I am a bit worried i have joined Folksy…no sales still I think i wont get any i love folksy but im a bit bothered by what I have heard about it.Is it worth staying open.
Hi Astrid,
I’m new to folksy too and have read a lot about lack of sales which got me a bit worried also. I started randomly clicking on sellers to see how their items have sold, and some people have sold plenty (several hundred- I even saw someone who sold over 1000 in a short time!) while others have sold very few.
I think how much you sell probably comes down to how much you advertise yourself. If you have the time to set it up and maintain it, it wouldn’t hurt to have a twitter account and Facebook page to promote your Folksy shop. I’m still in the process of setting up my own so I’m not 100% sure if it works or not but fingers crossed!
One other thing I suppose would be worth considering is how much money listing items is costing you. I decided to go for a Folksy plus account as I didn’t like seeing my balance go up every time I list an item. Another benefit of the Folksy is that you can relist items often so they appear higher if someone searches by ‘recently listed’ which might better the chances of a sale.
Best of luck with your shop and I hope sales start coming in soon. I love your jewellery- I will pin my favourite pieces on my Pinterest page
Jennie.
Hi Astrid
I would say keep with it. It takes time to create a virtual path to any online shop.
Things are really quiet for me here too at the moment, and getting Folksy plus last month hasn’t made any difference in sales (not as I thought it would, but I wanted the flexibility with listing)
I think July/August is quieter for some due to people taking holidays and having family commitments.
Halloween and Christmas are coming so that may be a good time for your cards.
Let’s hope the sales fairy is good to us in the run up to Xmas.
Karen
i tried using face book but i personally dont like face book. I think on here you have to bring in all the customers yourself.The listing fees are expensive to.
Thank you thinking of getting some buisiness cards.x
Just an observation - the plus account is not always the best option, particularly for new sellers.
It only really pays its way if you are planning on listing/relisting a large amount of items on a regular basis or have a high turnover of lower cost items.
20p per listing versus £45 for a year - which does not include the additional 6/7% commission fees per sale - it is not always the better option.
For example, you would have to sell five £9 items just to cover your annual fee, and even then you will neither be in profit or have broken even as you will still have the selling fees/paypal fees to come off each sale.
Sarah x
I don’t really get why you would be “worried” about being on Folksy. It will either work for you, or not. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. It’s not going to ruin your business to give it a try. But it should really only be a part of your online selling arsenal. If you are solely selling on Folksy then I would suggest spreading yourself a little bit over the internet to give yourself more opportunity to be found. And Jennie has got it absolutely right about selling here, you have to promote and go and get your customers. Although that is pretty much the same for any selling site that you’ll be on. You can’t really rely on customers stumbling on your shop through searches until you are quite well established and your listings are bedded into search engine searches. And even then you’d have to have a pretty unique product to stand out in the searches from all the other sellers. Easier to put yourself in front of them through your own promotion.
Jo
Have you read through all the advice and top selling tips for new sellers on the Shop Talk forum?
It sums up pretty much everything you need to consider if you want to sell on here. If you’re new still, what have you got to lose by sticking around a bit longer? You’ve paid for 4 months listing, so you may as well try it for at least that long - but you can’t just sit back and expect customers to find you. There is a huge amount of effort, time and energy needed to promote your shop, especially in the early days. I’ve been on here for over three years and still spend more time promoting than I do making.
The Folksy blog has a huge amount of advice on it too from successful Folksy sellers. It takes time to get established. I Started here at the end of May and although I get frustrated at times that no one has heard of Folksy I strongly believe that we still need to put it out there. I’m still tweaking and learning as I go here but because I’m determined to make a real go of this I’m willing to put the time in that’s needed.
Please do have a read through the forums and look at the blog, (you’ll find the link on the homepage) there is a huge amount of advice out there.
That is true i need to get some buisiness cards to i think.
it does take an enormous amount of effort setting up shops to. Try it for a year i say then reconsider.
The listing fees are a damn sight cheaper than booking a craft fair stall, and yes, you do have to bring in the customers yourself. You’re renting a shop. If you did that on a high street would you expect you landlord to do the advertising for your business?
Your items are nice, but you are selling jewellery and cards - the competition for those items is enormous.
You may not like facebook, but it brings in customers - sometimes we have to use sites that we’re not keen on if we want our businesses to succeed.
maybe i should sell my silk roses instead…? i know everyone is selling jewellery and cars.x
cards sorry.
high street rents are 2700 pound…a month.
If you make silk roses then you might as well list them Someone buying a silk rose for someone might well pick a card from your shop to go with it
If you’re renting a shop in the high street or shopping centre, people see the shop and drop in. If you’re renting a stall at a craft fair, you expect the organiser to make some effort to get people to attend. I would like Folksy to be as well-known as Etsy.
I only sold 25 items in my first year here, but I certainly didn’t worry about sales. I had no expectations and any sales were a bonus! Astrid, there’s nothing to worry about, just see how it goes and, as others have suggested, try some other ways of getting known…
Hello! It is really tough starting out selling online, I started in Feb on Folksy and have only sold one thing…on Folksy, however have made sales through word of mouth that haven’t gone through Folksy. I would not have made those sales without having my Folksy shop to talk about!!. The social media thing takes A LOT of effort, but keep at it and see how it goes. I use Facebook and Instagram so far but am also thinking about Twitter and Craftjuice. I agree with looking at the sellers blog, I’ve been very inspired by some of the interviews. Good luck!
Teresa I would definitely use Craftjuice if I was you. It’s a brilliant way of getting your product images into the search engines. As for Twitter, if you think you can manage Facebook and Twitter and keep them both ticking along, then do both. Personally I find keeping one going is enough and I get along with Facebook a lot better than Twitter. I don’t really like Twitter (too immediate and the post disappears in minutes) so I’d rather use the one I like using and use it well. Don’t feel like you have to use all these social media things just because they’re there. You could spread yourself too thinly and dilute the quality of your promoting.
Hi Astrid and welcome to Folksy
Some great advice given by other fellow folksters and I do very much agree that working on the (outside of Folksy) promotion of your shop is a very important factor to its success.
Also I do hope that you do not take any great offence (as I certainly do not say this to you in a cruel way) but the quality of the listing photograph (alongside an informative item description etc) are usually the deciding factor in the viewer turning into a customer/purchaser…so you may well find it beneficial to re-do the listings/photos which at present do not necessarily showcase your item at its best.
I myself find that some time spent casting a critical eye over my shop and re-jigging things can really make a difference, try thinking like the customer and view your shop the way a customer would and think about what you like/dislike about it and the once you have made your decisions simply change which aspects you feel do not work, whilst holding onto what does and you believe can and will.
Wishing you all the best with your shop.
Christine