Hi Ros, I completely understand your not wanting to be on social media as I am not either. I have had a look at your shop and just note a couple of points, you have very few items in your shop and therefore it will be much harder for you to be seen. For example on the theme of the day you have very few items to be able to tag with the relevant tag for that day and that is something that gets you noticed , every little helps!
Then in your shop, you have a pair of grey storage baskets - now here I would put something inside them to give a indication of size because to be quite honest , when I first saw them I thought that they looked a lot bigger than the dimensions in the description. Even though you have put the size in , unfortunately people do no always read it and I have lost count of the times I have seen peopleâs reviews on selling sites saying âsmaller than expectedâ and it makes me cross because the seller had put the size in. Along with placing something inside ( and donât forget to state in description contents not included) you could advertise them as a desk tidy maybe, if you think the interfacing is sturdy enough? Regarding you mugrugs most people who sell these use two words mug rug so a google is less likely to come up.
Finally I have also never met one single person that has heard of Folksy and when I showed someone the logo , they said they would never have thought it was a craft selling site, they said that if they saw it they would assume that it would be something to do with gay pride because of the rainbow colours. Folksy have tips on here of how to get seen/sell more but I think they could do with some help (dragons den springs to mind regarding marketing) because 16 years is a long time for people still not to have heard of it .
There is so much I like about the layout and set up of folksy, the dashboard is easy to understand too, if only they were better known out there.
To the point and rather blunt! Whatâs the point of Folksy then??
It is a selling platform which displays your work in a very nice way, which provides you all the Ecommerce you need to take orders and payments.
How else am I display my 600+ makes to the world out there in a way that I can also promote, if i sensibly choose to do so, via sharing those Folksy links on social media and even on emails to customers oh and on my own non selling website too (I do not want the hassle of setting up Ecommerce on there , why should i when Folksy provides it for me 
)
The alternative is to leave all my glass in boxes in their crates in the garage and twiddle my thumbs waiting for no orders to come in for it.
It sounds ideal but Iâve known two people who lived that dream and it turned into a nightmare. High rents. Double set of rates. Expensive insurance. Shoplifting. They both shut down within two years.
Even with your own website you have to do the leg work. There has to be a balance though, and while I donât mind doing that legwork for my Folksy shop, I get peeâd off when I feel Folksy doesnât do the same. Sure, they are always doing promotional stuff regarding blogs and seminars and on line shopping fayres, but none of those work for me. I want to see a video facility on here for us to showcase our work because itâs been proven to increase sales, and more public advertising. So, I guess you have to weigh up if this place is working for you at a sustainable level.
Thank you so much for your kind constructive criticism., particularly about the baskets. I had many other items in the shop which I have not renewed as theyâve either been sold elsewhere or not attracted anyoneâs attention. Re the theme of the day, I try to keep up with that but even then that hasnât produced a sale. Maybe Iâm just not making the right things - not what people want. Overall I think the problem is that the public in general just donât know about Folksy. As you say, the name Folksy sounds more like something else - a folk band or a social media group perhaps. Perhaps a rebrand might help.
Thanks again.
Yes, unfortunately high rates are closing so shops, shame isnât it that the dream doesnât match reality.
Agreed, thank you.
Youâre welcome 
Hi Ros
Iâm not sure how I would promote my Folksy shop without the use of social media to be honest.
When I first joined Folksy very many years ago, there were debates then where people were adamant that you have to promote your own shop and itâs not Folksyâs job to do that. I was actually a bit indignant about it and wondered what service I was paying Folksy for?
As Joy has explained further up though, I now look at it as if they provide everything I need to run a shop without having to worry about tying all those elements together myself.
After I realised that the footfall wasnât going to come from folksy alone, I decide that I was going to drive my own customers to my shop and thatâs when I started building up my various social media accounts.
I donât actually dedicate all that much time to my social media but I do like to make at least one post a day. Iâve accepted that has to be part of the creative process too nowadays and factor it into my daily schedule. Sometimes I actually even enjoy it nowâŚlol! I like creating special collections and giving people a countdown to when they will be available in my Folksy shop.
I think your work fits in really well with the whole Folksy ethos and style. I really love your rope baskets and your material baskets.
I agree with some of the others that said maybe you need to fill your shop up a little more. I think I read somewhere on here once that 66 items was the minimum you need to start running a succesful shop (but I could quite possibly be misremembering that figure)
I still quite often doubt myself and have periods of loss of mojo but I think that is just part and parcel of being a creative person.
The thing that keeps me going along this route is that I really like being my own boss, I can set my own hours, I only have to skip down the garden path to get to work and I love making work that people then treasure (or thatâs what I tell myself anyway!)
Social media is absoloutly essential to promote yourself but ive come a cross a bit of a weird anomally.
Before i opened my folksy shop i would sell quite regually. My adverts would go Long the lines of
âHi folks heres my latest bowl / gonk etc made from yadda yadda yadda ,only ÂŁ20 plus postageâ
My adverts now say
"Hi folks heres my latest bowl / gonk etc made from yadda yadda yadda , find it here in my folksy shop (link) "
Heres the odd thing though i havnt sold a piece since openeing folksy shop. Finding this a bit weird i put an item for sale on my page but didnt mention folksy and it sold from my page within 2 days.
So whats this prove ? Well to be honest im a bit perplexed , i cant blame folksy as im doing the advert myself,
I can only assume that people either cant be bothered to follow a link to folksy (god knows why)
Or that they in some way dont trust the folksy web site again god knows why.
At the moment im not to bothered as i need to build my stock for the craft fair season but once the seasons in full swing i will have to look at if its worth paying for folksy. Is a strange one though
I think a lot of people just like to click and buy. To have to go to elsewhere they cannot be bothered. Must admit never tested the theory but may give it a go and see what happens.
Brett instead of saying Folksy shop, I just say â this is now in my shop click on the linkâ. I never mention Folksy at all, so they could be fooled into thinking my own website but as already there have to buy. Hope that makes sense.
You might be right though to be honest if the buy through my fb the click much more first the say how much , even though i always price items the it generally is taken to messenger where i give bank /paypal details then they have to give me their delivery details all in the meantime someone else has asked to buy it . Itd be so much easoer for both parties just to buy the damn thing from my folksy shop
Did you link to your listing or just to your shop or just to Folksy ?
Also have you checked the reach, insights of a folksy new type post against one of your previous non Folksy posts ?
Would be very interested in how those compare.
When i create a piece i upload it to folksy i then advertise it on facebook with a direct link to the item on folksy.
I do have a few visits to the shop from facebook according to my shop stats i cant really compare between how many visit folksy vs how many see my facebook post. The only way i can gauge the views on facebook is by likes .
But in my experiance plenty on fb see the posts but dont click like. Im forever getting people come to me at fairs saying âoh youre the guy i see on facebookâ most frustrating lol
Just checked my stats and the vast majority of visits come from folksy forum which in all honesty isnt great.
It does frustrate me that us crafters are pretty woeful at promoting each other and its so easy. I always click the fb and insta links on peoples folksy pages and i then like all the pieces if they appear in my fb or insta links.
It does work eg someone asked me the other day if a piece i liked on fb was one of mine . They obviously saw it soley because i liked it .
@Caroleecrafts thats quite interesting though if you post a link on fb it should show its a folksy shop anyway .
But are you saying you think folksy puts people off vs having your own shop
Iâm surprised to hear this because I think Folksy sellers are great at promoting each other. Itâs one of the reasons I stay here.
@plumporridge when i say us crafters im talking in general not specifically folksy . I used to be chairman of a business circle a what frustrated me most is we all had facebook pages yet very few actually liked/shared each other.
Ill be honest there is a great community here in general but having said that i get very few likes on fb from folksy members if im honest.
The daily365 challange is great but we are just promoting ourselves within folksy you will only see the ads if youre already on the folksy page , its places like facebook that we need to spread the word
Eg your name (plumporridge) is the first time ive seen your name so i visited your shop then followed you on fb and instsa via your links . Now when ever i see you pop up on either platform ill click like. This is such an easy thing to do but extremely effective