Honest Critique

Hi all I’ve been reading these very constructive critiques, they seem to be really helpful :smile:
I wonder if someone could have a look at my shop; I’ve been on here a few months but haven’t managed to sell anything yet and I just wondered if there’s an obvious reason for this?
My shop link is https://beta.folksy.com/shops/fabriccreationsbygiggle
Many thanks, I’ll continue browsing now :smile:

Love your books Lizzie, so nice and bright. Good variety of uses and designs, Claire

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Love your wreaths, very hard to price as you said previously, so much time must go into them, Claire

Thank you Claire, that’s very kind!
Lizzie

Hello Claire,

I had a look round your shop. Can’t see anything really wrong with it - the products are beautiful and colourful, the descriptions are good.
A few thoughts…
Some of your photos are a bit out of focus, so maybe they could be improved. Your photos could also be brightened a little - they look a bit dark (if you use Photoshop, there’s a feature that lightens shadows and has a slider to do this. I find even a 1 point change makes a big difference!).
You could try changing your descriptions round a bit, to see if they catch the eye better - eg. “Flower Embroidered Notebook Cover” instead of “Embroidered Flower” and maybe “VW Camper Van Embroidered Cushion” on one of those, to vary it a bit… That might help, perhaps.
I did try a search on “sketchbook”, to see if yours appeared - they were on the first page (before mine :wink: ), so they are coming up if looked for.
I don’t know how often you list or relist products. That does help to get them noticed. I also see you are not a “Plus Seller”, so listing and relisting would soon add up to a lot of money for you. I decided to invest in an annual “Plus” subscription, which lets me list every item once a day if I want to. My first couple of months’ fees - when I didn’t have “Plus” membership - were over £20; so the annual fee (currently £45 I believe) was soon covered by the following few months’ listings. There are still percentage fees for sales, but as my sales were increased by more listing ability, I think it paid off. Just something to consider…

Also, do you look at your “views” and do you use Google Analytics? It would be worth signing up to this and looking at your visitors and views for your shop. Maybe the reason you have made no sales, is just that not enough people are actually Seeing your stuff! If you think about shopping IRL, you don’t buy something from every shop you pass in the high street - you don’t even go into every shop. Some shops you never, ever go into. However, if you see an advert that shows something you would really like to buy, or there is something beautiful displayed in a shop window, you will almost certainly make time to visit the shop and have a good look. We have no IRL shop, so we must get people to come to us by other methods - online marketing. Stuff like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, blogs, Instagram, ad sites etc etc… all worth looking at and investing some time in. I find that when I spend time on my marketing, I get more sales - it needs effort and time. If you are using online marketing, then try to find some places with advice about improving how you do it. You need Views to make Sales - it’s as simple as that.

Other than this, I don’t know! I like your shop and your stuff, so I wish you much luck!

Lizzie
LizzieMade Hand Bound Books

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Hi,
I don’t know how much help I can be as I am new to this myself but I have just been into your shop and imho it looks great. I fell in love with your Velvet Rose art print, the detail is stunning :).I also agree with what others have said about the pricing of your wreaths but I suppose that is always tricky
Good Luck
Christine xx
If anyone would be kind enough to do the same for my shop I would really appreciate it, I promise not to take offence https://beta.folksy.com/shops/CopperandAsh Thanks xxx

@LizzieMade thanks for your time and comments, I think I need to ‘get out there’ a bit more :smiley:
Claire

Hi Christine, i’m pretty new too, so here goes :smile:
Love your work, easy to follow sections but your photos look a bit dark. I find the lighting is tricky to do and that was one comment made about my shop, it is important to get things looking their best.
Looked at your Pinterest, and there’s a spelling mistake? specialising (serialising) but like your boards, I have pinterest for myself but haven’t done one for my shop, I do like these forums, full of help and ideas :smile:
Good luck hope all sells well
Claire

Thanks Claire,
Will have to try and work on the photos and I will pop over and correct spelling mistake on pinterest too. Thanks for taking the time to look over my shop. I am loving these forums, they are a great help :slight_smile: everyone seems so friendly too. Fingers crossed it will work for both of us, Christine x

Hi Sharon
Some lovely work.
Probably a generational thing, but it wasn’t what I was expecting from your name Kitschin.
First I thought maybe you were selling kits, or maybe items for the kitchen. Only when I opened up your page did I realise you were maybe playing on the word kitch. Sue x

Excellent feedback Lizzie. Thank you so much for taking the time to view. I shall get on to this tomorrow…I think you are right on all the points made and shall spend some time really working on capturing the embossed cards better and knocking off Christmas…
Thank you.
I have been into your shop and loved your photos, I hope you don’t mind but I tweeted an item as well…love the fifties notebooks! It’s clear that you have taken a lot of time and trouble getting the staging right and it’s really hit the spot, lovely products and already have some presents now in mind.

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Excellent feedback Lizzie. Thank you so much for taking the time to view. I shall get on to this tomorrow…I think you are right on all the points made and shall spend some time really working on capturing the embossed cards better and knocking off Christmas…
Thank you.
I have been into your shop and loved your photos, I hope you don’t mind but I tweeted an item as well…love the fifties notebooks! It’s clear that you have taken a lot of time and trouble getting the staging right and it’s really hit the spot, lovely products and already have some presents now in mind.

Oh, thanks! How very nice you are :blush:

More work needed on my photos, to make them super-snazzy, but I’ve worked hard at improving their set-up and I think I’m getting there. Now I have a posh new “bridge” camera, with a super-duper lens, I aim to set up a photo studio in our big room, where there’s loads of light, to re-photograph all my current stock, so I can replace at least the main photo for each item, with something extra lovely!

Feel free to buy my entire stock for presents, should the fancy take you - I’m sure a bulk discount could be arranged if I was sending lots of items in one big box :wink:

Lizzie
LizzieMade Hand Bound Books

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