I’ve recently opened my shop here on Folksy called: La Bottega Dell’Arte UK.
I am an artist based in London. I hand-pour aromatic soy wax candles decorated with real botanicals, and I also create unique hand-painted art cards and soon my paintings.
I’ve set up everything from my phone: keywords, tags, 1-working-day dispatch, and free tracked UK delivery. I really hope I’ve done everything correctly, but my shop activity is still very quiet at the moment.
I would love to ask for some friendly advice from experienced sellers.
Is it worth upgrading to a Folksy Plus account straight away when you are a brand-new shop? Does it help with visibility, or is it better to wait until I get my more sales?
I would appreciate any tips, feedback, or thoughts.
Welcome to Folksy.
The plus account is worth it financially if you have a lot of items to list, and re list.
It doesn’t offer any visibility advantages other than re listing items, which will briefly move them back to the top of the search.
Joining in with the Daily Listing challenge thread here on the forum is a good way to learn your way around Folksy whilst filling your shop and getting a bit more exposure along with lots of helpful advice if you need it. The new thread for September should be going up soon.
I’m not sure that Folksy Plus particularly helps with visibility. Technically, the ability to relist without further charge means you can relist regularly and put yourself fleetingly on the front page. Not sure how useful that is in practice.
I think it depends how many items you have. I try to maintain a stock of over 100 items, so I find the flat rate offered by Folksy Plus makes it easier to budget (those individual listing charges soon mount up).
If you want the simplicity offered by a flat rate charge and you have a decent number of items, it’s worth considering. Otherwise there isn’t much in it either way.
Hi Chris,Thank you so much for taking the time to reply and for sharing your experience! It makes a lot of sense.
Right now, I am completely new, so I don’t have 100 items yet. However, my plan is to list a new candle almost every day, and I am also an artist, so I will soon start adding my hand-painted greeting cards to the shop as well.
Your advice on budgeting and how individual charges mount up is very helpful. I think I will start building up my stock first, and once I have a decent number of items, I will definitely consider switching to the Plus account to keep the costs predictable.
Thanks again for the warm welcome and the great tips!
Thank you so much for the warm welcome and the helpful advice!
I will definitely look out for the new September Daily Listing challenge thread, it sounds like a wonderful way to get some exposure and connect with everyone.
welcome…and just think,…it is just the cost of a coffee and cake each month.
You can renew the items as often as you like for not extra charge…you can have items featured at the top of your shop and can move them around to any order that your prefer…it is a no brainer for me.
Individually… listings soon mount up the cost…
Just pay the plus fee and forget it…I pay per year and then forget it..
My renewal comes up in April, so I have another 7 months left without worrying about a bill coming in ( other than paying commission on any sales)
and if you lose the cost of that coffee and cake, think of the health benefits..ha ha.xx
When I joined Folksy I went straight for the monthly plus plan, as I liked the additional benefits that it offers. I have lots of listings and several have multiple quantities plus I can relist more often too, so it is more than worth it for me.
It is generally a very bad idea to list with a multiple quantity if you are not PLUS. You pay by quantity not by listing so if you set a qty 5 against a candle you will pay for 5 which will very quickly augment youroverall bill.
As I am Plus (I have a very full and quite busy shop having been here since 2009) I don’t see what warning is given when new sellers set quantities of more than 1 against a listing but I did think there was such a warning. I do think it should be in bright red and bold as pretty sure a lot of new sellers slap a big quantity on their new listings and live to regret it when they get their bill.
You are new, you have no idea how well you will sell on here and there are lots of other candle makers on here too so you have competition however lovely your particular makes..
Sales across the site are not exactly brilliant so you would be well advised to only use a qty of 1 against each listing and restock as and when you sell. Maybe add a note to say if you want more than one pllease contact me.
But probably too late for you now sadly as pretty sure once listed as qty of 5 you will be charged that even if you now change to 1.
So you need to do a bit of maths here. Add up all you listings * quantity and work out how much that will cost you every 4 months… Multiply that by 3 for a years worth and compare that total with the Plus fee,
multiples of 18P or £90 - when you include VAT
(think that works out at a total of 166 ish listings * quantity per 4 months). You are currently already up to 65 I think.
Plus does allow you to relist as often as daily and you can list as many and as often as you want. Apart from that there is little advantage. You don;t get favourite shop status or anything like that and promotion is all down to you either way.
