So, do you reckon it’s just us? And no-one else ever visits? There are over 6000 sellers on here, and every time I go on the home page, it tells me maybe a couple of hundred folk are browsing, surely at any given time, there will be a couple of hundred sellers logged on.
So it leaves me to think that Folksy has us lot stumbling around buying the odd thing from one another, and everything else we sell, is as a result of our own promotion. I know that I direct traffic from pinterest, and Facebook etc. but wonder if Folksy will ever be popular as a whole with anyone other than it’s sellers.
Everyone I know who also has an Etsy shop, does better on there than here, but I love my little Folksy shop, and get a fair amount of sales, so will be sticking with it. I hope one day that word will spread about this wonderful place with little hand-made businesses selling unique and unusual goodies - I fear we are the best kept secret
I will continue to spread the word, I think folksy is a lovely place. I do wish we could have a ‘search this shop’ facility, this would be useful both as a buyer and a seller, but otherwise - for me Folksy is THE place to shop. So I’m off now, for a little stumble around - maybe I’ll bump into someone else - though I doubt it!
I’ll be more likely to get caught up in a tumble weed …
Just about everyone seems to have more sales on etsy than here and yet I am the opposite. I had a shop on etsy for about a year but so few sales I ran it down. I have recently opened another etsy shop dedicated to my felted goods only and yet to have a sale. On folksy I’m not selling vast amounts but at least I’m getting sales! Maybe I’m just not doing it right over there!
I love it here, I closed my Etsy shop because no one ever looked at my page! I haven’t had any sales here yet but I prefer the layout and I like that everything IS handmade, I find that even though Etsy says it only sells handmade I think they turn a blind eye to the mass produced stuff, you can’t call it handmade just because someone touched it to put it in a box (just my opinion)
Anyway I’m going to keep spreading the word.
I have often wondered the same thing, but I do sell to people who aren’t members of Folksy so there must be customers out there, I sell about the same here and on the site we don’t mention, This time of year is always quiet on all the sites I sell on (do people not need soap in the summer?? lol)
Donna x
It is a quiet time of year. Since the changes about a year ago (or it could be longer!) my sales here definitely increased but since the beginning of this year, they have slowed right down again. I’m pretty sure many of my customers are not sellers. I keep listing and hope sales will pick up again in the autumn. Can’t think many people are interested in Harris Tweed during these hot summer days lol.
This year has been appalling for me sales wise. Ive made £4 and only £2 of that was a Folksy sale. But Id o love Folksy, thank goodness for thiscrafty selling outet. I gave up with Etsy as I only sold 1 thing on it.
I hope to sell at craft fairs on the run up to Xmas. I miss that “somebody likes my work so much that they bought it” buzz.
I do find the tallies of people browsing and looking on my site very unreliable. Especially as on the shop visits counter it counts me when im updating a page
However the people browsing counter i do find useful so i can list items when there is high traffic
It’s always a quiet time of year when many people are on holiday.
I’m not sure we need a search this shop facility, we have shops divided up into categories, I find that sufficient for my needs and I’ve been shopping here for about four years now I think.
Folksy keep telling us how sales are increasing and the number of visitors is going up generally. It is getting known, and only a very small percentage of sales is to other sellers so there are plenty of buyers out there!
i’d always intended to have an etsy shop “one day”, but folksy has kept me plenty busy so i never got round to it. i’m passionate about (british) hand made, so with all of the re-sellers and vintage stuff and whatever else is allowed on the other place, i doubt i’ll ever go there now.
my folksy sales are about 80% customers directed from facebook (i have worked this out with no mathematical accuracy whatsoever. repeat customers, or names / addresses i recognise, or messages telling me they found me through facebook or instagram)
and the other 20% are “strangers” so i assume they’re “passing trade” customers that’ve found me whilst browsing folksy.
I opened a shop on here and a shop on folksy, I posted alternate items on here and on there. I did my own version of promotion on both. Trying to assess them against each other. I even paid for some advertising on facebook (never again) and on Etsy. I am slowly running my Etsy shop down as I have only had 4 sales over the year but on here I am averaging 4 sales a month. Not a lot I know when most items are being sold for £2.50 but for me its a welcome sale. Rachel
I have to say, I DO get quite a number of sales on here, and I would guess about 80% are from my Facebook page and friends and 20% from others, some of which do have shops on here, and some of which don’t. I’m really very happy with Folksy, and wouldn’t move anywhere else. I know the traffic on here isn’t huge, but it’s growing, and I’ll still be here Wishing all of you Folksy peeps a happy and fruitful day <3
We have had a couple of sellers purchase from our Folksy shop, but the rest tend to come in via google.
We’ve found being on the front page - via our Pinterest boards being picked - has helped with a couple of sales too. And even though we may have the odd grumble about Folksy being quieter with lots fewer visits than we get over in our Etsy shop they are both very evenly matched for sales.
We too like to fly the handmade UK flag and think it would be great for more people to know about here, suppose that’s up to us to get the word out at every opportunity.
Now if we can only get ourselves into that revolving Smorgesbord on the front page…
I have a shop here and on Etsy and I’ve had far more sales on Folksy (only 63 on the other side compared with 150 here). I much prefer Folksy and their ethos.
The summer months are always quiet. Every year it goes quiet for me from the end of March to the first couple of weeks in September, then its booming again until the end of March (not much call for knitwear when it’s hot and sunny!). So I spend my quiet months busily stocking up an designing and knitting new items for my shop and Xmas fairs. Most of my sales come from strangers and non shop owners searching Folksy and also searching Google.
I keep trying to spread the word with friends and family and love it here on Folksy. I have just renewed my plus account and have been here since April last year and have had 88 sales in that time. A few months ago I set up an Etsy shop, I have had one sale. I don’t really like it on there - it just doesn’t have the same feel as being on here.
It is quiet at the moment, but last Thursday afternoon a very strange thing happened. After no sales for nearly 3 weeks I sold 3 peg bags to 3 different buyers (one was a seller on here). I have no idea why that happened, but I was very pleased! It just goes to show how unpredictable this craft business can be.
Pauline.
I have been on Etsy since 2008, not a lot of sales over these years, I upgraded to Folksy Plus last week and I am hoping I do well, sold my first necklace a week ago, I was sooooo delighted!!
I love how unpredictable it is, how a orders seem to come in an exciting flurry. I have been very lucky, I only started my business on 31st of March 2013, and have had 357 sales on Folksy since then. I do know that I generate a lot of that traffic myself, and it’s because I’ve done so well, that I was questioning the figures on the home page. They seem very small, compared to the amount of sales I get, and if you imagine that we account for many of those people, and the traffic we generate will account for some too, It seems almost impossible for there to be less than a couple of hundred people on here at a time. I’m certainly not grumbling, I was just trying to work it out.
I am doing all of my gift shopping on Folksy again this year, as I did last year - and I encourage friends and family to do the same - Folksy is a lovely place, friendly people, selling magical finds - I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else
Hello! I thought this might be interesting and help with your wonderings… and reassure that you’ve got lots of company when you’re browsing around Folksy:
Over the last month 91.82% of the revenue on Folksy came from non-sellers – so 91.82% of things were sold to people who don’t sell on Folksy. There were 293,427 sessions/visits (or 1,547,117 page views) from non-sellers, and 77,283 sessions/visits from sellers (886,035) - so roughly an 80/20 split.
The figure you see in the banner is constantly changing. If there are 100 people looking now, then in say 30 seconds 50% will have been replaced by another 50. It’s a constant stream of people coming and going, and in a typical day around 10,000 people visit Folksy, but this figure gets much higher around Christmas and busy periods.
Wow!! Thank you @Folksycontent Camilla - that really does help I thought it seemed a small number, but the turnover is obviously constant and adds up to a lot! It’s great to know that there are so many people popping in to see all the lovely things that Folksy has to offer - Thank you so much for taking the time to clarify - I guess getting snarled up in tumbleweed is not so much of a worry now Have a great day xx
Bird and Monkey, I share your opinion but sadly it’s not only Etsy that turns a blind eye to the non-handmade, mass produced stuff. I recently saw an item for sale on here (several listings in fact) that had been photographed in the bag that it came in…still with the ‘Made in China’ sticker on it!!
Good to hear from Camilla! I had been wondering about this myself. I am really not sure what I need to do to promote my Folksy shop… it seems that no matter what I do, things still sell much better for me on Etsy and NOTHS…I just don’t understand why…
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