Freebie Magnets With All My Orders

For years I've been giving away free little 1" badges with all my online sales; ones I ordered well before I bought my own badge maker. I was parceling up an order yesterday and I noticed that the website address on the badges was out of date, and had been for ages. Rather than put it on the long finger(as so many things seem to be residing at the moment!), I sat down and reworked one of my old designs. I picked 'join the craft revolution' for a few reasons; I could use it for my my craft and supplies shop-it being applicable to both, and also I thought it was a catchy phrase that might make people intrigued enough to go visit my website. I'm choosing to give away magnets this time as it's a handy thing to have, especially if people have a magnet board in their studio. Also someone is not too likely to wear a badge that has someones website address on it, whereas on a magnet it seems more innocuous.

Selling on Etsy

At the start of January I decided I was going to rejuvenate my Etsy shop, I'd had it for years, but I was never able to get sales moving consistantly. I started putting items in it other than my pocket mirrors, things like brooches, buttons rings and earrings. I spent time, and money on a photography studio improving my photos and also took note of things like craftopolis and view counters. I shared more of my items on facebook, which is also linked to my twitter account. On top of that I've started blogging again which I'm sure helped a little too.

The results being that for February I double my etsy sales from an average taken for the previous few months, which is pretty good going since they were over xmas. I also more than doubled the amount of unique visitors for the month.

At the end of all this I'm still unsure if it's worth the effort, as these takings are still only a small portion compared with what I sell at the market. But I suppose in these 'interesting' times we are in at the moment the idea is to take whatever I can get, mush it all together and hopefully at the end it amounts to an income! It's satisfying to be able to make something at home, and within a half an hour I've taken photos and listed it online, ready for the open market. It is very time consuming though. Also on the down side I seem to have dropped the ball when it comes to my supplies shop, I don't seem to have the brain space to run the market and two etsy shops. How do the rest of you feel who are working/selling on etsy?

Deadly Things: Part 3

Most people have no clue that I'm originally from Dublin until now and then the word deadly pops out of my mouth, for anyone reading this outside of Ireland, that means great or cool, not lethal as most people would assume. So here is another list of deadly things (two in one week, I must be full of love for the world!!).

Green Saffron: I had the most amazing curry yesterday at the market, and it only cost me a fiver. I trade right across from the Green Saffron stall every Friday, and the smell of the spices is simply intoxicating. Eventually my grumbling tummy got the better of me and I indulged in a yummy curry, and I really can't believe how amazing it tasted. It was spicy but fruity at the same time, will loads of layers of taste. Someone said to me that they should video how happy I looked when eating it because it would make a perfect ad. Arun also sells his curry frozen so you can bring it home, 'dinner for 2 for a tenner, the best curry you will ever eat'. Mostly when people have a sales pitch like that they are fudging the truth a bit, in this case he is really right.

Lucky Rainbow Designs: My friend Rebecca listed this amazing card in her shop yesterday, and I literally had a squee moment when I saw it, it is so adorable. Rebecca buys lots of supplies off me, and those pins and buttons you see here were bought from my shop. It's so nice to see my supplies being made into something so super cute. Also I was with Rebecca when she bought this paper when we went to Cork for the Etsy Ireland meeting, it's really cool to see what she has done with it.

Sales: My Etsy shops have been really quiet over the past two months or so. It's because I haven't been putting much time into them because I've been working frantically trying to keep up with the new markets, Roisins shop, and the BPLO album cover. There just wasn't time left in the day to do anything with new listings or promoting. Then out of the blue this week I've gotten lots of sales, I got a sale nearly every day, and then yesterday I woke up to find I sold 5 things!! I was so delighted both for the money and also the sense of pride. At the moment I'm trying really hard to save up money to buy my button press machine so the extra sales have been a great help. I've no idea what brought the extra traffic this week, but I'm grateful to whatever it was.

Early Nights: I've always been a night owl, and I let this habit get particularly bad in college when I lived with an insomniac. We used to stay up til 5 in the morning chatting/watching the discovery channel/playing computer games. It was loads of fun, and I continued doing this kind of thing for years, but I knew it wouldn't last forever, I would eventually have to grow up. Over the past 2 years I've really tried to get to get to bed regularly by 1 or 2 am, and it's really helped being consistent about it. Recently my decision to give up caffeine was the last factor that really helped me have a more normal sleeping pattern. Last night I actually went to bed at 11pm, I think this is the earliest I've gone to bed in about 10 years, bar being sick/jet lagged. It was really lovely, and I woke up early feeling great and full of energy. I don't think I would be able to do it all the time, but I might make an extra effort to do it once a week and see how it goes.

Sales!

It's fnny how some things go through waves of poularity. At the market I've given up trying to understand the logic, it's like collectively everyone decides to buy buttons one day, or another it's brooches. Well online this week it's been my pocket mirrors, which is very unusual as since I listed the lot of them after Christmas there have only been sporadic sales. They are far more popular on my stall. Whereas for some lucky reasons the etsians can get enough of them at the moment, woohoo. Lets hope this is the start of a continuing trend!

Have you ever had this happen to you??

Queen of Hearts Feature

I woke up and did my usual log onto my shops/promo/email stuff, and I noticed that a few of my items were missing from my Nice Day Designs shop. I must admit that I've really let this shop go as far as promoting goes so it didn't even occur to me that I had sold stuff. So after checking expired listings and inactive listings, it dawned on me that I may have sold them. Low and behold there were a bunch of sales....how strange??! So off I toddled to check craftcult and it turns out my 'Queen of your Heart Pocket Mirror' was featured in an Alice in Wonderland article on Storque(the main Etsy blog)!! How fantastic is that?? I've never been featured in any way on Etsy, so I was really excited. All in all I've had a really good week, I wonder what magical fairy is looking over me?

Etsy Ireland Meeting

On Saturday I went to Galway to meet some of the Etsy Ireland(west) team.Sadly it wasn't a huge group, only three of us in total, but hopefully it will grow in time . But I did get to meet two really lovely Polish girls, Agnieszka of Lysulka and Kamilla of Niceartthings. It was really good to meet people in person and talk about crafting, experiences on Etsy, swap supplies tips, as sometimes it can feel a bit solitary working by myself all the time.They also encouraged me to get in touch with the main Etsy Ireland team, and try to get some of the benifits of being part of a team, I'm sure I have a lot to learn from them.

The other nice part about the trip was that I got to go to Galway,which I hadn't visited in 10 years, which is totally crazy because it's only 2hrs on the bus and it's a great city. It was totally buzzing with people when I arrived, buskers every 10 meters, a tonnes of shoppers in the city centre. I went to their market, which is great and has a wide variety of stalls. It is a bit crazy that it's in a tiny alley way and they stall are very small, it would drive me crazy as a trader. It did put me off queueing for food as I'm not a huge fan of getting stuck in crowds. I wish I would have had money on me, there were definitely a few things I would have snatched up. When I enquired at a few stalls if they sold stuff online I was surprised when most of them said no. It's so easy these days to set it up, it seems like such a wasted opportunity not to. There is one shop I totally fell in love with Lola Rosa, if ever there was a shop that I wanted to buy every single thing in it, it was this one!! It's like crawling inside someones brain who is dotty, arty, clolourful and they have a long shopping list of presents to get through. They sells lots of beautiful things that would be perfect for gifts, but also a selection of fabrics,ribbons, and buttons. Really I can't recommend this shop highly enough, and if you can't make it to Galway check out their website!