Tracy Smith of Cinnamon Jewellery

We all know how exciting is it to make the decision to sell online. Deciding where to sell and setting up your brand new shop is all part of the fun. So. You’ve got your shop set up, your items are photographed and looking good, you’ve worked out your prices, listed your beautiful creations and finally your online shop is ready for business! Now all you have to do is wait for all those lovely online customers to stampede through your open “door”……….

But unless you are selling something so wonderful that everyone simply must have, you may be waiting quite a while for your first sale. I’ve seen several posts on the Folksy forum along the lines of “Not had a sale yet”, “How do you get people to buy?”, “What’s the secret to selling on Folksy?” There is no secret formula to selling on Folksy or anywhere else online. Although having a good product to start with gives you a big advantage, the only way to let people know you are there is to shout about it. In other words PROMOTE!

Quick! Grab that megaphone and start walking the streets shouting about your new shop! Or better still, try promoting from the comfort of your computer chair where you’re less likely to get arrested!

There are so many ways to promote your shop online, many of them free and easy to do. Sites like Facebook, Twitter and flickr allow you to post comments and photos and put your stuff “out there”. Blogging is a great way to promote your online shop and lets people get to know you, the artist/designer, and get behind the counter, so to speak, of your shop. Giveaways on your blog also help and promote your shop. Taking part in forums like the ones on Folksy and Etsy helps get you noticed as people will often click on the link to your shop to check you out.

Free listing sites such as Craft Juice, byhand.me and UK Handmade that allow you to post photos and comment on other people’s photos are another great way to be seen plus you can post your shop/blog link there too.

And of course you can also advertise your shop on IndieSmiles for a small fee!

Promoting online is just one way to let people know about your shop. Another way is face to face. I asked four Folksy sellers how they promote their businesses in the “real world”.

Anne of haptree has been selling on Folksy for just over six months and sells handmade pencil cases, purses and beadkits. She promotes her shop and website online but also, once she gained confidence after a few online sales, Anne decided to try selling at a craft fair, making the most of the event by handing out cards and stickers advertising her shop. The craft fair went well and resulted in lots of follow-ups and a commission.

Anne says – “I have now taken the plunge to do a more regular arts and crafts market that runs monthly closer to home. I am going to print my own inexpensive flyers and make sure that people know that I will be there and even if they don’t make it, they may visit my shop online. I’m going to pin these on all the local information boards in the area. Just as with your online shops I think it’s important not to rely on the organiser of craft fairs to bring people to your table. All of my daughters’ friends get little haptree gifts for their birthdays too which is great for promoting my shop!”
Incidently, Anne is the owner of two fantastic blogs ~ haptreeand me, full of excellent tutorials and tips to help improve your blog and the new Craft Blog UK, a great resource for designers and crafters of all descriptions.

Debbie of DinkyDaisy has been selling on Folksy since June 2009. She takes her doodles and turns them into pretty applique designs for her purses and brooches. Before opening her Folksy shop she sold to friends and family and at the odd school fair. This year she’s hoping to start her own website.

Debbie promotes her shop by printing her own thank you cards containing her details to send with sales. She says “I have done local school fairs, I donate raffle prizes to my local schools and I do parties at peoples houses. The house parties I find to be a great success and get a lot of repeat business from. I have a few new ideas for this year and would defintely like to get some items into a local gift shop and try some larger craft fairs.”

Lynne of CakeKnitsandCosies opened her Folksy shop a year ago and sells knitted and crocheted cakes and patterns. Lynne finds the forum on Folksy a good way to promote online. She does the odd craft fair and always takes along business cards to hand out. She says “My cakes usually attract a lot of attention at craft fairs and last year I was approached by a local artist The NoSuchDisco, who’s also a Folksy seller. He asked me to knit up his latest children’s character Waldo The Worm into a scarf, to sell alongside his fabulous book.” Lynne also gets her stuff “out there” by being featured regularly in knitting and crochet magazines such as Let’s Knit and the US KnittingPatternaday Calendar. She shares her knitting patterns in the magazines thus promoting her work and gaining wider exposure. One of Lynne’s crochet cupcakes even ended up in a photo shoot for Italian Elle magazine after being spotted and bought from her Etsy shop!

Kirsty of Wharfedale Woolworks opened her Folksy shop in June 2009 selling hand dyed yarn and knitted items. She promotes her shop online and is planning to use CraftJuice and IndieSmiles in the near future. Kirsty has recently joined the UK Work At Home Mum Directory which aims to promote small “Mum-run” businesses. Advertising in her local area has helped bring customers to her shop. “I have been promoting at my local community arts centre (Otley Courthouse) with posters and by leaving bookmarks with my details on. These bookmarks also double as tags for my yarns so customers receive one when they order, if they use the bookmark then more people may become aware of my business. I do the monthly craft fair there and now have some regular customers as a result. The local knitting group, of which I am a member also meets at the the Courthouse and has been featured in the local paper so that was good publicity. I have joined the Leeds Knitterati group on Ravelry and will be attending one of their meetings soon, so this may bring in some more business. Having some of my luxury yarns stocked in a lovely new wool shop in Leeds (Baa Ram Ewe) has also helped me to get my yarns seen in the Leeds knitting community.”

As these Folksy sellers have proved, there are so many ways to promote your shop other than just online. Some of them take more effort than others, but if you want people to “Look At You” you just have to take the plunge and go for it!

Thank you to Anne, Debbie, Lynne and Kirsty for taking part and now here’s some of their goodies to feast your eyes on….

Earrings Image Courtesy of Glamorous Glue
Share

Tweetips is so glad to be back home at Indiesmiles!

By now you’ve set-up a Twitter account and are actively  posting tweets on  Twitter;  you are probably wondering “what’s next”? How do I get more people to follow me?

Share this article on Facebook!!!

Tweetips is back! The place where you can find perfect tools and tips for utilizing Twitter to it’s full potential. Since Tweetips article’s are geared towards Indie shops you may not want to miss any of our articles. If you haven’t read our other Tweetips, check out those posts too!

I’m always looking for fun toys to use with Twitter, I was happy to stumble upon this site. Crowd status:

I enjoy cool graphics along with usability, and this neat site fit the bill!

Simply put, it will allow you to set up your own “Crowd” by picking a unique crowd name. If you find a name that no one has used previously, it’s yours! Of course I chose Indiesmiles and just added a few other accounts on Twitter to display how the screen will look.

Now, you need to be live on Twitter for this to work. So go ahead, sign-in to your Twitter account…and find some names of folks that you would like to be included in your crowd. The reasoning is that if you are literally chatting with only 3 or 4 of the Twitters you follow, for one reason or another. You can add JUST those Twitters to your crowd and send along the link. Now you’ve just become a “click” so to speak and can only see each others posts, just remember everyone else that follows you will see your posts…you just won’t see theirs in the Crowd status screen.

The uses are endless…but I do see that this would be great for a few Indie shops that normally would be in the forums to stay in touch. I also see this useful for Etsy Teams to stay in touch and to talk shop. It’s also nice to receive some craft tips from a couple other Twitters, to talk about a specific craft show or to just be alone so to speak within your group.

One fun website that I thought was more informational then use as a tool is Tweetzine.

A cool place to find some of the best Twitter news, anything from postings by celebrities to some of the best links on the net.  Also a great spot to find more Twitter tips & tools. So if you are looking for the best RAG of the Twits…Tweetzine is it!

Last but not least is my favorite Twitter tool, this is super cool for spreading the word about a product or to promote your blog and or website, without annoying your fellow followers. It’s called Pagetweet.

How exciting is this? With this tool you can add a special message/link to any link that you are using to spread the word on Twitter (or other social network!).

So imagine this, you see a cool link on a “how to” on making a certain craft item and you go to spread the word to those who follow you on Twitter. Before you go ahead and shorten the url, try this. Go to Pagetweet ……and add the url of the page you were just going to post on Twitter. Then go ahead and add the note that you would like displayed on  the top of that page. For example, if I’m promoting a Job Hunting tip that I read on the internet, I also can add a link to Indiesmiles at the top of the page I was sharing. So go ahead, try it! Use the short url that pagetweet creates and while you are spreading the word on Twitter, your message will appear at the top of that site! Cool right?

You can also use this in the various Indie forums. You want to show off a new listing of the awesome jewelry you just listed. Go to Pagetweet and put in the URL of the listing. Then put in any message you would like to be seen at the top. A couple ideas would be to  put in your blog or website, or lets say your sending a link to your Etsy shop…you could also display the link to your Artfire shop on the top of that page. Now the viewer will not only see your new listing but they will also see your message  url and have the ability to click on that link as well.

This does need to be  completely self-serving, you could put any message you would like on top of a website. Perhaps help promote a friends new product listing, a charity site, a quote of the day, whatever you decide to put at the top of any website…..the sky’s the limit!

Here is a sample post I created using this tool:

Job-hunt using Twitter! http://p8g.tw/?6M7