I have been here for 4 months, on Folksy. I have just renewed my first batch of items. I have not sold a thing.
I have a successful Etsy shop, and until recently a very successful eBay shop with over 120 items on it. I have wound down my eBay shop because it is expensive and my sales have gone from very good to virtually nothing. This is why I opened a Folksy account, as I wanted to try selling elsewhere. I actually did have Folksy account several years ago, but closed it after a year as I sold nothing.
I sell art and craft items. Fabric packs, Craft bits and pieces, greetings cards from my paintings etc. I have put my best sellers from Etsy and eBay on here, as I thought they stood the best chance of selling. I have lots more to list, but have already become disillusioned with Folksy and havenât put as much on here as I planned.
Iâm not sure where I am going wrong. My items are a fair price. Nobody sees them, so nobody buys.
I have not used this forum before. I did not use it when I had my previous Folksy shop. I honestly canât work out how to add a message to the conversations! That sounds ridiculous, as I am good with computers, but this one is not obvious. I have googled how to join in Folksy chats, but there doesnât seem to be any straightforward information.
I am wondering if Folksy items sell mainly to Folksy sellers? Nobody seems to have heard about Folksy, and I never see it advertised anywhere.
Iâm sure you have probably heard all this before, but if anyone can give some advice it would be helpful. I am sure there are other new sellers, not selling anything, and wondering if it is worth being on here.
I had a quick look at your shop and there are a few things I would point outâŚ
You have no links to any social media on your page. Are you promoting your Folksy shop on social media? If you donât tell people you have a Folksy shop they wonât know.
Fill in your âabout meâ section, people like to know who they are buying fromâŚitâs what sets Folksy apart from the bigger, less personal sites.
You donât have many listings, so not much choice for potential customers. As someone who sews, including patchwork, there is not much choice, plus you include polycotton in the bundles which most quilters would not use. Maybe seperate bundles with all cotton some, and polycotton in others.
Also, as you have the plus account and donât have to pay for listing I would suggest you create seperate listings for different colours of fabric bundlesâŚthat would instantly fill your shop a bit more, and make it easier for a customer to get the colour they want without having to message you.
Promotion is a big part of selling on FolksyâŚit is so much smaller than the other places you sell on so itâs up to you to drive people to your shop.
As for joining in on the froum, just choose a thread you want to join in, read the previous posts, or scroll to the latest post, then click on the blue reply buttonâŚadd your commentâŚclick reply.
I think there should be easy ways to share listings on other platforms direct from your shop. Iâm finding it a little arduous having to create a post on other platforms then link my shop with a pic of something Iâm selling. One my other platform, I can share the listing direct onto a choice of 2 or 3 platforms quite easily.
I have added my shop link onto my tiktok, instagram, FB page and X and Iâve also updated my google business profile with it as well.
What do you all do to promote and direct traffic to your shop (just out of interest in case Iâve missed something)?
Yes, I am here also since April and had 1 sold item. Hope so will get some more! I am trying put on instagram, facebookâŚforum here. But not much help. But I have my finger crossed and get more sales! Hope so you too!
It says at the top that this is the first time you have posted on the forumsâŚthere is one of your answersâŚyou have to come on here as often as possible, show your work and say helloâŚ
Let people get to know youâŚ
There are lots of threads where you can show what you are sellingâŚyou have to self promote.
If I wanted some fabric I wouldnât have found you without searching for fabric and then I would probably have found a lot of other shops as wellâŚBUT, if you have been on the forums, I would have come directly to you because I would have seen your name.
Kim @KBCreations is rightâŚI recognise HER name because she is prolific on the forumsâŚ
Have you used as many tags as possibleâŚjoined in on the themes of the day?
Today is made in walesâŚso I tagged 137 of my listings and now on the front page, I am everywhere and people can see my work.
It IS hard work but it pays off.
Folksy is such a lovely place to beâŚso come on in and join inâŚ
Some of your item titles maybe arenât as descriptive as they could be. Titles are the most important thing for Folksy search, and â100 Decorative Butterflies. Various Colours of plain, shiny and glitter cardâ doesnât explain much about what the item is. The second part doesnât feel like words people are likely to put in their search (although itâs useful information once theyâre on your listing). Getting some of the usage - âcard embellishmentsâ, âcard making suppliesâ, âtable decorationsâ or âcraft suppliesâ in your title instead may work better. Theyâre also all things that should be in your tags. It may help to look at this blog post to see if it gives any ideas if youâre struggling to think of enough tags to fill up the section - How to use tags on Folksy
I would also agree with @KBCreations that only having 7 items doesnât give customers much choice or much opportunity to find your items. Particularly with having a Plus account, it looks like the shop is fairly empty and Iâd wonder whether you were just opening up or closing down.
Like you, I tried Folksy once, gave up and then came for a second attempt a couple of years later. On my first try, I only listed a few select items and it didnât go well. With so few items, people werenât very likely to come across my items, and even if they did find me and liked my style, they might have been looking for something with a particular colour or particular animal, and with only a few listings it was very unlikely weâd have a match to get a sale. It was only on my second attempt when I made the effort to fill my shop that things went better.
Things are slow on Folksy for a lot of sellers, while others do OK. Itâs a bit infuriating especially when you do the donkeywork on social media and it still doesnât quite cut the mustard with sales. Itâs a case of keep slogging away. Iâve had a good few sales from Instagram and I do giveaways which is very popular. Also, I have my own websites which are doing so well Iâve had to close all my shops on Etsy and here as the workload is wearing me down right now. Iâm taking a hiatus until the end of September until Iâve cleared it all. I think you need all your irons in different fires.
One other thing, why donât you use the variations option for listing your packs of squares? That way you give the customer instant access to buy the colour combo they want. Asking them to message you could lose you instant spur of the moment sales.
It is very hard at the moment. I used to sell regularly on Folksy but this year it has ground to a halt. People are not wanting to spend ÂŁÂŁâs on luxury items and the smaller items become financially unviable due to the additional cost of postage (often nearly doubling the sale price). I do sell well at markets and in a local gallery but 90% of the time it is for the smaller, cheaper items. I know my work can sell as it has done so in the past so I am just going to have to sit it out and cross my fingers that things will improve eventually.
Thanks for your advice, Kim. I really appreciate it.
I am firstly an artist. I sell through online galleries, regular galleries, art fairs, events etc.
I run my shops on Etsy. eBay and now Folksy as a sideline, selling fabric and craft items. I will introduce more art based things too. .I simply do not have the time to keep promoting myself on social media. I do that for my art, and that is enough. I very occasionally used to promote some of my eBay and Etsy things on Twitter ( as it was called!) but it did not make any noticeable difference. It has never made any difference to my art either. So although everyone says use social media, it is so time consuming, and after 10 years of testing it out, I find I have almost no gains, just a lot of time lost.
I understand your comment about polycotton. I think for a professional or semi professional quilter that is true. I have sold thousands of packs of patchwork pieces, mainly on eBay, and now regularly on Etsy⌠I had about 40 of my 120 items,on eBay, that were patchwork packs. Every colour and style you could imagine. Mostly I sold to retired grandmothers I think! Nobody ever complained about mixing polycotton and cotton. Not once , so I have carried on doing it. I make my packs up on patterns and colours that go together. The price of cotton has gone up a lot, and I would have to increase my pack price a lot if I sold just cotton.
I think driving people to my shop is going to be difficult. If you donât spend ages self promoting it seems you donât get anywhere.
Hi, thanks for replying.
I have searched and searched for anything on the listing page for variations. I have just checked again. Where is the variations option? Please let me know.
Obviously the way I have had to do it, suggesting the customer messages me is ridiculous. I sell these on Etsy too, and everything is in variations. I used to sell them on eBay, and had two pack sizes as well as colour variations. So you can imagine my frustration at thinking you could not add variations on here!!!
It does sound like a lot of work all this tagging and self promoting. It does make me wonder though what percentage of Folksy sales are to other Folksy sellers, and what percentage to the general public?
Hi Roz @artycraftythings
I agree with all the others, you have to self promote if you want to sell your items.
I sell high end items and do well on Folksy, most of my customers are return buyers which buy bears regularly from me, I only share my work on facebook and Instagram concentrating more on instagram as i find it easier. My current top 5 customers from the past 2 years found me via Instagram. Previously most of my sales came from local customers via facebook. None of these people would have found me without using social media.
If you have plenty of items in stock I would list them for sale, the more you have the more chance you have of being seen.
I sell very little to other Folksy sellers compared to non Folksy peeps but do have some and a sale is a sale regardless of where it comes from. When other sellers who sew themselves purchase my work I see it as a huge compliment. There are also shops that I purchase dolls from on Folksy even though i make them for sale myself.
I can only go by my personal experience and I would say about 10% - 15% of my sales are to other sellers so the majority are to the general public, with quite a few of those as a result of promoting on Facebook.
Hi Debby,
I use Instagram for my Art. I have sold a few each year through it. Galleries check out artists that way too, so its essential to have some online presence, I had my own website, but nobody found it. So that went.
I probably need to set up another Instagram account for these artycraftythings. I did do a Facebook page many years ago like that, but abandoned it. It is still there. I could revive it, but these things take so much time!
I agree, I really need to list more items. As I have virtually closed my eBay account, due to sales going to nothing from being a previous good earner, I have a lot of stock. I need to sort it, re do some of it, and relist it.
Online presence does take time, I use Instagram most days but do get behind on facebook which means my local customers often donât see a bear until it has already gone so I do understand the time issue. Itâs a shame about ebay if it was a good earner, hopefully it will pick up again, are you able to leave some listings on there as well ? Perhaps try to revive your old facebook account even if you only pop by once or twice a week with a couplemof new listings or to share your Folksy shop, I am guilty of missing a few days on fb.
Whatever you decide good luck with it, I will head over and have a nosey nowâŚthank you regarding the bears as well
