Showing posts with label Renew. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Renew. Show all posts

May 4, 2011

Your Etsy Public Profile - Important Box

There is one thing you might need to check and update on your Etsy Public Profile - your "city." Go to Your Account, then Public Profile. Scroll down past Gender, and you will see "city."

THAT is where you need to list Las Vegas (or Henderson, or both) so that your shop will come up in the local shop search on Etsy. In my case, I covered all bases and listed it like this:
Las Vegas NV Nevada, Henderson NV Nevada, United States

If you have renewed an item or added one recently and you still do not show up on the Buy/ShopLocal search, that is probably why.

May 3, 2011

Checking How the Public "Sees" Your Shop

My first post, "Renew, Renew, Renew," mentioned how easy it is to keep your shop in the top of Etsy's search engines when someone is searching for local products. One comment on that post explained that at our local team meetings, this has been suggested, as well as adding products on a regular basis. None of this becomes real until you visually "see" that your shop is being seen, and where, and how often, and by whom.


I mentioned one way in Renew, Renew, Renew, by going to Buy, then Shop Local. Then, enter Las Vegas, NV, and you'll see that right now, only CarolynsJewelry an my own shop come up. There should be dozens of our local shops popping up there. All you need to do is renew one item, even once a week, or add one new item.


The new item added doesn't have to be spectacular. It can be a color variation of something you often offer, or a size difference, or a bunch-of-somethings instead of just one-something. Either way, your shop will then pop up in that major Etsy search.


Another way to see how your items are being viewed and which ones are being looked at, is to go to http://www.craftcult.com/heartomatic.php
Enter your shop name, then click on Item Hearts. Look at the rightmost column to see current views. Then, hit "reset" and go back in a day or so, and you will quickly see which items are drawing interested browsers and shoppers.


There are other ways of checking to see which of your items are the "hot" ones. We'll go into them little by little, but you need to begin to care about your shop's visitors.

April 30, 2011

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.