Etsy Obsession

Ok, I have now become addicted to etsytools.com and the Etsy forums. At first, I had gone to the Storque articles to read up on the successful Etsy sellers and what they did to become successful. The Storque also has some great articles on basic business admin. So then I saw people mentioning the forums, so I went to go check it out. There is a lot of good advice and just experiences that other sellers posted about. I eventually even started to post some stuff. This definitely did up the amount of views I was getting on my items, but not necessarily any more sales. I mostly read the Business & Marketing forums to get info on people promoting and advertising. I've been taking things slow on Etsy and haven't really promoted myself, just because I want my shop to look really good. I have been working on my pictures. Seriously, some items I have taken over 20 pictures of just so that I can get them just right. I think I'm finally happy with the quality of them.

The next thing I need to work on is promoting and continually updating my shop. Basically, everyone says that listing and re-listing/re-newing items is the key, so that you get pushed to the front pages in searches. This was not initially apparent to me, but after reading it the first time, I hit my head and said "duh!" So I finally figured out how to renew items, and as an experiment, I renewed a few different items at different times in the day. I didn't have anything new to list, so this is the route I went. I did get more views, but it can get expensive since you get charged everytime you renew. But it's like a catch 22. I work, so I can't update my shop constantly throughout the day, everyday. But apparently it's what I need to do in order to be a successful seller. Then I guess the question is, how did the successful sellers get to that point? I think a few of them had full-time jobs before they were able to Etsy full-time. This may be something I need to figure out on my own. There is an etsy seller, CombustionGlassworks, who is doing a 2 week experiment and listing or renewing at set times during the day. It's been about 4 days since the experiment started and it looks like there has been a significant increase in sales. Very cool.

So, this is probably not an interesting blog for most, but since no one is really reading this yet, it's more of an outlet for me blab on.