Yesterday I had about 80 views on eBay, 30 on Etsy and only ONE on Folksy.
Really beginning to think that Folksy is not the way forward - especially as I’ve only sold two things this year. Why are views so bad on Folksy?
Not everyone has bad views/sales on here.
How much do you promote Folksy compared to your other outlets? Do you direct people here or elsewhere?
1 Like
Folksy is a very small site compared to the others you have mentioned . You can not rely on passing trade finding you .(although some times it does)
If you steer your customers here they will buy here . It is very similar to having a personal website (without the annual fee and having to do all the seo yourself)
1 Like
Both ebay and etsy are well known and pay for advertising in google shopping so when people are looking to buy something they know to go to those sites or are directed to those sites by a google shop. Folksy is less well known so fewer people know to come here to look for an item to buy and doesn’t currently pay for google ads (but there has been talk of trialling that).
Are the views you are talking about the views that folksy reports (which are only where people have looked at a specific item) or google analytics (which will include where people have looked at your shop front)? Yesterday I had 48 shop views on google analytics but only 2 views according to folksy. (my etsy shop had no views yesterday, care to guess which shop I direct people to with my promotion?)
Assuming that people are looking on folksy for what you are selling how does your photography compare to others who sell the same thing? A quick look in your shop shows that you make rag dolls so run a search for that. I did and a lot of your dolls are missing part of their head in the search results so maybe recropping them to show the whole head/ face would encourage people to click on the item thus boosting your views. Having the best photographed dolls on folksy will help get people into your shop.
Sorry if that is not the sympathetic response you wanted, I’m just trying to be helpful.
Sasha
With me, I direct my promoting to here, as I am running my Etsy shop down for now. I have only 4views there today. I don’t promote on there any more. I really want this site to be my main one. I promote on Instagram mainly. I don’t get any hits from twitter so have not done any promoting as least not much on there these days. I’ve not got it right, I don’t do any personal promoting on my Facebookage because I don’t want to be a nuisance. We have to go where we are happiest. Ebay, don’t do it for me, I almost give it away there. Nope, sticking with Folksy, for now.
I do all my directions only to Folksy via Pinterest and Facebook and word of mouth etc. I never direct them to anywhere else. I’m constantly promoting too. As for the photos, you are right Sasha, I will go in and crop them and show the dolls in their full glory! and Sarah, I wasn’t implying that everyone has bad views/sales on here - just me, I should have said “why are MY views so bad on folksy”
I do “buy it now” on eBay, I never put things on for bidding otherwise you’re right, you end up giving it away! apart from making a lot of sales on there, I’ve managed to get a lot of repeat custom, private requests for custom orders and orders from shops. So eBay works very well for me. But I really really want Folksy to work.
I hope it works for us both @kaymay. Apparently it is a slow time of the year. I haven’t sold anything at all this week.
I’m hoping for something before next week, I have been fortunate to have a had a few sales on here and Etsy these past few weeks.
You will have to forgive us - we get people complaining about lack of views/ sales through folksy and when you look into it they are busy promoting a shop else where and expecting people to just find them here, this is too small a site for that to work (especially if you are in one of the more congested areas).
Do you have google analytics set up on either your folksy or etsy shop?(or ebay if that is possible) you are obviously achieving interest on the other platforms so it would be interesting to find out how they are finding you. Then if there is an obvious source of your traffic, eg a doll forum where you get mentioned, then you could target that source to improve your profile.
One thing I found beneficial to getting my views up was my titles. When I originally did my listings I had titles like ‘sodalite and onyx necklace’ which was accurate but assumes a certain amount of knowledge of gemstones. When I switched to ‘blue sodalite and black onyx necklace’ my views went up because I was capturing all the searches for ‘blue necklace’ or ‘black necklace’. I don’t know how doll buyers think but could having titles like ‘rag doll in vintage dress’ or ‘ginger haired rag doll’ attract more search results?
Finally having looked I know there is a category for dolls but there are also dolls listed in the nursery/ playroom category. Is it worth changing the category of a few of your dolls to see if they get more views from people browsing the nursery stuff? Do your dolls appeal more to the doll collector (who I assume would look in the doll category) or people buying things for kids (who would be looking in nursery stuff)?
Lots of questions there for you to consider that I can’t answer but hopefully it will help.
Sasha
2 Likes
Have you been on eBay/Etsy longer and maybe have a more established client base there?
I started out making dolls, so I sympathise, because there are quite a lot of rag doll makers out there (lots of Dolls and Daydreams pattern ones or similar) but yours are quite individual looking which is great. Not sure if you’re aware of CE marking, if not, please consider reading up as it’s a requirement for toys to be CE marked - you can state this in your listing and use it as a promotional tool too.
It’s tough out there, maybe do a customer listing of creating a doll to reflect a daughter/grand daughter in hair style, eye colour etc? I did some custom dolls wearing local school uniform which went down well as people bought them for their daughters leaving primary school as a memento.
Good luck!
1 Like
Thank you for your suggestions. All great ones, but ones I already do, although the CE marking is in progress.
Still doesn’t explain why I get no lookers when I tweet from here but loads when using my other shops? Does anyone have an answer? Its very bazaar. The sales I get on here are from just Instagram not related at all from fb or Twitter.
Sorry to hear that @kaymay. It could be that the views are calculated differently on your other sites. As @SashaGarrett says, the stats on Folksy currently only count clicks to your product or shop, so they don’t account for the number of times your products or shop have come up in a search and been seen, just not clicked.
We’re hoping to introduce a much better stats page in the near future - I’d love it to be all singing and dancing, and have loads more information, eg where your visits have come from, where you have been featured, how many times your products or shop have been returned in a search etc. That would help all sellers work out where their marketing is most effective and if it’s a case that people are seeing your products and just not clicking (in which case it could be a problem with product shots) or if it’s that they’re not showing up in searches (in which case tweaking the title and description could help SEO).
Having had a look at your shop, one easy tip that could help you get more views is to tweak your titles. This make up bag is lovely https://folksy.com/items/5444881-Make-up-cosmetic-bag but it’s really unlikely to show up in any searches on Google etc, because the title is too generic. When thinking about titles, try to imagine you’re describing it to someone who can’t see it. So for this maybe ‘Handmade make-up bag with leaf appliqué in mint green, mustard yellow and tawny brown’ would be more effective? You might catch more specific searches that way.
I hope that’s useful.
4 Likes