I intended to post this yesterday....

Its been a while since I've updated the blog, I figured I should probably do this now.

So, I've actually been selling things on Etsy.  I guess I found something that people like. I thought the items I had been making were good enough on their own, but I guess they really weren't.

So here's how it went:

A friend on Google+ asked if I had anything in my shop that was 'Android-y', as in, the operating system for phones.  I supposed that I could make an Android Beanie.  I made one and posted a pic on Google+.  That friend shared my post.

And then the flood gates of orders opened.

I have 7 orders open right now that I'm going to be working on for at least a week and a half, maybe more if more orders come in.


I guess my point here, is, to get to sell things on Etsy, it doesn't matter if you make one thing really well if no one wants to buy it.  You can make the best whatever anyone has ever seen with no flaws or noticeable errors. If it isn't interesting, no one will want it.

You'll need to find something that people love and want. Of course, you'll have to make this be flawless as well, or you'll probably get complaints.

I was astonished at how many people want these beanies.  I'm afraid to even mention these anywhere or do any kind of advertising for them, because I don't think I'll be able to keep up with the demand. Its going to be close to Thanksgiving, probably, before some of my customers get their orders because many of them are ordering more than one at a time.

I may have to take the item down from my shop until I can get caught up.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet.

I know that I am going to raise prices on Thanksgiving.  Not because of the holidays and wanting to make more money from them, but because I don't think I'm charging enough for the amount of time I'm putting into these.  I'll probably only raise the price a few dollars, not more than $5, but it's still a price increase.  But along with the price increase, I'll be creating a coupon code for people in my Google+ circles because they're the ones that have really been great about waiting for me to finish these.

I haven't included a link to the item in my Etsy store, but if you really really want one, go ahead and order one, but it may be up to a week or even two before I can start your order.  I'll definitely link to it on the blog once I get caught up.

More comparisons - social networks

Comparisons-social networks

To follow up from my earlier post about different selling venues, there are also advantages and disadvantages of free ways to promote your items.

I'll start with Twitter.

Twitter seems to get the most eyes on my items, but only in my Etsy store.  I'm sure this is because Etsy is the most popular selling venue right now.  Every time I use the 'tweet' button on an item, I get a spike in views.  Any where from 6 to 20.  I'm not sure how many of these views are bots, but regardless, they're views.

I seem to get a lot of views from Twitter on my Storenvy store, as well, but since the numbers are so much off from the Etsy views, I'm guessing the majority of these are bots.

Twitter is nice because when you use the 'tweet' button on your item or store, it will add '@etsy' to the end.  People know Etsy and will often click on the link to view your store or item.  Same with Storenvy.  I highly suggest using Twitter like this to increase awareness of your items.

Facebook is also a pretty good way to get views for your items, so I hear,  but I haven't had much luck with it.  Maybe I need to be more interactive with it, but I'm starting to hate Facebook and I think I'm only using it because I'm trying to sell my items.

Tumblr is a great way to get people aware of your items.  If you remember the pic from my last comparison post, there was one particular item of mine that got a lot of attention. No one bought it, though.  Tumblr allows searchable tags, as well, so people looking for Etsy shops and items will be able to find your products.

Lastly, I want to discuss Jux.  Jux is a newcomer to the scene and I totally love it.  Your items won't get many views from Jux, yet but I did manage to generate a bit of traffic from writing a post on Jux and then tweeting it, then Jux replied and plugged my Jux account.  They definitely listen to their users and are working on getting their stuff up and running.  I would expect you should watch these guys.  I think it has the potential to be quite popular.

In the picture below, you can see my top traffic sources from the last 30 days and the top ways people find my items within Etsy.

On the left, the 'Direct Traffic' entry is mostly from Tweets, as far as I can tell.  It is the one that jumps right after I tweet an item.  Facebook is a dismal 3rd in views.  As popular as Facebook is, I would have expected this to be much higher.  Most everything else is pretty self explanitory.  The Etsy Mini is a widget you can put on your website or blog or wherever. People click on it to get to your store.

Eventhough it says I've gotten much less traffc from Tumblr than Facebook, I still feel that Tumblr is superior over views from Facebook because there seems to be much more interaction on Tumblr.

I guess that concludes my social networking comparison. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Tawashi flower free crochet pattern

These are really quite simple. I modified this pattern to come up with this one.


Tawashi flower crochet pattern

Gauge isn't terribly important. Use a hook that is appropriate for the yarn. This flower ends up slightly smaller than the one I modified the pattern from because instead of 20 dc into the magic circle, you're doing 10 dc into it.

From the original pattern, the author says these are great for make-up removers.  These are a bit smaller so they may be better at it. I don't know, I don't wear make-up to remove. :)


Start with magic circle

work 10 dc into magic circle (i start this with a chain 2 and then count 10 dc)

close circle and slip stitch into first dc (if you wanted to change colors, this is the place to do it)

continue around circle with 2 sc in each dc (20 sc)

skip first sc, *7 dc in next sc, skip next sc, slip stitch, skip next sc*

Repeat between * * until there are 5 petals. weave in ends.



Please credit me if you use this pattern. You may use this pattern for your own personal or chairty use.  Contact me for other uses.  Thanks!

Some thoughts about crochet patterns

Crochet Patterns

Following crochet patterns is pretty easy if you know the terminology.  I'm not going to go into it here, because its all over the internet if you need to learn it (that's how I learned) and that's not what I'm here for right now.

Some people are weird about gauge and hook sizes for crochet patterns.  I'm not. I don't really care about gauge or hook sizes.  I prefer to 'eyeball' it.  I don't want to have to be concerned about whether or not I have the correct size hook or the right weight of yarn.

I generally ignore the guage on crochet patterns and work with what I have available. If it doesn't look right, I'll unravel what I've done and start again with a different sized hook or different weight of yarn. Its not a huge deal.

I guess I just don't understand why people get so uptight about it.  I'm about to post the very first pattern I made and I'm not going to include the gauge for it. I don't want to hear any bitching!!!

Comparisons

A friend asked about how I liked different selling venues. Since I mainly communicate with her on twitter, its pretty difficult to do this in 140 characters.

 So here is my blog post for her, and everyone else. :)

 Firstly, I'll talk about Etsy. Etsy is obviously the most well known place for crafters to sell their handmade wares. I mainly sell crochet and knit items, but have other items for sale, as well. I guess I shouldn't say that I sell them since I haven't really sold anything yet. I've been giving away things for free to get a feedback rating established. I'm not sure when I'm going to stop doing this. Etsy will get the most eyes on your items.

Etsy also has some interactive features, where other sellers and buyers can lounge and hang out.. I hear there was a chat feature at one time, but has been disabled. Here's a link to an Etsy chat started by some Etsy users.

With Etsy, you'll pay $.20 every time you list an item, and when you renew that listing, as well. I have taken to adding this amount of money into the price of the item, and if I relist it, I add the amount again. I haven't decided where the cut-off will be for how many times I will relist an item.

 Etsy also allows multiple ways to pay for items. Other venues such as Storenvy, do not. Etsy also takes a portion of your sale. I'm not sure what that portion is, but I believe it to be 3%. I don't think this is a huge deal. They need to make money, too, right?

So far, I've been paying around $20/month in Etsy fees. Lately it has been less, though, because Etsy recently changed the way the search works. Before the change, sellers would relist their items every day to be at the top of the search because the default search was the most recent items. Some sellers were spending hundreds of dollars a week or a day this way. Those same sellers were also making a ton of money and could afford it.

Now, the search has changed to the most relevant. The most recent additions are still considered, but don't hold as much weight. Since recency isn't such a factor anymore, I'm paying less per month now...probably around $10-$15/month. They just changed this in August so I don't really have much data to average this yet.

I think Etsy is the place you want to start, especially to get people aware of your items. And they also have a ton of seller tools to help you get started and drive traffic to the store.

Their seller handbook is invaluable.

I did create an account on Artfire, but I just coudn't justify the $10/month to be able to sell over there. Having a buyer's account is free, but if you want to sell, you have to pay. Maybe if I had some actual return customers that knew me and my items, I may be able to justify a store there. I'm paying that much at Etsy and not selling anything yet so really, I can't afford it.

It would be nice if Artfire didn't charge monthly and did it like Etsy as a per listing fee or a small percentage of sales so I could control how much I paid every month. I took advantage of Artfire's free one month seller account, but didn't keep it. I didn't get much of a chance to delve and explore Artfire very much.

Over at Storenvy, you can list as many items as you'd like for free. You can only use PayPal as a checkout option, though. They'll take 3% of the sale as well. One of the things I do like about Storenvy, is that you can buy from multiple stores at once. Meaning, you can put items from different stores in your shopping cart and then check out and PayPal disperses the money to the different sellers. With Etsy, you can't do that. You can only buy from one store at a time. I'd like to see that change at Etsy.

Storenvy seems to have a pretty streamlined way of adding items to your shop, as well. Its not a big deal to me, but with Storenvy, you can have only 4 pictures of your item, where at Etsy, you can have 5. I would also like to see Storenvy allow more tags for items. With Etsy, you can add 13 tags, with Storenvy, you can have only 55 characters. Tags being keywords people would use to search the site and find your items. Also, at Storenvy, you can add different links to your other stores (pic) or blogs, or facebook or whatever. 

That way, people can 'follow' you or 'friend' you to keep up with you and your products. This is a big help to get noticed, I think.

The last place I have items is at Madeitmyself.com. Right now, this site is totally free to sell at. It is in beta, and I think they will be charging in the future, but no prices have been set. This is something that people without a lot of money might want to take advantage of. But on the downside, this place does not get very much traffic, that I've seen.

Madeitmyself could use some streamlining in adding items, but really, its in beta and you can't really expect everything to work perfectly all the time.

All these stores have one thing in common: You can't expect to put your items up for sale and then quit your day job. You have to do something to create traffic to your store. I have accounts at all the major (and some minor) social networking sites. Every time I list an item, I make a post about it on every one of those sites. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Jux, and sometimes Flickr if I am particularly proud of my item. I also have a website (I can help you make a website and I don't charge much -- contact me for rates) and I bought business cards. I leave them everywhere I go.

BTW, Tumblr, is a great way to get people to see your items as proven from this activity in my Tumblr stream:

I also post on craigslist about once a week pointing people to my Etsy store, or my website, and I just recently started this blog. I'm trying to update it once a week.

Keeping up with all of this is time consuming. I do it every day. Its almost a full time job. I get off work at about 6 pm and I go to bed around 1 am, sometimes later. During this time the only thing I do is make items or promote my shops on the various sites. So around 6+ hours a day, excluding Fridays and Saturdays, I've been doing this for about 2.5 months now and haven't sold one thing (except for free stuff, but that doesn't count). 

I haven't done any of them, but I think crafts shows are probably the way to go at first, if you can. That way, you can get your items shown to a lot of people that are there to buy. If you include a business card with their purchase, they'll have that if they decide they want to buy more items from you online.

Ok, this post is way longer than I thought it would be and I still want to compare the various social networking tools. So I will save that for my next blog post, probably some time later this week.

 Julie

Recycling/Upcycling

Today is 'talk like a pirate' day.  In observance, I posted an Alestorm video on my Tumblr.

Also, Alestorm > Swashbuckle.

With that out of the way, the newest items in my Etsy shop, Handmade of Awesome, are upcycled and recycled items. I recently decided to start making plarn (plastic yarn from grocery store plastic bags) to help with producing less waste. Because, hey, if it isn't in the landfill, its being used and that's way better.

So check out this first thing I made with the plarn - its a hair clip and I think it came out pretty awesome. And I can sell it for cheap because the materials are practically free!

The other two newest items are recycled paper with embedded marigold seeds.  This way, gardening is easier and faster.  You don't have to worry about planting each individual seed, you can just put the whole sheet of paper in the ground, a planter, or cut it to size for whatever you want.  I do have other seeds and, like, a ton more paper, so be looking for more!

And don't forget, Halloween is coming up! Make sure you look really cute!

I really need to start updating more often

Making blog updates with more than one subject probably isn't the way to go, I think. But here's another one:

So, did anyone else get invited to this Christmas Connections craft show in Ohio? Christmas Connections.

A woman by the name of Gina Mullin sent an email to me saying that she had heard of my items and thought that I would be a good fit for this craft show. (its not strictly a craft show, they allow commercial sellers, as well).

When I received the email, I thought it was worded kind of strangely, so much so, that I got my boyfriend to read it to see if he thought it sounded legit or like spam. He seemed to think it sounded spammy as well, but I went ahead and searched the internet and found the website.

The website looks legit, and I replied to the email asking for more info and I also asked how she had heard of my items. I took a look around the exhibitors listed on the website and saw that some of them linked to Etsy stores. I figured that's how she found out about my items.

It turns out, Gina's mother had seen my items and told her about them. I'm afraid that I won't have enough items to attend this show, but am seriously considering it for next year. I didn't even start making my items until a few months ago, and there's no way I will have enough by the time this show rolls around. Plus, travelling to Ohio isn't cheap.

So, I am considering this show for next year. Maybe someone could tell me how they like it if they've ever sold there before?


I'm actually starting to gear up and start making more things so I can start attending craft shows and festivals starting next year.  I'm really excited to start doing this and meeting new and exciting people!

It'll be just like with my boyfriend's band when they tour, only instead of people drinking themselves stupid, they'll be nicely perusing items and not spilling alcohol all over themselves.

I've also been working on my website: Handmade of Aweosme. I've added a few things and fixed some aesthetic issues.  I'm thinking of adding maybe a forum area or an online indicator for when I'm online so maybe people can ask me questions or order some items.  Still not sure on what I want to do yet.

And lastly, I want to mention Jux. Jux is super awesome and I'm very excited to have found it. One of my 'professors' (they're actually called facilitators) introduced me to Jux and I've been loving it ever since. Check out my Jux account. Its awesome for showcasing my items, but I can totally see other way awesome uses for it, as well. I'm excited to see how it develops and grows!

And if you like Tumblr, you can come see me over there, too!

Still...?

So everyone over at the Etsy forums are still complaining about the change to the default search from 'recent' to 'relevant'. I'm getting quite tired of it, actually. I mean, if everyone complaining put as much time into advertising as they do with complaining, I bet they'd make sales out the butt!

Yes. 'Out the butt' is an industry term. It means 'a bunch!!!'.

 With my complaining about people complaining out of the way, I plan to buy an acrylic kit to see if I can justify making acrylic jewelry this weekend. A friend of mine who plays guitar said he might be interested in buying some acrylic guitar picks if I were to make some. So it might not be a bad idea. I could make them into pendants or earrings, as well. Hopefully I'll have enough money to buy my kit this weekend.

 I really need to start making some sales. I have one sale, but I don't really count it. I made that sale because someone saw my work somewhere else on the internet other than Etsy and wanted to buy it. So I put that item on Etsy only for that person to buy it. That was in July, and I haven't made another sale, yet. Maybe I just don't have anything that anyone wants to buy. I need to think of other things i can make. I wish I had some good ideas.

 I'm sure i'll think of something eventually. I would really like to turn it into my full time job. I'll keep chugging along.

 I also created a twitter account. Maybe that will help ;) Handmade of Awesome on Twitter

SALE -- and other things

Firstly, I started a sale in the hair accessories section in my Etsy shop beginning today at noon central time and going until Aug 31, 2011.  Its 10% off all hair accessories!

I used Etsy on Sale to carry out my sale.  We'll see how it goes!

Also, I've noticed the Etsy forums have quieted a bit from the frenzy it was last week after Etsy decided to change the default search from the most recently listed items to the most relevant items displayed.  There are still people complaining, but that's what people do.

I'm sure most people spent the majority of the weekend changing item titles and tags around to be more 'relevant'.  I've been doing it a little bit, but I didn't really notice any change after the default search was changed.  I still have only one sale, and I still have low views.  I'm not giving up, though.  I still think I can make this work.  Hopefully things will pick up after August.  I keep hearing how August is the worst month for sales.  We'll see.

I know I need to do some advertising, but scraping up that money is difficult.

Anyway, until later.

kbai

I've seen enough anger and fear in the past two days to last me until next year

So, apparently, there's a huge deal going on over at Etsy with Sellers.  (btw, here's my shop Handmade of Awesome)

It seems that very recently (as in, this week) Etsy has changed the default search results from the most recent, to the most relevant.  This means for you, as a buyer, you will get more relevant search results when you search for an item, instead of the most recently listed with the keywords you searched for.  This makes incredible sense to me.

What this means for sellers, is the way we have been selling on Etsy has changed.  Before this change took place, sellers could relist their items as many times during the day and night that they wanted to be at the top of the search results, without worrying too much about kewords and product titles.  Now, when buyers come to the site and simply search for what they want, the most recently listed items aren't going to appear, so, for sellers that have depended on spending hundreds of dollars a day or a week to relist their items multiple times a day and making those hundreds back and then some, are now not selling anything.

Many of these sellers depend on their Etsy shop, so now, they must go back through their hundreds of listings to change all the titles and keywords to be 'relevant'.  Which is what they should have been doing the whole time, I think.

I haven't seen much of a difference since the whole thing went down, so I guess I was doing things right.  I've read in their forums from sellers that are quite angry about this and from those that are super happy because now they're getting sales.  I guess I'm in the middle because I haven't seen any changes.  Maybe I need to start making things that are in higher demand, but I don't know what sells the best on Etsy.  I don't even know how to find that info out.  I've searched on google for a million different versions of the phrase, "what sells the most on Etsy" but have come up empty-handed every time.

I do know that I need better pictures.  I'm working on that.

I haven't heard from any Etsy buyers about whether or not they've noticed a better search or not, but I can imagine it would be quite better for them.

The thing is, though, is that if you go on the left-hand side of the Etsy home page and click on one of the categories like "Accessories" you still get the 'recent' search, and I bet its the same if you click on any of those other categories.

So 'recent' search sill exists, and will still play a part, but just not as large as it once did.