Hello everyone, how are you? Just wanted to ask for some advice on selling tips. I have sold nothing and feel out of my depth!! Not sure what to do, I’ve changed my keywords and photos. Do you think i’m selling the wrong things? Any feedback would be gratefully appreciated.
Thanks
Tracey x CadaBay Jewellery
How are you promoting your shop?
I find a lot of my customers arrive at my shop having seen my promotion on my Facebook page. I regularly promote on there, but also on Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. You have to promote regularly to get your shop seen.
Also, join in on this forum…there are lots of threads where we all help to promote each other.
I agree with Kim @KBCreations. Promotion is everything. Social media promotion is a marathon, rather than a sprint and it can take a while to build up a following, but it is worth doing. Today’s follower could be tomorrow’s customer. I promote to Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook. Instagram is good for building up a following quickly. Experiment with different hashtags and see which ones bring the most people to your page.
Joining in with the promotional activity in the forums (like the daily or weekly listing threads) can improve your visibility on Folksy itself. We favourite each others listings and promote as many as we can on social media. It is a lot of work, but when I’m not doing it, my views and sales tend to dry up. I have favourited your shop and your items to get the ball rolling.
Think of your Folksy shop as your own website. You would have to direct your own customers to a website, Folksy is much the same (only much cheaper and easier to manage).
Participate in some craft fairs in your local area and have business cards ready. I have got customers to my Folksy shop that way.
Personally, I wouldn’t say that “money is tight” in my about me section, even though it might well be. I don’t think customers need to know about your finances (perhaps that’s just me, I would find it a bit off putting).
Everyone is very helpful here, but for most of us, that first sale was quite a long time coming. Those that don’t give up can do quite well, so the best of luck. ,
Looking at your shop, all your items only seem to have been listed today? You’d be very lucky to make a sale on your first day!
Have a little patience. You’ve got multiple photos, filled out your titles and tags and your descriptions seem to cover the important points… so as the others say, you just have to try and get some people into your shop now with a little promotion. Jewellery can be a competitive category, and although there will be some people browsing Folksy, you can’t just rely on that to get you lots of sales, you really have to bring people in too… which can take a little time.
I don’t know what time frame you’ve achieved no sales in but for jewellery - especially jewellery at the lower price points - competition is fierce with many, many options for people to choose from. What are the selling points of your jewellery that make them different and more desirable compared to the rest? These are the things you need to really highlight in your description and tags. (I’d highlight your use of magnetic clasps as that is more unusual and makes it very easy for anyone with dexterity issues to put them on)
Search algorithms (both folksy internal ones and google) put a greater emphasis on the key words that are in the title and first 2 paragraphs so you need to make sure that all the key words that people would be searching for are in those paragraphs. I try and avoid having more that 3 paragraphs, I know many people break up the text to make it easier to read but a couple of well written paragraphs can be just as easy to read and much more search bot friendly.
And finally you need to promote outside of folksy by using social media - there is a tonne of info on the folksy blog about how to do that.
Hi Kim, thank you for your reply. I have joined Pinterest and am getting to know the ropes on there. I wanted to join some others but thought it best to get to grips with one first! I will give twitter and Instagram a try next. Thank you so much for your feedback.
Have a lovely day
Tracey
Hi Chris
Thank you for your reply. I have started on Pinterest but yet to try other platforms. I have not used Hashtags (need to research them!) Thank you for the favourite of my shop too.Funnily enough I was looking at business cards the other day, I think I will go ahead and buy some. the last thing, I think you are so right about the money is tight bit, I will remove this now.
Have a lovely day
Tracey
Hi Kim
Thank you for your reply
I have yet to make a sale, but I have joined Folksy plus so I can relist my items every day for free. I only joined on the 1st August so I am going to give it a try for a month and see if it helps! Promotion is a good idea for me to try, I will have a think about what to offer.
have a lovely day
Tracey x
Hi Sasha
Thank you for your reply
I started on folksy on 13th June. I think I was expecting miracles! Reading all my replies it seems I need to be more patient and get out there more. I have jotted down your suggestions so I can go away and see if I can make them better. One last thing, thank you for the link, I will go and read that too.
Have a lovely day
Tracey x
Maybe not the best idea to advertise that you only started making Jewellery a couple of months ago. Might make potential customers think they could just as easily try it themselves .xx
Hi Joy
Thank you for your comments, I will go and review my wording and erase that statement! Regards Tracey xx
@SashaGarrett I have been reading through all you very helpful folksy folk and too find it helpful as a newbie. Can you explain a bit more about what you mean by (search algorithms both folksy and google) - what do you mean by this?
Folksy has a search algorithm - when someone types a phrase into the search box the Folksy search algorithm uses its criteria to rank the listings it shows in the results. It looks for things like the search phrase being in the title, first couple of lines of the description and in the tags (this is why if the search phrase is eg ‘glass earrings’ something tagged ‘glass earrings’ ranks higher than something tagged ‘glass’ and ‘earrings’.
Google have a search algorithm that is not the same as Folksy’s one - it uses a slightly different set of criteria to rank the results it shows when someone types a search phrase into the google search box. Examples of the differences include Google remembers what you have previously viewed so biases its results based on that, Folksy doesn’t. Google grades websites based on page layout criteria but since all the pages on Folksy have the same layout the Folksy algorithm doesn’t have that criteria (Folksy have hopefully put the time into coming up with a page layout that google likes). Google made alterations to its algorithm because more people are talking to their home hub/ Siri/ Alexa type thingies, this took us a way from what were called keyword stuffed titles (they were long and slightly nonsensical) to shorter titles which actually made sense. (Etsy’s algorithm is different again and a law unto itself)
The trick is writing your description (and title and tags) in such away to appeal to both search algorithms so you do well in internal Folksy searches and external google searches to bring people into Folksy. Does that help?
one month is nothing…It took me 3 months to get my first sale…be patient…it takes time to get seen and known. You have done the right thing by coming on here…everyone on the forums is really good…join in with some of the games if you can.
Your jewellery looks lovely and I am sure you will get sales.
Keep going x
you are a STAR - thank you. I will have to absorb this information and revisit it to make sure it sinks it but thank you x
Sasha is indeed a star! and I’m just underlining her point that there is a lot of info out there already on the folksy blogs, which I think it takes new sellers a while to find. But definitely search them out and read.
An important thing to remember is that search algorithms get updated - some of them quite regularly - just because a particular format of title/description worked with one algorithm iteration doesn’t mean that it will continue to work if the algorithm gets changed. This means it is important to keep an eye on where your traffic is coming from and if you start seeing a drop off from a particular source then it is time to consider tweaking your titles/descriptions.
(Google have updated their algorithm in June 2019 to reduce clumping ie fewer results from the same site will be shown on the first page (which explains some search results I’d spotted when looking for my own items via google). This is a major difference to the folksy algorithm where a shop can dominate the first page of search results. A useful website for keeping an eye on what changes google makes is https://moz.com/google-algorithm-change if you feel so inclined)
Thanks that is helpful x
THanks very much, x
Hi, I have the same situation as no sales to date a s I’ve opened my shop at the beginning of October I think. I try to promote to Instagram but no sales yet. It is a bit depressing as my friends complement me on the things I make but still nothing. I wonder if my tags and photos are ok and what else I could do.