Wordless Wednesday: New makes and new shops

And new online stores at:

http://www.storebeez.com/stores/blue-forest-jewellery/

http://www.wowthankyou.co.uk/blue-forest-jewellery/products/

Celebrating two years of online selling

I am three today!

OK, so if it is the dog's birthday, that means it is also an anniversary for my Etsy shop, the first one I opened online, and means that I've now been selling online for a full two years.  I don't claim to have any special insight, but I must admit that hanging out in the Etsy, Folksy and Dreamaid forums, I've seen so many people start off with great enthusiasm and then realise how hard getting noticed is and fade away, that I do feel like a bit of a veteran!

It all has been much more complicated than I thought when I started out - I had that basic "I'll put it online, people will see it and buy it, job done" sort of idea.  I had never really thought about the competition for SEO, the complexities of pricing, how much time social networking would take etc.  Then there are the off-line tasks - photos, listings, business cards, packaging.  It really is a full time job, on top of a full time job.

This week's earrings

My advice to anyone starting out would be don't start unless you are really happy to spend more time on the business of selling than you are on making things.  This works out OK for me, as most of my jewellery is quick to make, and if I spent as much time on that as promoting, this tiny little house would be bursting at the seams.

I enjoy the selling, but the making is still the best part for me. I've moved on in terms of crafting skills as well, and I hope this shows in my work.  There is so much more material available now in terms of interesting and colourful gemstone and findings - as many of you know, I'm as much addicted to buying beads as making things!

And another pair of earrings!

I have five online shops (Folksy, Etsy, Dreamaid, Zibbet and Stylistic Gallery), but my main focus is Folksy, as it gives the best value for money in terms of SEO and that's really what gets online non-crafty customers to your shop.  I've nothing against crafters of course, but I want to reach the real magpies in the population who adore gemstone jewellery but don't want the hassle of making it themselves.  I've been very lucky with around 117 online sales across the shops in the 2 years, and only about 5 of those sales have been to other crafters or handmade shop owners.  Thanks to all my customers, as well as those folks who have given great advice over the two years - I literally couldn't have done it without you.

Other sales in the 'real' world have boosted my total to around 150, thanks mainly to colleagues in the day job, and it's great that they and some online customers are now regulars.  I don't sell to friends and family so if they admire something, I tend to end up giving it away (one of the many reasons why I'll never be a millionaire!) but I have inflicted a number of items on them as birthday and Christmas presents - poor things!

Enough rambling.  In the spirit of onwards and upwards, I'm celebrating this anniversary by launching my own website www.blueforestjewellery.com  Two years ago I could never have dreamed I'd be able to do this, so allow me a proud moment, please!  It is in it's early stages, though, and I'm still on a steep learning curve, so please pop along if you have time and do please send any comments you have.

Photography tips from a non-professional: Making your product photos stand out

This blog post on photography was so popular, I thought I'd dare to venture down that road again and show you my tips for post production, or making your product photos really pop after you've taken them.

I use Gimp but I'm sure the instructions are pretty much the same for other photo manipulation software.  Gimp is my choice because it's free and there are bits of it I can understand.  If only I had more time to work with it, I'm sure I could do some pretty cool things.  But I'm a confirmed amateur, and I'm deliberately avoiding any technical language here because I just don't understand it. 

Anyway, here goes!  Hope it's helpful.

Open your photo in Gimp - you perhaps want to make a copy to work on.  Here's some tigers eye and carnelian earrrings looking a little grey and flat.  What I'm showing you here is how to get a white background and make the image stand out but without distorting the colours or contrast of the product.

 Choose the 'colours' menu, and from that 'levels'

You get a graph - don't panic!  You are going to manipulate the graph, but it won't be like maths in school, honestly :-)

 Locate the little triangles underneath the graph at either end...

 ... and simply grab them and drag them to where the black shape on your graph starts.  I've started with the right hand one and pulled it over to meet the end of the black blob graph shape.  Note how this has already lighted the background from grey to off white. ('grab' and 'blob' are technical terms, honest!)

You can experiment with moving the triangles further, but you'll see once you are in the zone of the black shape of the graph, you'll start to distort the colour and contrast.  Keep the triangles right at the start of where the graphs start at either side, and you'll generally get the clearest image.

 You can save now, or alternatively, you can pick up the 'dropper' icon on the right....

 ...and pop it anywhere on your background.  With a bit of luck, it will give you a snow white background too!  Combine the two approaches and your product should really start to stand out.

 You've done it!  Any problems, you can always use 'reset'.  Don't forget to save before you quit. 

Phew!  My first tutorial with screen shots.  Let me know if it's useful, and if I've made any mistakes. 

Alison

Good and bad for online sales

As my regular blog followers know, I think there's a lot of luck involved in successful online selling (see this blog post on luck if you missed it). However, looking at my stats now another financial year has ended, there seem to be some patterns in my sales and some things that I can't back up with hard evidence, but are serious 'hunches' and I wondered how many of you agree that these are good or bad for sales and views? Here goes, and remember each one is just my opinion or gut feeling.

A great eternal truth of shopping:owls a

re really popular

The recent sunny weather prompted these thoughts and my first proposition:

Sunny weather is bad for online selling. People are outside instead of in browsing the Internet. So bad weather is much better for views and sales.

Winter, autumn and spring are better than summer for sales and views. Even if it's a bad summer in the UK, there's still less Internet activity. This applies to Etsy too, even though it's a global marketplace.

August is the worst month, October is the best. It's either very organised Christmas shoppers who are attracted to my shops, or the change to autumn sends more people to online buying.

Weekdays are better than weekends for both views and sales. The exception is late Saturday night when some folks clearly go back to things they spotted online earlier, and being at the most relaxed and happy point of the week, decide they will, after all, treat themselves.

Evenings are better than daytimes - certainly for views.  But sales can happen at any time of the day or night.

Sales (as in discounts) and promotions are counter productive for smaller sellers without high numbers of returning/repeat customers. If your customers mostly find you online through searches (rather than being sellers on Folksy or Etsy themselves), then they are probably browsing your shop for the first time. That means they never knew what your non-sale prices were, and they probably don't care much if you've got 20% off today. In fact, if they like your product and it fits their needs, they may well have been prepared to pay the original price for it. 

Returning customers are different but if they think you might be having a sale, they may decide to wait for it, and in the meantime get distracted and buy elsewhere.  Better to offer your returning customers a discount for future purchases, then they may be attracted to buy whenever they see something they like, knowing they are making a saving.

And lastly, and most controversially...

Like marmite - love it or not, instant reaction

Hard selling and persuasion don't work.  At least, not for me with jewellery. Jewellery's not like double glazing - you don't need to be talked into the merits of getting it, you either like it enough to buy it, or you don't. 

Good pictures and descriptions help to reinforce that gut reaction you get when you see something you really like.  But they don't actually sell items. 'Wanting' and 'needing' feelings control whether people buy things, even so-called impulse buys, and you as a seller can't really influence much whether your potential buyer has those feelings.  Sure, you can tempt them.  So the main thing is to make sure those potential buyers can see your products... and that means focusing on listing and SEO. 

What do you think - agree or disagree?

Unconventional tips for selling online

My shops have been open for just over a year and a half now, so I got to thinking about the great advice which I've got from forums, blogs, and other lovely sellers. This advice has been invaluable in developing the style and content of my shops. For anyone starting out, hanging around the forums of the major handmade sites is time well spent. But here are a couple of tips which you don't see so often in the forums, and perhaps that's because they are just a little bit controversial...


They are just my humble opinion, of course, and I'd love to hear what you think of them.

One. If you're just starting out, don't start to promote your shop until you're absolutely happy with how it looks. Everyone will tell you to start promoting straight away, but you might find later that you wish you had waited until you've improved your photos, written better commentaries on your items, and got some feedback on where might be the best places to spend your time promoting. So my advice would be to take a little time to ponder and to tweak your shop, especially when you're starting out.  Selling online is a long game, you probably won't miss thousands and thousands of sales, but you will be laying down a good foundation for later!

Some recent sold items.  Can you spot a target audience?

Two. Don't worry about your target market. You'll probably find lots of different sorts of people will buy what you make, and they won't obligingly fit into any different categories. Of course, if you make a particular project niche product, this won't apply to you.  But even if you make for a particular market, for instance, clothing for babies, you may also find your items are bought as gifts by folk who are not parents or close relatives of babies. I've found many different types of people purchasing my jewellery. They don't seem to fit into a particular age bracket. Are they rich or poor? I have no idea. Does that matter? Probably not. Are all my customers women? No, a fair few are men buying gifts for friends and family. A quick look around the bus or Tube reveals that is very hard to categorise which women buy which sorts of jewellery. And those who are magpies, like me, will probably have loads of different styles in their collections. People just refuse to sit in the neat categories the marketing folks would like them to! And what a good thing it is that people don't - the world is a much place for us all being different, IMHO.

More sold items - my customers have eclectic taste!

Three. Have excellent customer service.  Communicate with your customers as much as possible so they know you've acknowledged their order, have put it quickly in the post, and want to hear back from them that they love the item, or even if there's a problem with it. This is where the handmade movement can really outshine the big online retailers. Don't worry about bothering people too much - if someone doesn't like getting an additional email from you, they can always leave it unopened in their inbox.  But most customers I think, appreciate getting a note to say when their item will be posted, I know I do.  So make first class service your aim.

Lastly, be very patient. Neither Rome nor Marks and Spencers were built in a day!  However much you promote (and you could find yourself needing 36 hours in a day very quickly) it will take people time to find your shop. It's a online jungle out there and you need to prioritise taking care of yourself and your time.

What would your unconventional tips for other sellers be?

What makes a successful shop?

This post originally appeared as a guest blog on Iyobo Design's blog.  Thanks to Beata for featuring it :-)

OK, I’m going to make a bold statement now. I think I have a successful shop! Actually, I have four online shops on Folksy, Etsy, Dreamaid and Zibbet. I’ve been selling for 11 months online and across the Folksy and Etsy shops I have 54 sales.

Were you expecting the number to be closer to 5,000? Or 500? What do you think it means to have a successful shop? Is it loads of sales, loads of stock, repeat customers, wholesale orders, being a household name?

I guess like most sellers when I started I was a bit naive and imagined that customers would be queueing up to buy my jewellery on a daily basis – maybe I wouldn’t be able to make things fast enough! I soon learned that making the jewellery and listing it was the relatively easy part. There were all sorts of things about promoting online that I didn’t even realise that I’d need to do – blogging, tweeting, chatting in forums, all that was new to me. Now I spend a lot of time promoting, but I’ve learned to focus on the things I enjoy. And customers still don’t come in droves. So why do I think I’m successful? Maybe I’m just mad LOL

It’s because of the best thing about online selling, something I’d never even thought of when I started my shops. It’s about the customer experience. A lot of people I’ve sold to have emailed me about the jewellery, have left me feedback in the shops, have blogged or mentioned my shop in other forums and online venues. I’ve been lucky all my feedback so far is really positive. And that’s the real joy of it for me.

Everytime I sell an item and put it in the post, there’s a bit of anxiety about whether the recipient will really like it. After all, they’ve only seen a few pictures and read my description of it, and I’m no David Bailey in the photo department! And all my designs are from my imagination and are things I’d like to wear, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the world shares my taste, does it? So the relief and pleasure when you get feedback that it’s beautiful, that my mum will really love it, that it’s well made, that it’s better than the picture etc etc, is really sometimes better than the sale. I don’t think people working in a bricks and mortar shop get that experience very often. So I’m happy to trade loads of customers for a few, really happy online buyers any day!

It’s lucky that making jewellery is my hobby and I do feel for people trying to make a living from their crafting in such tough economic times. And if a hundred people suddenly found my shop and each bought an item, I’d be overjoyed. But just at the moment, on an average of a just over one sale a week, I’m quite a happy bunny. So my advice to new shops would be, don’t be impatient, work hard and the customers will gradually come and then, well, it’ll be lovely!

BESTeam weekly feature Darling Dande Designs

This week I'm delighed to feature quite a new and exciting Etsy store Darling Dande Designs. 

Here you can get beautiful accessories and clothing for your little ones - especially toddlers - as well as beautiful fabrics by the metre and some treats for grown-up girls too.

Dandee has two of her own little treasures - Dani and  Declan and that's how the name of the shop came about!

I love this personalised blanket made of plush and satin.  You can choose the embroidery font and colour so you'll have a truly one of a kind item.

Wouldn't this be a fantastic present for someone expecting a new arrival soon?

 Dandee also makes items for adults too, and this zippered change purse is really pretty and striking!

The fabrics are great too.  I had to choose this retro turquoise blue one, of course!  Time to dust off your sewing machine and make something stunning...

What's more the Darling Dande website features the cutest home page I've ever seen!  Check it out.  The range of products there is even wider than in the Etsy store and includes bath and body products.

And how cute would baby look in this hooded bear towel?

You can find out more about this lovely shop at the Darling Dande blog.

Enjoy!

It's all about the book - BESTeam weekly feature on ConduitPress

This week I'm featuring a real classy shop - ConduitPress, aka Talia, sells beautifully handcrafted notebooks, journals, baby books, albums, photographs and cards, all with a unique edge to them. There's a real vintage feel from the items, perfect if you want something that's pre-loved and kind to the planet!

Here are a few of my favourite items - click on the picture for more details:







1. This journal upcycled from a vintage novel has pages from the book interspersed with plain sheets!
2. This journal is in beautiful upcycled upholstery leather with a lotus motif

3. The vintage map is of Europe in 1939 and the Far East on the reverse. Perfect for history buffs!
4. Maroon leather journal with a beautiful green decoration.

5. A lovely fresh feel to this pocket sized journal
6. Mini albums with a die cut cover for your own picture - a perfect gift at $5!

If you're an arty or crafty person, you probably keep an ideas journal or a creative diary, collect photos for albums or scrapbooking and enjoy the feel of a beautifully made item. ConduitPress is bound to have something to interest you.

You can follow ConduitPress on her blog, on Facebook and on Twitter

A new shop and some new photos

This Easter holiday, I've opened a new shop Blue Forest Jewellery on Zibbet
At the moment it just has my Mookaite Collection in it. I like the way you can create shop sections and easily move your items around.

Also, I've been putting together some collages of matching items in the shop. Here's a couple of them.

What do you think?