**Reopened my store and need some practical advice!**

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Hi All

Well long story short ….I previously had a shop here some time ago selling miniature bedding and to be honest with you I gave up very quickly.

I make cards and I’m currently in the process of making more cards so as to add to my shop and I was wondering if any of you lovely people would give me some feedback to improve and possibly show me how to drive traffic to my shop?

I think I might be asking at the wrong time of the year as people will be winding down for the Christmas

Thanks in advance

Sue xx

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You have some lovely pieces. A couple of suggestions:

Show the inside of the card, especially the the verse. If I like the design of the card but not the verse, or vice versa, I won’t buy, but I can be persuaded either way when I see the inside. You could also mix up your product photos a little bit, maybe with some little wrapped boxes, a little bottle of bubbly or confetti. You’re selling the ideal of the card as well as the card itself, so posing it with gift ideas could help.

You could also utilise tags more than you are. For this card I would use ‘decoupage card’ ‘butterfly card’ ‘flower card’ ‘floral birthday’ ‘purple birthday’ ‘3D card’ and suchlike. You get 15 tags, and it’s worth using all of them.

A few tweaks and you’ll be flying - I think the run up to Christmas is a hard time to launch or relaunch (I reopened after a 3 year break in November and it’s been excruciatingly slow) but Folksy is getting lots of traffic with gift giving season so you may as well tap into that!

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Folksy displays the main image on our shop front and the search results as a square, some of your cards are getting chopped off because of this. I pre crop mine to square (ideal for putting on social media) using picasa but other photo editing softwares are available.
For some reason when I click on the FB link you have on your shop front it takes me to a search results page rather than directly to your FB page - probably worth double checking you have the right thing saved in the box on Folksy. The link to your instagram page works but there is no link on insta to your Folksy shop (and the FB link goes to your personal page rather than the business page).

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Thanks Sasha I’ll get onto this straight away
Sue x

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Welcome back to Folksy :slightly_smiling_face: Yes, it is the last part of the run up to Christmas, but you can take the time to get the shop set up and ready for the New Year. Maybe, do some Thank you for the gift cards?

You are already doing the key stuff, like filling in About me and adding your social links to your profile, and your listings are using inspiration, tags etc. Tweak your photos like Sasha suggests

You may want to think about your shipping methods, and especially your comment on the listings about how long it takes for a card to arrive. We all know Royal Mail are struggling, and stamp prices are high, but your statement that it can take 10 days for second class post to arrive would put me off buying. You may want to move the rather blunt statement to your shop announcement, rather than in the listing?

I’m guessing most people buying a really special card like yours would be looking a bit in advance, so are happy with second class even with it’s delays. But maybe there is a way to catch the late shoppers too? You could add a listing for an upgrade to first class and suggest people add it to their order if they want the card quicker?

Driving traffic - tbh I don’t do that much on social media. Most of my sales seem to come from an organic search through the Folksy site, rather than a direct link from my Insta, Fb or Pinterest. But I do try and promote Folksy as a whole - I share and comment on their posts and reels.
And I promote other peoples pages/items as well - mostly through doing Folksy Friday Boards - that seems to be really good as the other people you have tagged help promote it too. So, collaboration seems better for me than lone shouting into the void.

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Thank you @ Francesca’s Words, lots of ideas for me to try so Im going to be busy, Im still in the process of correcting other mix ups :slight_smile:

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Thank you Sharon @ The Old Button, I appreciate all the help I can get. Think I might be busy tweaking my shop over the holiday period … in-between the toasts and celebrations :slight_smile: