Renew, Renew, Renew

For quite a few days, until I run out of steam, I'll be posting tips for Etsy sellers. A little background on me, and then we'll get going.

I opened my Etsy shop on 1/7/09, and I've learned a lot, mostly trial and error. I'm 70, and I live on the East side of Vegas, in a senior mobile home community. I've worked my entire adult life. The first 30 years, in bookkeeping and minor accounting; the next 35 years in writing and editing. I know, I know, the math doesn't add up but that's because I was working them both for a few years while getting ready to dive into full time writing/editing. My general profile is on my Etsy shop.

Etsy vendors depend on folks finding them. One of the best ways is to be at the top of the many search venues Etsy provides. I spend a lot of time on Etsy Forums (I'll post about Forums ASAP), and saw many posts encouraging Etsy shops to renew their items often. They said that this brought the shop up higher in search engine searches. My budget is limited, and I knew that renewing meant another $.20 per item fee for each renewal. Because of that, I dragged my heels for a long while.

Two days ago, I added two widgets to my blog, and one was a slideshow of my shop (I'll post about widgets, too, ASAP). I wanted the slideshow to show the items in a better order. I noticed that the widget always started with the most recently renewed. My first slideshow was showing about 5 items of the same type (just different colors) in a row. Overkill, for sure. I could just see blog browsers with eyes glazed over. Aha! Renew!

I went into my shop and renewed four items that were each entirely different from each other, to provide variety at the start of the slideshow.

Today, I saw an unexpected result of that renewal. I happened to be exploring, trying to find out which items were "hot" on Etsy. I went to Buy, then scrolled down to the various venues. One was Shop Local. I clicked on that, just to see how far down I was, and amazingly, I was the second shop of only two listed! Anybody, at least today, who clicks Buy Local, and puts in Las Vegas, NV, will see, first, CarolynsJewelry, and next, EvelynMayfield.

Why did I get this lucky? Because that venue lists the 2 most recently updated shops in the search area! Her shop and mine were the only two shops in our area that had updated in the past 24 hours. Does that tell you something?

You can bet I will be renewing at least one item a day. I figured that $.20 a day is $6 a month. For those on an even tighter budget, try renewing once a week. That's less than a buck a month.

For those who do not know how to renew: Go to your Etsy shop. Across the top of the page, go to Your Account, and Currently for Sale. Then, pick the item you wish to renew, check the box to the left, and scroll down to the bottom and hit renew, and in the next window, "renew" again. That's it.

Good luck.

Booth Display Ideas and More

I was going to write a couple of posts to put here about booth displays, lightling and more...then I realized you can just visit my blog to read them all.  Just click on the tag label 'Display ideas" in the column on the left and several will show up for you.  I hope they help and get you thinkng about your booth set ups for the season.
Twiddlebugz Designz Blog

Pictures from our Etsy Craft Party on June 18th

Writing About Local Arts and Crafts

Hey everyone. I just got the news that I was excepted to write as the Henderson Arts and Crafts Examiner. What this means????
I will be able to follow any and all local things pertaining to Arts and Crafts. I will be covering artists, doing interviews, craft fairs, art shows, and anything else that is of interest in this field. I hope to be able to help promote everyone and everything Arts and Crafts in the Henderson, Las Vegas and surrounding areas. I will want to build a strong reader base and hope that all of you will help with this.

It will take a few days for them to get my web page set up with a bio and photo. When that is ready I will send a shout out here so everyone can read the articles. Promotion is what builds business and we are all looking to do that. This should be a great tool to help the Etsy Does Vegas Team if I can get the word out. Stay tuned here and I will post a link to the web site when they have it ready to write on.

Articles will be current, short bits of information posted to a nationwide Internet publisher, The Examiner. I will be publishing as often as possible. The more I write about all of you and the more readers I can get the better for everyone. I will include up and coming shows, directions, links and interviews that will be of interest to vendors as well as customers so be sure to share the post with all of your friends. I feel like this will grow in to a wonderful way to promote Arts and Crafts in Henderson, Las Vegas and all of South Nevada.

Regards,

Susan Crouch
Adrift Art Studio