategy the seller adopts, but my Etsy sales all came from search and then repeat customers. But I'm very new And have severely limited social networking skills ;D

[Renate]

Kate, hopefully this is not overwhelming you.

I've had another look at all items, and I think you could go live with the shop already, and make corrections along the way. I understand that it is good to update and repost your items anyway.

I have a few tiny issues (you asked for it - tell me to shut up when I go over the top):
the first picture of your hyacinth earrings is slightly blurry, and it looks very much like the second anyway, so I assume it is still there rather by accident. Further, better check the word "hyacinth"... I've also come across the occasional missing word.

While I really like the clean and uncluttered look, some of the photographs look a bit too cold. In the case of the steel chainmaille it seems very fitting, but in some others a warmer tone would be nice. Hope you don't mind if I say, the copper earrings don't seem to look to their best advantage.

Interesting what Laura says, that darker pictures get more hits. I thought it is only me. As it happens, I like your copper pieces best.

Btw, your descriptions are clear and give all the necessary information, and they are absolutely fine. But they could be a bit more personal.
I like your "This is a made to order item just for you." Very nice, talks to me as a potential customer



Laura:
[.... And have severely limited social networking skills ;D]

Right. We know you are barely able to express your thoughts, poor thing... ;D

[laura]

Feb 8, 2012 7:42:43 GMT -5 Renate said:

I understand that it is good to update and repost your items anyway.

Reposting (renewing) - Not as good as it used to be when default sorting in search was freshness, which is a total nonsense if you ask me. If I'm searching for a blue elephant, I don't really care how fresh that item is, just gimme something that fits this description best. It ain't milk or hot buns.

.. And not as good in jewelry as it is in less crowded categories. I would not recommend wasting money on renewing. True, categories are still sorted by freshness and you get a chance to appear on the front page for a second. But there's tons of items posted every minute. Renewing pushes your item higher in categories, but it gets buried again in minutes.. quite literally..

Just went to check what's up in "jewelry" category atm... page 20 has items listed 27 minutes ago.. (switch to list view to see when the item was posted/renewed).

Freshness still plays a role in ranking, but not too important. It's not written anywhere, but I'd presume that it's the least important factor. Much better to spend that money adding new items and introducing more keyword variety to the shop (more colors, more styles, different materials, etc).

And updating words/pictures is just a part of the daily routine.. morning coffee, stats analysis, titles/tags tweaking, shuffling photos around... It just takes a while for the changes to take effect (several minutes to an hour).

[Kate]

Thank you for all your help and yes, Renate, my head is spinning! Laura, I'm completely new to SEO and need to reread and digest what you are saying. I haven't joined any groups yet but I certainly will take a look at the Etsy Shop Stats Beta team. Once I get everything listed, I'll make a point of learning about SEO. I'm not sure I understand, don't the keywords in the title act as tags on Etsy? This is so confusing to me!

Renate, I know I will have to do what I don't like doing. It will be terribly hard for me to blog. I'm not a writer, which also shows in my descriptions. I felt they do lack personality and I need to spice those up too.

I'll work on the background. I like an uncluttered look but I agree it does look sterile. I think you all have said what I was thinking of the appearance and descriptions. I'll be working on that, too!

Thank you again for all your help. I really appreciate everything you've said. Now I'm off to work on my shop!

[sarahsequins]

Kate,

I really like your pieces, and I think that your photography is crisp and clean.

Have you considered including any photos where someone is wearing your pieces? This is a great way for people to see the scale of a piece. Once I get my shop up and running, I'm hoping to bribe friends into modeling for me.

I wish I could give you advice on searching, but everyone else has done a great job, and anyway, it's all a mystery to me. If you do decide to start blogging, which is a great way to draw more attention to your work and your Etsy shop, I can give you the benefit of my Eight Whole Months of blogging experience and share some of my favorite resources.

[Kate]

Thank you Sarah. That is what I was after. Uncluttered, crisp and clean but I think I should probably use warmer colors. That would help and I'm going to work on that.

As far as modeling, we are in a 55+ subdivision here in Florida and new to the area. We're the young ones in the neighborhood. I don't know anyone to model but when we get back north I have a friend that could model and I also my daughter that could too.

When I get to the point of blogging, I would love for you to share your experiences and resources. I'm thinking that will be the hardest and most painful for me. ;-)

[laura]

Feb 8, 2012 12:46:50 GMT -5 Kate said:

I haven't joined any groups yet but I certainly will take a look at the Etsy Shop Stats Beta team.

Shop Stats Beta Team is what they call a "prototype" www.etsy.com/prototypes - they are there for us to test stuff.
Once you join in, additional features become available on your stats page and you basically become a guinea pig

don't the keywords in the title act as tags on Etsy?

Tags are those 13 words and phrases that you type in at the end of the listing. And for your title to perform well in search the important/searchable words (keywords) MUST be repeated in tags, ideally - keeping searchable phrases together in one tag. And you must focus on what that item really is / how a customer would describe it.

Let me put it this way - if you have an item titled "water blue bracelet" and tags "bracelet", "water blue", "blue bracelet" and I have item "Bracelet with water blue beads" and tags "gift", "blue beads", and "women", then which one would do better in search if the person looks for "blue bracelet"?
Yours will appear first, because it has the exact same phrase that she is looking for - blue bracelet- in both title AND tags. And yours would rank higher for "bracelet" too, because I don't have it in my tags at all, what a shame.
However my item would rank higher if that person decides to look for the "blue beads", because that's what my item has in title and tags. But would that person want a bracelet or is she shopping for beads? Probably beads.. so I might have a wrong target.

If there were only two of us it wouldn't matter much, but there are thousands of sellers with blue bracelets ( atm "52,022 items for blue bracelet".. )

[glenda]

ow Kate it seems you have had lots of helpful advice and pointers. I am going to read Laura's posts agin. All the tags and SEO's etc go right over my head!

Just yesterday I started re taking photos of all my pieces on a much lighter background and now I am wondering if that was the best move!!!

I will go on over to your shop and take a peek!

Glenda x

[Kate]

Thanks Laura, I think with that explanation I'm beginning to understand. And I thought this would be easy! There is so much to learn and when you think you have a handle on it there is a whole other dimension to learn. I think that is why I'm loving this. I am anxious, though, to get back to my wire. I'm going to check out my tags and then work on better backgrounds so I can get more listed.

Glenda - This SEO stuff is mind boggling! I've had to read and reread several times over and I'm not done yet. My light bulb is burning just a bit brighter now! lol

[laura]

Well, understanding how Etsy search works is the easier part of it, it's predictable and not too complicated .. the more difficult part - pinning words and phrases that people use to look for stuff, make that search engine work for you..

If you have two very similar items - try placing different targets (using different keywords) on them and see which one performs better. On stats page you have info what search terms led to your shop and what were the landing pages for each keyword. It takes time and lots of experiments to figure out what works for your items.

E.g. over the last 30 days my top three keywords were "beaded jewelry", "beaded earrings" and "wire wrapped" together bringing in close to 400 hits from search (out of total over 1.5k , so those 3 account for about 1/3-1/4 my search traffic), and I'm not sure I have the right targets there, because this brought mainly a ton of hearts from fellow jewelry sellers and people shopping for supplies and tutorials. I'm always pleased with hearts but would love some sales too ..

[Renate]

Kate, I see you have tweaked some of your photos! Love the darker background for both pairs of red earrings - makes the colour pop! Also like the other earrings better now.

I would describe your jewelry and shop design as low-key, calm and cool, but also a bit impersonal. I don't mean to suggest to use props (I'm not a fan of that!), but it would add a lot of interest to see your items modelled. (Yes, I know it has been addressed before.)

Your shop looks good, and I wish you a lot of buyers!!

[Tela]

I just had a look, too. This really, really pops! www.etsy.com/listing/91912223/wire-wrapped-gold-filled-padparadscha LOVE IT! I love the background, too. Not too dark and the texture is small and unobtrusive. I think it's nice that there is more variety now when looking at the page. (I'm guilty of doing the same thing over and over. )

I wouldn't say your shop is impersonal, but there is something lacking that I can't put my finger on. Maybe your banner could be less monotone. Maybe warm it up a little. I like the banner, actually, but it kind of blends in and doesn't set much of a tone for the store, I think. I like your name a lot and the font. It's the empty space and colors, I think. I hope I'm not being too hard. I know this is a PITA. I'll shut up. ....

[Kate]

Thank you Renate and Tela for your help. I spent all morning trying to do something else with my bannner and just couldn't make it look right. It was very discouraging. I will keep it in mind and if I make something that will be a possibility I'll give it a try. I also tried dumping all my beads, crystals, gold and silver wire into a pile and arranging that into an attractive little mess. It looked terrible and took me longer trying to get all those little beads and crystals back where they belong. I'm in a real slump lately. My computer even got a virus that took over everything! That's fixed but I'm thinking now that I need a reboot.

[Renate]

Feb 8, 2012 20:48:16 GMT -5 Kate said:

Uncluttered, crisp and clean but I think I should probably use warmer colors. That would help and I'm going to work on that.

I think *that* is what I meant with "impersonal": the overall impression is somewhat cold and frosty. I'm curious to see what some warmer colours (or just a warmer light reflection) for your next products will od.

[Tela]

I'm really sorry you're having such a bad time with this. I can empathize. Add to the frustration the computer problem and I'm sure you want to spit nails. Probably better just to walk away and give it some time for a fresh approach. There is nothing wrong with your store or your banner, it just could work better for you, is all. It will all fall into place when your mind is relaxed about it. Everything I have done with my store and blog took lots of time and aggravation and I have lots of room for improvement, myself. My store things are the things that I put off the most. I really find it hard to get motivated to do it, because I know what it involves.

I have a question and comment for you.... Do you think you will do more chainmaille than anything else? What KIND of jewelry do you think will represent you the best? Your banner image should reflect that. Early on, I made mine with a ring, but I don't offer many rings, so it doesn't represent my work, very well. I'm kinda stuck with my banner, though, because I have used it for so long that I feel it is too recognized to change it now. My advice would be to take your time with a new banner. A lot goes into it. Even font can make a big difference. I went from a real curly font to a more streamlined font to improve the banner image link to my jewelry. Without changing the banner image, the font change immediately improved the relationship between the banner and jewelry. Just something to think about.

[livewire]

Kate, I know zero about selling online. My comments have more to do with terminology in your descriptions:
~ The correct name is Argentium Sterling Silver, as opposed to traditional sterling silver.
~ The aluminum jumprings in your maille are "bright aluminum", which are shiny and look similar to silver (as opposed to construction aluminum, which is gray and dull).
~ The Full Persian maille - I believe it should be 6-in-1.
~ If the glass is Czech, mention that. It's generally better quality than from some other countries.
~ Re. your Roosa bracelet, I think I would not include "gold beads" in the title, as some may interpret that as 14K. You mention them in the description as gold-fill.
~ It's great when you include the name of the maille weave in the title. I think it adds to the mytique that goes with chainmaille.
~ Including the term "saw-cut rings" donotes quality, as they are superior to other forms of cutting. Great idea that you used that term.

Your work is lovely and your maille is precisely and beautifully done.

Joyce

[christine]

One thing I noticed is your shipping cost seems to be a bit high especially for a pair of earrings. The $5.90 shipping would turn me off from a sale. I did a quick check of my favorite shops and most for shipping to the US are $2.50-$3.00. Your pieces are beautiful and I know shipping is an expense but I would hate for someone to negate a sale due to the shipping costs.

[Kate]

Christine, I thought the rates are high, too. This rate is what the USPS quoted me. It's the smallest envelope with tracking. Maybe I shouldn't do tracking. I have seen that some sellers do and some don't. I just shipped an envelope out two weeks ago and it was $5.90. For the ones that charge $2.50-$3.00, are they absorbing some of the costs of shipping? Maybe so. I'm going to check into it without tracking and see how much it is.

[Kate]

Christine, I just checked the rates. I need to decide if I want to forget about tracking. It seems the only way to get tracking is with priority mail. First class is much, much cheaper. Your point is well taken!

[Renate]

Maybe you could give your buyers a choice, with tracking or without?

It would also be nice to know if you would ship outside the US, or not at all. If you do, I would definitely recommend a tracking option, so that the risk is not on your side.

Btw, I see you have added some pieces with really dark backgrounds - love it. And congrats to your first sale!

[laura]

I also thought the shipping was too high but what do I know about your rates

Renate, if the package really goes missing, there's no difference whether you had tracking or not, you have to refund (Paypal rules) or resend (if the customer is nice enough to communicate and you can agree on that). Tracking only helps to prevent false non-deliveries (if someone wants to cheat and get the goods and the money back.. this unfortunately happens sometimes).

I ship all my packages with tracking simply because the delivery times vary greatly, and I want to be able to see where my package is. If I see that it's taking unusually long (over two weeks), I then may contact the customer with an apology and update.

[Kate]

Since this is all very new to me, I was trying to do this the way I quite often receive shipments and feel comfortable with. These are the rates that were quoted to me which includes tracking. I'm sending out a package tomorrow with tracking and it will be $5.90 exactly as I'm charging. Renate, that could very well be a good option, to give the customer a choice. Being a snowbird and changing my address or forwarding mail every six months, I will have to say with experience, we don't always receive our mail and quite often it takes three to four weeks when we do. I realise this is a different situation but this is what I have experienced in the past three years. In the end, I will probably change to first class and have that option of tracking. I guess I need to just relax and trust that it will get there safely. lol

[christine]

Kate, you have to do what feels comfortable. I really don't know how others handle the differences in postage rates. Reading through all of this makes me rethink opening an Etsy shop. I do wish you great success!!

[Kate]

Thank you, Christine. I just adjusted all the shipping prices and made priority with tracking an option for the customer. There is so much to learn!

Thank you, Laura, for helping me with the tags. I'm getting a lot more hits now. I'm not quite sure I understand it all but changing my tags has helped.

Renate, I thank you too! Adding colors has made the shop look warmer and more inviting. Actually, I was out yesterday and picked up more colors to work with.

It's always a work in progress and I better get back to it!

[livewire]

Kate, I do not sell my jewelry online, but I want to share a recent experience mailing a piece of jewelry to Canada from here in the U.S.

The artist recomended that I return the bracelet I purchased for sizing. I could not mail the small padded envelope as parcel post. I was told it's no longer allowed to ship internationally as a package (parcel post). It had to be either Priority Mail ($24.00 !!!) or First Class, like a letter. The only way I could get any insurance was to send it Registered, which added $11.75 to the $3.15 First Class charge, for a total of $14.90.

They also made the package "tamper-proof", with paper tape and ink stamped all around, front and back.

The artist told me that shipping from Canada was a modest amount.

It's been several years since I last mailed a package to Canada. It was not nearly as expensive then or as involved.

Joyce