Diary Of An Etsy Seller April 2018

Today we're going to find out what Jennifer from Happy Scatter (craft supplies) and Gifting Moon (gifts like mugs and coasters) was up to during the month of April...

April 2018

2/4/18 - 8/4/18

• This week was the first week of the Easter school holidays, so the kids were home, and we had family staying for a visit. We also spent a whole day out at Kingston Lacy to celebrate my friend's birthday (and had curry for dinner too - yum). So the week was busy before I even started thinking about work!
• I posted off some custom stencils which had been ordered by another Dorset Team member. It was fun to help with designing them and getting the packaging just right, so that she could sell them through her business. I love making other people's ideas into a reality.
• I posted out packages to my new Gifting Moon brand reps - 3 packages to 3 different countries! Fingers crossed that they take some amazing photos for me to use on my social media channels.
• March wasn't as busy as I'd hoped it would be, especially the last week of March. So I decided to turn on promoted listings on Etsy, to see if that boosted sales. I had one order from it on the 2nd of April and one on the 3rd so it looked like it would help, but time would tell.
• I joined in with the #DorsetTeam twitter chat on the 3rd, one discussion was about whether having more listings (e.g. over 100) helps to get more sales or not (asked by @flossandjet). I replied that it only helps if you look at your SEO too (100 listings with bad SEO won't help you), and @studiopickles recommended Marmalead to help improve SEO.
• On the 8th of April I joined in with a Market Night on Facebook, with a Rainbows and Stars Theme. A Market Night is when a bunch of small businesses add photos to one album, usually with discounted prices / new products, and at the alloted time on the night itself there's a codeword for people to use by commenting on the photos of items they'd like to buy. I had 6 orders, so it was pretty good - but it did involve a lot of Facebook networking in the run up to the event, so I wouldn't do these regularly as I don't have enough time!

9/4/18 - 15/4/18

• It was the second week of the Easter holidays. We didn't have any family down at the start of the week, but we did have a day out swimming and going to the beach with some friends.
• I had to make and post my orders from the Market Night as well as my usual Etsy orders so these all kept me busy whilst also entertaining my kids!
• I hosted the #DorsetTeam Twitter chat on Tuesday 10th April - it was on the theme of 'Dorset And Your Etsy Shop' and we had a good chat about how Dorset inspires us and what local shops we have our items for sale in, etc. I decided that I need to put more about Dorset into my 'about' page too!
• I was away from the 13th to the 16th of April - taking a trip to St. Ives Cornwall with my Mum, Sister, and Brother. We had a great laugh and it was good to get away from it all for a few days. I didn't put the shop on holiday mode while I was gone, but I did extend some shipping times by a couple of days.

16/4/18 - 22/4/18

• I didn't get home until Monday and spent a lot of Tuesday unpacking, and catching up with orders that had come in while I was away.
• I had a request for coasters with the drinks 'moscow mule' and 'bloody mary' on. As it wasn't the first time someone had asked for these I decided I'd better hurry up and draw them!
• I had a custom order for mirrors with a different layout to my usual design, so I spent some time making mock-up images and tweaking it until the customer was happy. Custom orders do take a little bit longer but I love doing them as I like helping people find the perfect gift!
• I spent a lovely day painting watercolour flowers to use in upcoming projects. I've been doing so much on my Ipad Pro lately - it was nice to get out my paints and get a bit messy.

23/4/18 - 29/4/18

• I had quite a few orders from Gifting Moon this week, with over 25 coasters and 15 mirrors going out. 4 of those orders were from Promoted Listings, with 15 orders in total from it for the month. I don't think I will keep it turned on every month but it gave me a bit of a boost this month!
• This week I was making and packaging lots of Happy Scatter stencils, stickers, and die-cuts for the Lollipop Box Club Subscription Box.
• I had a discussion on Facebook about subscription boxes, explaining to a couple of people about what they are and how they work. It made me then go and look for other subscription boxes - I don't want to regularly do another craft box as I want to stay loyal to Lollipop Box Club for crafts, but I could look into gift-style sub boxes for Gifting Moon items...
• After all the stencils and things were packed I then prepped for the Dorset Team Spring Fair. I made some new mugs, printed lots more coasters, and got things together like my float and charging my Izettle card reader. It always takes longer to prepare for a fair than I think it will!
• I struggled with cash-flow this week. With lots of orders to pay for postage for, and needing to buy more stock for the fair and future orders, and needing a float for the fair - money got a bit tight. It something you have to really stay on top of when running your own business but sometimes when I'm busy I forget to keep checking! 

How did your business get on during April? Don't forget to let the Dorset Team know about your successes (and failures if you need some advice or commiseration!) via the forum, FB group, or by tagging #DorsetTeam on social media.

Don't forget to join us next week for the next in our Business Building series!

Social Media Special - Facebook

Here's another Social Media Special!

This time we're going to take a look at Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/

Everyone has heard of Facebook, but some of you might not be using it yet, or may only be using it for personal use rather than business use. So today we're going to look at how Facebook can be used to promote your Etsy shop.

Facebook Basics:

First of all, here's a few Facebook Basics, for those of you who don't use it at all yet...

• You can use Facebook to share stories, photos and videos - both your own and you can share other people's too. You can also use facebook to join and communicate with 'groups' of people who have the same interests as you, you can follow business pages of business you like, you can play games, chat in Facebook messages, and more.
• To use Facebook you need to set up a Facebook account (anyone over the age of 13 can do so).
• PRIVACY SETTINGS: You should think carefully about the amount of information you put on there and check your privacy settings too. For example, if you tend to use your birth town as a password for your online bank account, then don't put your birth town on Facebook - you don't want to make it easy for people to gather your personal information and use it to hack into other accounts. This doesn't need to scare you off, it's just good to keep it in mind when you are filling out your details. You can change the privacy settings for each update if you want some to be public and some to only be seen by your friends, or specific friends only, etc. You can read more about privacy settings here: https://www.facebook.com/help/325807937506242/
• You can become 'friends' with your real-life friends and family, so you can see the photos and updates they post, and they can see yours. 
• People can interact with the photos and updates you post, by 'liking' them (or other emotions e.g. 'loving'), or by commenting below them - you can then reply to their comment too.
• To use Facebook as your business (your Etsy shop) you need to set up a page. You have to already have a Facebook account before you can set up a page. Once you have a page, then people can 'like' it, and they will see photos and updates you post in there (though they won't always see everything you post, we'll talk more about this in a minute). They will be able to interact by commenting on / sharing your posts. They will also be able to message your page. You can add other things too, like a shop where you can list your items but then they have to click through to Etsy to purchase it.

There is lots more you can learn about Facebook settings and uses and I'm not going to cover it all here today. See the 'getting started' page of the Facebook Help Centre to find out more: https://www.facebook.com/help/364458366957655/

Using Facebook For Business:

Here's a few ideas on how Facebook can help your business...

Your Facebook Page: As mentioned above, you can set up a page for your business. 

• You can post updates one there (photos, videos, or just snippets about your day). Try a mix of updates about new products, behind the scenes, and about you / your shop. 
• You could try finding some hashtags to join in with on certain days, like #motivationmonday or #throwbackthursday - see more here: https://thrivehive.com/39-daily-hashtags-for-small-business-marketing/
• Pay to 'boost' your posts or advertise to reach more people - and you can set the target audience these are being shown to so that it matches your target audience (see our post about finding your target market here:  https://dorsetteam.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/business-building-finding-your-target.html)
• Not all the people who've 'liked' your page will see all your posts. If they haven't recently visited your page or liked one of your updates then your new one won't be shown to them, or it will be quite far down in their facebook feed, so they probably won't scroll down far enough to see it. Encourage people to comment on your updates by asking questions - the more interaction your post has the higher it will appear in feeds.
• You can set up a Facebook shop, as mentioned above. For how to do that see here: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/912190892201033
• You can also add events you are attending, for example if you will be at the Dorset Team Fairs you can show these events on your shop page. Here's how to do that: https://www.facebook.com/help/802612399854497

Your Facebook Group: Some business will also set up a Facebook Group for other people to join. 

• This can be set so it's not as public as your Facebook Page - you can then use it to share special offers or coupon codes with people in your group - so this could be loyal customers, or customers who have spent over a certain amount etc.
• People might be more likely to interact in a group - they might not want to comment on a public photo on your public page, but in a group there are less people to see the comment. 
• You can pin posts to the top of a group so that people see the important information.
• You could try creating polls to get more feedback - this works on pages and in groups but again you might get more responses in a less public setting.

Join Groups: You can also join groups to help you network your business.

• Join groups to help with your Etsy shop, for example the Dorset Team Members group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1514236692123255/ so you can ask for help if your are stuck on something, but also to share successes, news, etc with other shop owners who will understand your joy!
• Join groups where people go if they are looking for handmade items to buy, or where you can share your giveaways, news, latest products etc. For example there's the group 'Handmade Craft Network UK' with over 38,000 members: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1578560309058402/ 
• You will find lots more groups to join if your search Facebook. When you search something (e.g. 'unicorn') you then need to scroll down to the 'groups' section, and click 'see all'. This will show you the groups it has found on that topic:

That's all we're going to look at for Facebook today. Let us know if you have any questions. Don't forget you can also 'like' the Dorset Team page here: https://www.facebook.com/dorsetteam/

If you missed our other Social Media Special posts you can see them here:

Social Media Special on Twitter: https://dorsetteam.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/social-media-special-twitter.html

Social Media Special on Instagram: https://dorsetteam.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/social-media-special-instagram.html