719 visits in 30 days and no sales

You have some beautiful products ! As others have said, money is tight at the minute so might be worth adding some lower priced options if possible.
You also don’t have many product likes - and I think people often look at that.
If it would still be profitable, you could put a couple of items on sale - or offer free postage in UK?
Are you on Pinterest? I have seen a few people click through to Etsy from my Pinterest so might be worth trying for Folksy?
Best of luck!

I am now retired but in a previous life I did sales and marketing professionally with a heavy influence on SEO and Branding. It can be a very slow process to “be known” especially amongst the 18 million registered ETSY users! So having recently joined folksy myself, I have been compiling various trends against the likes of Etsy, Ebay, Folksy and my own website. Not enough data at the moment but will give you this information. Its about cross selling on lots of platforms using the obvious to include blogging amongst many traits. It can be a long slog blogging for subject matter, so empower others with ideas and collaborations to mutually grow your branding, the natural progression is sales will follow.

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I frequently sell £20 pieces, sometimes more, sometimes more than one at a time. People pay for what they want.
I hate this ‘nobody has any money to spend’.
If they want something then yes they have.
The problem with making stained glass is that
A. The process is very labour intensive
B. The material costs are high. Solder, art glass, copper foil, flux, wire, chain, polish …
We should not and must not sell ourselves short. It is bad for all crafters everywhere.
I make a profit on my glass, not a lot but enough.if when I’m making something I think ’ this price is too low,’ I put it up. It still sells. Sometimes people do not buy because they see too low a price and think it cannot be a quality item
Sorry. Rant over but please we must not undervalue our skill, art, experience, materials, time. That is bad for all of us and for Folksy.
Xx
Ps. I see lots of things sold on Folksy where there can be no profit at all. Hourly rate. Eeer negative.

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If you’re selling well on other marketplaces, you’re not doing anything wrong. Unfortunately I don’t think Folksy is very well known, so organic traffic is not as good as some of the other marketplaces. Others say that you need to drive traffic to Folksy yourself, take part in the forums etc, but that’s not a feasable solution if you sell well on other marketplaces without having to do those things. Folksy may also not be the right target market for your items. In short, there are many reasons why you may not be selling on Folksy…but if you’re selling well elsewhere, it suggests that the issue is not your prices, products, seo etc

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I felt I could comment on this as I too sell glass and have been doing so happily and busily since 2009. It takes time that is the answer.
But I do note after following the FB link that the shop now link goes to the Etsy shop so is not going to bring anyone here. Just saying.
PS I also have another shop. This with the aim of increasing my sales not taking one away from the other. I have both linked from my social media pages and promote both. It works for me but does also require a small amount of effort.

PPS I checked my stats… don’t usually bother as it is Sales which count not views.
15535 views in 30 days which has translated to 61 sales. That is 254 views per sale (and note a Lot of my views are brought directly to my shop, my listings via my social media promotion)

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That’s interesting Joy @JOYSofGLASS. My 11 sales over past thirty days translate to 261 views per sale, a similar ratio. Of those sales, they came from Instagram, Facebook. Google, Folksy Forum and Folksy direct (though I know two of these found me through my business card).
You have to get yourself out there, or people won’t find you.
The majority of these sales were in the £40 -£70 price bracket. Although I am still probably underselling myself, people will pay a respectable sum if they like and want your work. It is really important that we don’t have a race to the bottom on price, it will be bad for everyone.

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I never read blogs. I find them dull and boring on the whole. So, it’s not something I’ve ever considered doing myself.

Since my post, I’ve sold two items. Which isn’t bad I suppose.

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I’d be really interested in any advice you have on this matter.

All my items are free UK postage.

Well, in answer to that, I sold a Kingfisher on here for £50 and some Xmas Trees for £20. I don’t believe it’s the prices. Stained glass is not cheap to make and can last a life time. On facebook I’m selling stuff for much higher prices.

My facebook Shop Now link resolves to Folksy.

Interesting! Let me give you two analogies one based on your reply and one I use when I did presentations.

  1. Hi, My name is Mr x and I am the buyer for a leading high street store selling your “type of range” right now. Unfortunately we have a problem in that our suppliers have gone into early retirement and have sadly informed us of the imminent closure. Having looked at your product range we would be delighted to buy 10 of everything made on a monthly basis under a 2 year agreement at the price you are selling them at today.

We however need a story of your passions and history in the making to allow us to market these products and up sell though out our 220 stores. So If you could send a blog giving an overview as described, being inspirational and uplifting in your choice of words, we will be delighted in sending our contract for your signature of approval.

  1. Hi, I have made this special purse which I would like you to sell please on my behalf 50/50 share. This purse is so special in that every time you open it, a £20 note is at the bottom of the purse? Close it and open it again, and another £20 not appears.

This has gone on for many months and I have a room full of £20 notes! Problem is I need someone who can write a blog describing this which would be life changing and people wanting to subscribe and follow all future blogs you may write.

Is this a fair trade for a never ending purse of £20?

Conclusion is learn and read your competitors marketing ideas every day, knowledge becomes power, becomes sales.

David, I’m sorry and maybe I’m a tiny bit tired but I honestly haven’t a clue what your analogies are supposed to mean. Perhaps you could put that into non-marketing speak. :slight_smile: xx

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It get what you’re saying with the first analogy.

Same here, I have been on Folksy since last Summer and had 5 sales quite quickly, which was encouraging, now not a thing has sold since August, I changed to a Plus shop and added Stripe hoping that would help… But still nothing… I have over 150 items listed plus a lot more could be added so inventory is not the issue… I am at a loss really…

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Penni

I looked at your shop …lovely things…one points which I think does not help anyone landing there for the first time…
Your actual listings are pushed so far down the page by your long shop notice (intended when I asked for it as a quick one-liner to say I’m on holiday or such like) that my initial view of your page is your banner and lots of words. You can put all that text in other areas of your shop instead of hiding your beautiful wares.

The other thing which jumps out at me is absolutely no social media promotion of your shop except for a few tweets but you have only a small Twitter following so they are not going far.
Most of us who do well on here and you will find this in topic after topic in this forum promote our shops on social media. If nobody is told your shop is here then they are unlikely to find it… far more likely to end up on your own shop website or your E*** shop.

So maybe add your shop link to your IG FB and Pinterest pages and you will hopefully find things change. xx

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thanks to everyone for their advice.

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Thanks so much for the input.
I see what you mean about the announcement.
I have got rid of that now and just left it two lines. :smiley:
With social media, I don’t find Twitter to really work, I have more going on with Facebook as I have a large wedding group and several pages including a huge Gothic one for my other part of the business ,a vintage wedding one and my standard business page.
I do get some orders from there, but not a lot.
My Instagram is not too bad, reasonable following, but nothing massive.
Maybe I have too many eggs & baskets? as I have 2 Etsy shops, Ebay and three websites… as well as Folksy now.
I just dont like to rely on one platform for selling especially now on Etsy with the whole ODR nonsense!
Thanks for your time and comments. :grinning:

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