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!

Diary Of An Etsy Seller March 2018

Are we ready to see what Jennifer from Happy Scatter (craft supplies) and Gifting Moon (gifts like mugs and coasters) was up to during the month of March? Here's what happened...

March 2018

26/2/18 - 4/3/18

• I had a conversation online about using commas in Etsy listing titles and I'm still confused about it. I told another shop owner that I found it better when I started using commas to separate my keywords, rather than having no punctuation. I've heard that pipes | or dashes - can work too. Then I tried looking  into it to see if there was a definitive answer and found lots of people saying you don't need punctuation at all. I still don't know! I should probably experiment by trying a few different methods out?!
• I had a custom order for some bridesmaid mirrors with orchids on instead of my usual flower. It was fun to draw an orchid and I loved the finished result, I will have to make some more to put in my shop.
• March includes #MarchMeetTheMaker on Instagram, so I started taking and uploading daily photos to my @giftingmoon and @happyscatter Instagram accounts. I saw an increase in followers and 'likes', and it was great to check out other people's photos too.
• SNOW! WE hardly ever get good snow in Dorset so it was very exciting to get some. The kids had 2 snow-days off school and we went sledding on one of them. So I didn't get much work done at the end of the week, but it was so worth it, and totally one of the reasons I like working for myself!

Some of my #MarchMeetTheMaker photos

5/3/18 - 11/3/18

• The week started with me frantically finishing World Book Day costumes for my two kids - it had been postponed because of the snow but I still barely finished them in time!
• I had a custom order request for a stencil from another Dorset Team Member which was exciting, I love helping others turn their ideas into a reality.
• I had lots of orders for bags and mirrors this week which kept me busy.
• The week ended with Mother's Day. I didn't get as many orders for Mother's Day as I did last year. I know that a mug of mine was shared on buzzfeed last year which really helped, so next year I maybe need to look into advertising? I spent Mother's Day eating pancakes and playing monopoly!

12/3/18 - 18/3/18

• I found out I'd made it into the Dorset Team Spring and Christmas fairs, and a Rainbows and Stars Market Night on Facebook (all with my Gifting Moon shop). It made me feel super excited as it's always good to have things to work towards! I also wanted to design some new things for them so it made me do lots of drawing this week!
• The positive feeling encouraged me to start a brand rep search on Instagram, something I'd been wanting to do for over a year. I was basically asking if anyone wanted free stuff in return for posting photos on Instagram which I could also share on my social media. I just had to hope someone would apply...
• The end of the week was taken over by party preparations for my daughter's 10th birthday. We were planning games and crafts, and cleaning the house, and shopping, for days!
• It also snowed again at the end of the week, so we had some more fun playing outside in it!

19/3/18 - 25/3/18

• The 19th was actually my daughter's birthday, and my sister was here for it. We played board games and ate too much!
• Okay, don't judge me, but A LOT of this week was spent binge-watching Stranger Things on Netflix. We watched 2 whole seasons in about 4 days, me and my sister even stayed up until 3am on the last night she was here so we could finish season 2. Warning: this programme is addictive! I kept up with my orders for the week just fine, but I didn't get much forward-planning done.
• This is also the week I completely failed at #MarchMeetTheMaker. I decided not to worry about it too much, and not to try and catch up, because it would just stress me out.
• I made a snap-decision to try Fiver Friday for the first time, offering a mug for £5 instead of the usual £8. I didn't get any orders from it though. I will need to try again and maybe build-up to it a bit more beforehand.
• I made (with the help of my husband) some new stock for The Etches Collection in Kimmeridge. It was t-shirts, which is something new for us to make. They were hard to make but looked awesome in the end.

26/3/18 - 1/3/18

• This week my Etsy shops seemed to have tumbleweed blowing through them - just 4 very small sales. This wasn't too bad, as through my Happy Scatter shop I had lots of stencils to cut for the Lollipop Box Club, a craft subscription box that regularly ask me to make items for the kits.
• When I wasn't cutting stencils I was spring-cleaning the house as we had family visiting for Easter. I even cleaned the oven and scrubbed lots of corners of cupboards and the shower and things. My house looked quite shiny by the time our guests arrived!

What did you get up to in March? Don't forget to let the Dorset Team know about your successes (and failures if you need some advice or comiseration!) 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 Branding series!

Diary Of An Etsy Seller Feb 2018

This week our feature is something a bit different. Each month Jennifer from our social media team is going to be sharing some notes from her Etsy diary (or perhaps some other team members if anyone else is willing to give it a go?!). Jennifer runs two different Etsy shops, Happy Scatter for craft supplies, and Gifting Moon for gifts like mugs, coasters, and badges. You can see what kind of things an Etsy seller gets up to, and learn from her successes and failures!

Here she is...

Feb 2018

29/1/18 - 4/2/18:

I had a tough January for personal reasons, but I began February with a renewed sense of purpose and determination!

• I found this free content calendar via Facebook and started trying to fill it in - I haven't made much use of it yet but it could become useful in the future: https://laurabelton.co.uk/2018/01/16/how-to-plan-your-content-for-2018/
• I took a look at my visits to orders ratio and found that I had a great conversion rate - my husband had mentioned to me before that I did but I don't think I'd ever really understood what he was talking about! You look at one month's stats, take the number of orders, and divide it by the number of visits. A good figure to get is 2-3%.Mine ranges from 4% - 10% so I must be doing something right! Now to work out how to use this knowledge...

5/2/18 - 11/2/18: 

• I felt like I was a bit out-of-practise drawing on my ipad as I'd barely used it (for anything except Candy Crush) in January. So I joined in with an Instagram drawing challenge #zoolligraphylettering run by Stacey Thompson  and The Lettering Fern. I drew this Markhor. It was fun to draw something just for the fun of it (I'm usually drawing with specific products in mind). Though of course it might end up on a product one day:

• I joined in with the #LoveYourShopSweeps Etsy Contest which I found out about via the Dorset Team Members Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1514236692123255/ You had to share 2 photos on Instagram using the hashtag - one photo from your own shop and one highlighting another Etsy shop. For a different shop I shared some earrings by Studio Pickles, another Dorset Team member. It was hard to choose as there are so many great shops in the Dorset Team!
• Best thing this week - I bought a Silhouette Cameo 3 using a Hobbycraft 20% discount code. I've wanted one for ages to try and make stickers for my Happy Scatter shop. I have a Cricut Explore already, which it is possible to make stickers with, but not the way I want to make them. So I was very excited to get the Silhouette. It arrived on 10/2/18 and I started making stickers right away... well I tried to, but I did have a lot of problems getting the cut lines in the right place, the first ones kept going wonky (see photo below). I worked out a solution in the end, it's a bit fiddly as I have to adjust all the cut lines, but it works!

12/2/18 - 18/2/18:

This week is half term holidays for my 2 kids. I plan to work for a few hours in the morning while they amuse themselves, spend time with them after lunch, then work a bit again after they've gone to bed in the evenings. We'll see how it goes!

• I spent too much time on Monday looking at suppliers for a new product idea. When I start searching for suppliers online I tend to fall down the browsing rabbit hole, and I don't emerge until hours later with a long shopping list of things I'd love to buy...
• I got into the swing of things with my sticker cutting - drawing new designs and cutting them straight away. I was having so much fun with it that I danced around the lounge one day singing 'I love making stickers, I love making stickers' to the tune of 'let's all do the conga'. My kids just laughed at me.
• I had a fun custom order request to draw someone's guinea pig to put on a mug, which I worked on in the evenings this week. 

19/2/18 - 25/2/18:

• I bought some more procreate brushes for my ipad pro from Ipad lettering, as they had a discount code and I wanted to write some more quotes. This led to a day spent playing around with my new brushes. Sometimes you have to take a bit of time to learn something new, right?!
• I had a couple of discussions online explaining to newer shop owners about how they should fill their titles with 2-3 word phrases, making sure they use as many of the available characters as possible. It's so important for SEO, to get your shop found on Etsy and it surprises me how many sellers don't realise it.
• I had 2 orders this week for my new bridesmaids mirrors, which I'd only listed on the 13th of Feb. Yay for finding a new product that works! I checked my stats and it looks like they found me searching for terms like 'bridesmaid gift', 'bridesmaid proposal' and 'compact mirror' so my tags are working too.

What did you get up to in February? Don't forget to let the Dorset Team know about your successes (and failures if you need some advice or comiseration!) via the forum, FB group, or by tagging #DorsetTeam on social media!

See you next Wednesday for another new blog topic.