Hi Everyone,
I was wondering if anyone can help. I have been on Folksy a few months now and I haven’t had any sales yet and I have very minimal visits to my shop! I have recently changed careers as a result of family commitments and having retrained from IT to jewellery design. I’ve had a successful training year making bespoke jewellery to my friend and acquaintances network but I’m struggling to get any traffic to any of my online presence. I was hoping that Folksy would be a good step as it has a such a strong handmade brand. I’ve tried to put quite a range of products and prices in my shop to have a wider appeal but still no luck yet.
Can anyone give me any advice as to how I can get some traffic to my shop and how I get featured on a Folksy blog/email/Facebook feed to get the ball rolling e.g… I noticed a Luxury Item link today which would have been great to be included. Is it possible pay for adverts?
I’ve be grateful of any help.
I am afraid I ca’t help too much, mainly commenting to make sure your post gets seen. I too am new and not getting much views ect. I have looked at your shop and Facebook and all looks good. I hope you can get more answers than I have been getting around these issues.
Thank you for taking the time to reply. I wish you luck with your shop - Julie x
1 Like
Can I suggest your ‘featured items’ show a range of items in the varying price ranges? A lot of buyers don’t spend a lot of time searching through all listings to see if there’s something they might like. Customers actually generally just have a glance- if they like what they see straight away, then they will be tempted to look further. So at a glance, your 3 features items are all of what I would say is a fairly high price for Folksy (in my opinion), so people may be put off looking any further as they may assume all your items are of around that price, and therefore out of reach.
I didn’t look on all of your items but for example on the first bangle you have for sale, you’ve only used 8 tags- you can use 15. So I’d try and use them all. The tags work like a Google search- but just within Folksy- so the things you’ve written as the tags are quite long and quite specific- why don’t you add even just ‘bangle’ as one tag alone for example.
Also- you need to promote like mad for Folksy. So you’d need whatever social media you use pointing at your Folksy shop. You’d need to be promoting yourself on a regular basis on various platforms: facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Flickr, tumblr and Pinterest to name a few.
But remember that jewellery is massively represented on Folksy- and many other websites for that matter. So it will take a while to become established- but people have to find you first before that can happen.
Good luck with it all- and enjoy all the promoting and interacting that comes with it all. 
Jewellery is a highly competative field here and on other selling sites but by aiming at the higher end of the marketthere is less competition but fewer people shop at that level. It is possible to sell expensive items but it took me over a year of selling online before I sold my first over £50 item and even longer to exceed the £100+ price point despite selling well at craft markets/ doing commissions etc. Patience and promotion are key.
I’ll back up Susannah’s comment about tags - some shorter ones would help you get found in searches. Looking at the anemone pendant you don’t have ‘floral’ or ‘pendant’ as tags both are words I would expect some one to use when searching. I was once given the advice of writing my descriptions as if I was describing the item to a blind person (which is what search engine web bots are) and looking at something like the star stud earrings I would not have figured out what the item looked like from the description alone (no mention of the fact that it is a double star or that one of them would hang below the earlobe). Search web bots give higher importance to words/ phrases that are repeated so if a word is mentioned in the title, description and tags it is given a better ranking than if it just featured in the tags or title. Also I didn’t spot a single dimension in any of the listings I looked at, this is the sort of information people want to know if they are going to buy something. It is also worth mentioning if the item comes gift wrapped/ pretty presentation box in case someone is buying it as a gift (experience tells me that men don’t like wrapping so if something comes wrapped it makes them happy).
I haven’t yet managed to get featured on the blog or weekly email - I think it comes down to having something that fits the theme and is well photographed. I did get onto their facebook feed by being rather blatant, I’d made a pendant to celebrate the eclipse and suggested to them via the forum that they could feature any eclipse related items on the front page. Turned out I was the only person who had anything eclipse related and it involved a cloud which spoilt the event so I got a post on facebook instead. There are threads on the forum where you can suggest items to go in the gift guides but you can’t pay for adverts/ features.
Hope some of that is helpful.
Sasha
Also to add after I’ve read Sasha’s comment and took another look, as a potential buyer (which I would be- I don’t make jewellery, but handmade unique jewellery is the kind I would buy) in all honesty your delivery costs would put me off.
Some of your £25 stud earrings come with an additional £7.50 delivery. In my absolute honest opinion I wouldn’t in a million years pay that for domestic delivery. For an item packaged that small I wouldn’t pay any more than £4 additional delivery I’d simply look elsewhere if it was more- even if I liked the item, and I know I’m not alone.
I agree with Sasha too- taking another look, the lack of dimensions etc would put me off. I wouldn’t contact a seller directly and ask for more info either, I’d expect it all to be there already.
Sorry to seem so negative- I don’t mean to!
Thank you so much for taking the time to look at my items and give such great advice. You make some really good points (I clearly need to get my head around this whole bot concept). Your point about describing the item for a blind person is a good one - I will definitely work on that this week. Thank you again. Julie
Good point on the postage - I originally only had my more complex/high priced items listed so the postage covers the insurance cost you pay with Raysl Mail… When I recently added the less expensive items and used a copy as a template I didn’t update the postage. Thank you for that - I’ll update that this week too.
hi julie,
i have been looking at your shop and think that perhaps you need to add much more detail to you descriptions - for example, a couple of pairs of earrings that i looked at only had one sentence in the description. I think you need to add detail about dimensions etc.
If i was buying a higher quality, more expensive gift i would need to read much moe about the item before buying.
Also - if i was paying 7.50 for postage i would like to know if it would be send first class, signed for etc. - for 7.50 i would expect a special form of delivery.
your shop looks great though - love the photos and ‘feel’ of it.
just some thoughts.
With regard to postage - if you use a service with both proof of posting and proof of delivery (eg first class signed for) then you are covered against fraud and loss by Paypal (if an item has been paid for via paypal) so if something goes missing you can recoup your losses through them. I’ve never had to do this thus far so fingers crossed I never have to but its nice to know its there as an option.
Thank you for taking the time to look for me. Based on the feedback I’ve had so far, I’m going to invest some time this week updating the description. I think I was relying too much on the picture and that’s not enough. Thank you again x
1 Like
Thank you so much Sasha, I didn’t know this. It will make postage so much cheaper.
Hi @juliemckenzie1 I just wanted to add with regard to postage. If you send items via RM 1st class with proof of postage you can only claim up to £20. If you send items 1st class signed for, you can claim for up to £50 and if you send via Special Delivery you can claim up to £100, but with SD you can opt to pay extra to increase the insurance. Depending on the type of jewellery you sell, RM may not even cover you at all if you send 1st or 1st class signed for, so I’d investigate this and consider the amount you can claim for when deciding how to post your items. I would then explain what delivery method you use in your descriptions, especially if a signature is required to accept the parcel.
Hi
Lots of great advice already given. 
Wishing you all the best with your shop.
Karen
I think your jewellery looks lovely. I think if you took some photos close-up to show off the detail and quality of workmanship, and also if possible, the pieces being worn, that would help- I like to use the full 5 photos to show the work off at different angles, different details etc.
Hi there, @curiousseagull mentioned about promoting on social media. It’s what many of us struggle with, the balancing of making our items and then telling everyone out there about it. But if people don’t know, we don’t get sales. Self promotion is hard work, many of us are not naturals at it and don’t understand it, and even when we think we do, we can be outfoxed again!
There is the Folksy blog with lots of info about this aspect. It may help grabbing a large cuppa and taking a look through it to see what could help you.
http://blog.folksy.com/category/seller-tips
1 Like
Your jewellery is really beautiful and you have really good photos so you are off to a good start
Looking purely at your shop and forgetting social media and all the usual stuff 
I think you need to have more detailed descriptions of the items - some of them have only one line. When you do eventually bump up your views and get visitors you want to keep them there. A one line description is not really going to sell an item to a customer. Hope this doesn’t sound too harsh, but as a customer I would like to see more details
