We have been on Folksy almost a year and our orders have dwindled to nothing in the last couple of months, we have tried to be more active on social media, and we are advertising our shop on social media, but nobody has bought anything, is there anything else we can do.
The link to our shop is.
Hi Lizzie 
Some experienced Folksy sellers will surely be along soon to help, however I would say do fill in your āaboutā section and add your socials 
Good luck!
Katrina
Iāve been here since 2012 and at first I did OK but then everything just seemed to stop 
I let my shop run empty for a while but restocked end of last year.
I also sell on the other site. Iāve had 14 sales there this month and only 1 here.
This month my promotion has been:
On the other site, just a few tweets
For folksy Iām promoting on:
Facebook (my business page and in relevant groups)
Twitter
Instagram
Tumblr
Pinterest
And Iām taking part in the daily listing thread here in the forums where other people promote each others items.
I honestly donāt know what the answer is
I went to look at your shop and if possible I would move the photos around a bit as all the jars looked the same ( I KNOW they are different smells but it looked boring to look at) ALSOā¦I think I would change the heading to include the word candleā¦
People love candles but to just see the title Wax Melts didnāt catch my eyeā¦
And I know this is being piccy but the bars of soap looked brokenā¦(I realise this is the natural style of them but it looked like you had taken a block and just snapped a bit offā¦) I donāt know if any of this helps or notā¦maybe put a silk flower next to the jars to get more attentionā¦the jars looked sort of regimented?
Hi Lizzie,
I am not an expert Folksier and I donāt know the answer but I do buy soap online so I can tell you from that perspective.
The reason I buy online is to get nice soaps without plastic packaging. I have no idea if you share these ideals or not. The soap I buy is vegan (I am not but the soap is) and that is something clear in their marketing. The seller is also very keen on the environment, zero waste etc and that is made explicit in their site. I donāt necessarily need vegan soap but I like that they are environmentalists and idealists and care about some of the same issues.
The other thing that would put me off is your postage. Your soaps are very reasonably priced but the postage if I buy three bars of soap is Ā£6 - which would stop my buying it. I normally buy a big bundle of soaps at the same time and I wouldnāt want to be paying a fortune in postage.
I hope this is helpful.
Good luck!
Kirsty
I think you could do with more information in your description. I just looked at one and the soap didnāt have much to tempt me to buy it. Then checked the post and thought Ā£3 for a bar of soap less than 100g seems rather expensive. Just my thoughts.
Have you considered doing sample packs of smaller sizes (eg tealights or mini bars of soap) so that people can experience the scents?
I would say re-do the photos of the candles, as @teabreaks mentioned above, they look quite regimented? Maybe photo them, as far as you can, with each of the scents as props. How the soap pieces are presented is ok for me- i know thatās what handcut soap generally looks like.
I think online sales for candles and toiletries etc must be hard - as Iām sure youāll know from trading at markets, people need to sniff stuff!
Sales are up and down for me- only a little before Christmas, but then a few sales in the space of 48hrs recently!
Make sure you relist frequently and check all postage prices are reasonable. There is just a lot of choice of everything for sale online.
I used to make soap. Firstly, your photos are dull and badly lit. Also, youāre not using your full five photo slots. Try to make your products look enticing and desirable. We shop with our eyes, and if you donāt take that into consideration, youāll fall to your competitors. Your descriptions are too short. You have a product fragranced with Sea Breeze. Now, while that kind of explains what it might smell like, you need to use tag words like ozone, seaweed, hints of mint, crackling pine needles, sparkling top notes of bergamot and neroliā¦creative words that bring that fragrance to life. What does that fragrance smell like to youā¦try to pick out the topnotes, middle notes and basenotes and then describe this in detail to your customers. Donāt do that straight from the oil bottle. You need to let your soap cure then work from that because the saponification process can alter the final scent. In depth descriptions? Thatās what will help me buy a soap.
Troll through Pinterest under Artisan soap, and check out the beautiful photos people use, and use that inspiration. Do you have a Cosmetic Safety Assessment Certificate? Tell your buyers you have this as it instils confidence that you know what youāre doing with regards to allergens and safety rules.
Show your product labels clearly so that buyers can see your listed ingredients there. Photograph your products from every angle. When I was selling Rose Essential Oil face creams I decanted a tub and used an icing nozzle to pipe it back into the jar. I placed a rose behind the jar. This created a beautiful photograph and I sold loads of it.
Itās hard work running a successful shop. You need to learn all the tricks to make it work. This includes promoting it and learning about how to get your listings to work with searches. Folksy, I find, is a little slower than other places, but itās still a good platform which Iām sure will keep on growing. So rethink your shop strategies and stick with it.
Also, I would not buy a soap that weighed less than 100 to 130 grams. Do your market research. Youāll find there are people selling heavier soaps for the same amount you are charging.
I see your shop is in holiday mode? When it is in holiday mode no one can buy from it.
Thanks for all the replyās, they put a lot of things into perspective. The store was only briefly in holiday mode, itās out of it now. I think your responses have made us realise we need to overhaul a lot of the presentation and and that we hope that will make a big difference.
Hi everyone, any chance someone could take a browse through my store, Iām hardly selling a thing. any advice greatly welcomed.
iām also on instagram if anyone wants to advise on my page there, thats fine by me too.
i know iām rubbish at selling myself, so need to improve on that but otherwise ??
cheers.
Hi there,
Iām not an expert at photography by far. But I just checked out your shop and a lot of the photos look the same (a little boring), and my suggestion would be to add more into your images enticing people to click on them. For example I read you have a cucumber/aloe vera body lotion, personally I would play on those ingrediants and maybe place around the bottle some slices of cucumber in the front corner of the photo and an Aloe vera plant behind but to the other side. Thatās just my way of thinking! 
~
Iām no expert Fuzzibug, but I would say have another look at your photos, especially the ones with a lot of background in them, I think they look cluttered and your jewellery looks lost.
I looked at the items youāve sold and most have clear, uncluttered, close-up photos as the main image. But some are a bit close. Folksy crops the main photo to a square thumbnail, so optimising the main photo to square would be a good start.
The rectangular copper hammered dangle earrings on the black pebble, really caught my eye, good contrast, close enough to see detail.
One other thing is tags, try and use all 15 and think about what people might use to search for your jewellery. So for the copper earrings above, things like geometric earrings, rectangular earrings, statement earrings, or everyday wear, and definitely check your competitors to see what they use.
You have some really beautiful pieces, good luck.
Hi jenswoollywares,
Thank you for your advice. I will start by looking at my competitors images and tags and go from there.
Many thanks
Fuzzibug
(Jacki)
Your photos are a bit too busy to show off that jewellery. Your jewellery is very pretty and finely wrought so when you clutter up the background that pulls the eye away from the piece youāre trying to sell. I personally prefer plain pale background for jewellery. Itās not too bad if youāre selling robust pieces, but your work is quite delicate and needs a soft white background to bring it to the fore. Or blur out the background a bitā¦that can often make the piece jump right out.
Thank you iridescent. The other post said this too. I will have a play and see if i can adjust things.
-x-
Hi @FuzziBug ! Photographing earrings is such a pain but I think your actual images of the pieces are clear. Iād definitely concentrate on contrast though- if someoneās scrolling through a lot of listings, something like this is unlikely to stick out as the earrings just merge into the background:
Iād also crop all your images square, as some pieces are wandering out of shot on preview images.
Also, your descriptions are a little short. EG when could you wear them? I would definitely elaborate on the ecosilver aspect. Is your packaging also eco? Itās good to have this information in the āAboutā, but not everyone looks beyond the listing.
Hope this helps!
hi Catherine,
Yes, thank you for your advice. its a fine line, i like it to look pretty, but i suppose not at the detriment of my sales! maybe just a plain dusky pink background.
def not keen on retaking 50+ photos tho.
cheers
fuzzibug (jacki)
I think one of the things to bear in mind (although it sounds obvious!) is that customers canāt smell or try your products when theyāre buying online, and this is really crucial when buying bath and beauty products. So it really helps if you can use your product images to allow people to imagine those scents.
For example, on this body butter https://folksy.com/items/7515971-Body-Butter-Orange-Blossom-Ginger-Fragrance-70gcould you photograph it with some orange blossom and ginger, or failing that, then some orange peel and tree blossom? As a customer Iād also like to see what the butter looks like - the colour and consistency, so Iād maybe suggest a photo showing the tin open or a maybe a wooden spoon with a swirl of the butter on it? At the moment, the only thing I can see is what the tin looks like.
Iād also really go to town on your descriptions. Could you make it more evocative and enticing? Also is it vegan, organic, blended by hand? How will it make me feel? All those things could go in the description.
I hope that helps.
