I know this topic might have been discussed before, and I’m aware a similar post was recently closed. However, I want to approach this matter openly and honestly.
I’d like to know, with complete sincerity, how many of you manage to get sales on Folksy from customers outside the platform. Personally, I’ve managed to get sales by promoting my items on various Facebook marketplaces and directing potential buyers to my Folksy shop. However, I’ve noticed that not all customers are keen on using a platform they’re unfamiliar with.
Many preferred to contact me directly, asking to pay via PayPal, and in those cases, I handled the orders outside Folksy. This has made me question whether it’s worth upgrading to a “Plus Account” or focusing on other platforms.
I’m also wondering if the issue might be my products themselves, which perhaps don’t appeal to the audience.
How has your experience been? How successful are you in getting sales through Folksy? I’d greatly appreciate hearing your honest feedback.
Thanks to anyone who takes the time to share their insights!
I joined folksy on 30th April 2024 and out of 58 sales 43 were from non folksy sellers and 15 were from folksy sellers. However I have made sales via outside the platform when people have contacted me directly and despite giving them the link to my folksy shop, some were reluctant to buy via folksy. I think for many it is because they have not heard of folksy.
I do have a monthly plus account and I have been vigorously promoting my shop and renewing my listings on a regular basis. I am still debating whether to upgrade to the yearly plus account. (need to make a decision today as it is last day to take advantage of the 20% off)
If you dont have many items, i suspect the plus account may not be worth it. I seem to remember someone working out that you need 100 plus listings for it to be financially better. That may have changed now the price has increased, as that goes back to the £45/year days.
I dont think Plus gives you any advantage regarding promotion or advertising or getting noticed, but it does allow you to mess around with relisting, multiple items, shopkeeping order, etc.
If your hybrid business model works for you, id stick to it myself. Dont fix what isnt broken!
I joined at about the same time as Sue and have only made two sales 
both to buyers outside of Folksy. I have spent a lot of time promoting on social media and it feels like a thankless task. Therefore I’m about to downgrade from Plus account as it’s just not viable for me. I also stress trying to get the perfect photo, so less photos might be an advantage for me 
. It’s worrying to read that people won’t buy through Folksy as they don’t trust the site!
I do not think not buying from folksy is a matter of trust more a matter of unfamiliarity, people tend to stick with what they know and lets face it Folksy is not well known.
Sue, @MinpinTowers …I have never regretted paying for the yearly plus account. to me it is paid and forgotten…I don’t need to keep thinking about it…I consider it really worthwhile …some people spend that sort of money on drinks and cigarettes…to me it is an investment. I don’t sit and work out if I have made much profit, it is just like a subscription to a very friendly and helpful club. I treat Folksy like a website and they take care of all the payments etc for me…worth every penny.
If you do it today then you can just forget about it for another year…x
I had a customer contact me direct for a bespoke card, she had had problems getting into Folksy to send me a message. She already had my email so not a problem.
Another customer tried to message me and the had a problem last week, finally got a message from Folksy about her contact, she said she found the whole site confusing and not responsive as the other side.
In this day and age customers have so much choice and if not easy will walk away, I know I have done exactly the same with other sites.
Re selling been here about 10 plus years now but closed and moth balled my shop early on as had my own website. Now have over 550 sales, a lot of repeat customers and quite a lot of new ones as well. Promote of Facebook and Instagram maybe a couple of times a day and finding that videos out shine still photos. Pinterest is also good had 23000+ impressions last month. A case of promote, promote, promote.
Perhaps this thread could be moved into the more private Folksy Sellers Area rather than Shop Talk?
I think you may have to do that Marco, I have tried and can’t edit that.
Have moved to fancy a cuppa
When you promote using social media people see the images first and then read the words - people will see a beautiful box, start imagining what they could do with it and then read what you have said about it. But when selling online it’s the other way round - the words determine whether something gets shown in search results (for either the Folksy search or for external searches like Google) and then the images affect whether someone clicks on the item to take a closer look (and potentially buy). Personally I think that your titles and descriptions are affecting your ability to be found on Folksy or via Google (and I think that might also be true for other selling platforms if you were to try them). Here’s a link to the relevant article on the folksy blog
You’ll see it mentions the importance of the title for search - to me your boxes would make great jewellery boxes or trinket boxes but those phrases don’t appear in the titles (or if they do you have the American spelling of jewelry).
I agree Brenda! Also, I’ve started to make an effort to take advantage of the zoom sessions Folksy run for plus members - the recent one on IG reels was really useful & gave a lot of hints and tips - including how to use the camera on my phone better 
. I think Folksy are trying really hard to do more for the sellers if people are willing to look at the offerings.
Cheers Lou
A good percentage of my customers are new and find me via Folksy. A lot then become repeat buyers.
Another good chunk of my customers are people I have met at Xmas craft fairs, who then come here the rest of the year (it is the shop I steer them to, as I do not sell from my website.)
My Social media also steers some here.
Not many of my sales are to other Folksy shop keepers, but there are a few.
The only real benefit to going plus for me is it works out cheaper, as I have a lot of listings.
I’ve been here over 1 year but not 2 years, I’m retired from pcture framing, so it’s more of a hobby than a business , only had a handful of orders. I’ve not done much soical media promoting. but I do have a Plus account (monthly) and I do enter the ‘Theme of the Day’ also done the ‘Shop early for Christmas’ section on Folksy front page, there are (at the moment) 14 pages for this section, so if your items do not show up within in, lets say the first 4 pages, customers will move on to elsewhere and not go futher. But I have notice that there are at least 3 sellers items always in the first 3 pages (same items for each seller). So tried an experiment, as a Plus member you can relist for free, so I have been relisting every day the same 10 or 12 items, and so far they ( 3 at a time) have been appearing in the first 2 pages for ‘Shop early for Christmas’ section. Also some of these items have discounted as a sale, so now they are appearing in the SALE section of Folksy. That is one positive for being a Plus member, the free relisting of items.
I have read reviews on some sellers made by the general public who have had a bad experience and have clearly stated they will not buy from Folksy again!
This in turn has a knock on effect for other sellers who give a good customer service and make beautiful products. It only takes a few members of the public who have a poor experiences using a bad seller on Folksy to give it a bad reputation. People always talk about a poor experience as apposed to talking about a good experience to their family and friends. It’s clear the general public don’t realise sellers are independent from Folksy. That’s the only reason I can see why Folksy would have a bad reputation. I personally didn’t know it has a bad reputation and people don’t trust shopping with Folksy.
I buy from fellow sellers and I have never been disappointed in their products or their customer service.
My sales are mainly made from people doing a Google search, then they become returning customers. Therefore, it’s impressive Folksy work on being more visible on search engines.
I do social media most days, but it hasn’t increased my sales since doing it regularly. This has been a bad year for most sellers due to many factors including constant doom and gloom by the news media and a general election during the start of our busy selling period.
I am hoping next year will be more fruitful!
I’ve been here around 2 years and have just taken out the annual Plus for the first time, even though it would be cheaper for me to list per item.
My reasons were firstly I like Folksy and the community and don’t want to sell elsewhere. I prefer the look of the Plus shop front.
£60 for a shop open 24hrs 365 days versus the cost of 2 fairs £70 open 10 hours. Although I would like to see more visits to my shop and Folksy
There are 1400 lino prints on Folksy. With a basic account im a long way down the list almost invisible. Although I can be found in a few gift guides thanks to the Folksy team
I’ll be able to take part in the Events such as the Summer exhibition and have time to produce and submit new work
I can take advantage of the 5% discount from Handprinted.
It gives me an incentive to list more and make more effort with my shop.
Like Brenda @teabreaks says I can now forget about it, and think of it like a subscription.
As far as sales go I dont get many, but they are pretty evenly split between sellers and visitors but have mainly sold small value items to fellow Folksys I also buy cards and small value gifts. If looking for a gift I usually look in the gift guides 1st or have a look through my Favourites.
I think if someone has seen your work in a gallery or at a fair or brought from you before they are then more likely to buy higher priced items from your shop. So I will still do a few fairs and events to promote my shop and Folksy, but I’m not going to give much more time to Social Media at the moment it just doesn’t work for me, especially once IG changed. I’ll try and collect content during the making process to maybe use at a later date, something I forget to do.
I have a question that someone will know the answer too. If you stop the plus membership what happens to your existing listings? Do they stay the same, ie number of photos, stock number, until the listing expires? Then when you renew the listing you drop the number of photos or do you have to change this straight away?
The minute your subscription changes from plus, only the first five of your photos will be visible but you will be able to re-order them through the “edit listing” option, as all ten will appear there. If you delete them from there, there will not be any space opening up to upload more of course, until they go down to the appropriate number.
Not sure what happens if you have more than 1 as quantity though, as I never had that when I was switching from one to the other.
Thank you x
Thank you so much for your feedback! You’re absolutely right—images and words play different roles depending on the context. I probably need to work on optimizing my titles and descriptions to perform better in online searches, both on Folksy and Google. I tend to focus more on the images and the story I want to tell, but it’s clear that effective descriptions are key for visibility too.
I’ll definitely take a closer look at the article you suggested to find a better balance between the two. If you have any specific tips, I’d love to hear them!
honestly, me neither