Selling so difficult!

Does anyone feel like they are doing something wrong when their crafts don’t seem to be selling? I am constantly trying to improve my shop appearance and give as much information as I think I can. I believe my products are appealing, know that they are well made and difficult to produce and really cannot lower my prices further. I am lost. I imagine confidence comes with that first sale? Would love to hear your experiences. Thank you

Where are you promoting your shop? I don’t see any links to any Social Media.
I have a Facebook page, am also on Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and now Instagram. I regularly post on them to drive people to my Folksy shop. It does work, but it takes a while and there will be quiet times whatever you do…

It’s solely about volumes of traffic.

The following is pure hypothesis but makes the point:

If you have 100 visitors to your shop, 50 of them will have just been browsing and have no intention to buy.

30 of them will be looking to buy but your product isn’t suitable (type, price, colour, materials, style etc etc).

15 of them will like your product but then go elsewhere and something about the other products they view will get them to commit (easy buying process, that special something about your competitors product that makes it more personally appealing to the buyer, different colours etc etc etc).

Of the remaining 5 who really like your product, 2 will go away and decide to return later to buy, but then forget, and of the remaining 3 people, 1 of them will realise they’ve left it too late so have to nip to the shops to buy an alternative.

2 of them will begin the buy process but during checkout 1 of them will drop out for some reason. This leaves that last elusive person, who will go onto buy.

In reality, the numbers in your sales funnel will vary and the reasons people drop out will differ, but that’s the general idea.

I would carry on trying to attract people to the shop, because the more people who see your products, the closer you will come to securing a buyer.

Just a personal view, but could you show a ‘work in progress’ type picture of you making the boxes, or maybe a great pile of matchsticks, as a secondary image. It would reinforce to the view just exactly how intricate your craft is, and can only enhance its appeal.

Keep going, it does take time but you have a great niche product and that’s your biggest ‘unique selling point’. :grinning:

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You have a great talent Matthew, your boxes are beautiful and well made and much work has gone into the making of them. As the others on the thread have said promotion is key, via facebook, twitter, pinterest etc. The only other thing I could suggest is to get more items in your shop to show to customers and perhaps all shapes of boxes and not just hearts although I know that would be difficult with the name of your shop.

Good luck with everything but it does take time. Sure you will start to get sales soon.

I have never seen that before, that’s a bit scary :smiley: Although I think with good online marketing on social media the figures of how many are in to browse and how many are there because they like your product might be slightly better figures in your favour, so the end buyer figure might be slightly higher and in the end that’s what makes a successful shop. The right type of person entering your shop in the first place, who has been drawn in through seeing your product via social media promoting so is interested before they even arrive. It’s all about getting that last 5 figure in the example up to a much higher amount so give you more opportunity to make that sale :slight_smile:

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Yes, hopefully the ratios are more in our favour! I’ve never actualy crunched the figures myself to get an end conversion ratio, but I must do that one day and it would be interesting to see whether I have a 50% or 0.05% sales conversion ratio!! :slight_smile: - I think I would be happy with about 5%!

Thank you, those figures are most interesting. Just checked some view and sales figures over various periods (though Folksy went to sleep when I asked it for 6 months stats !), Yes my percentage sale of views figure is about 1%.

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Thank you for your response to my post this morning. Very much appreciated and raised some interesting points. I’m not promoting my shop anywhere on social media yet. I am a tech dinosaur I’m afraid and have never liked the social media concept. Silly I know! This afternoon however, I did download Pinterest, have had a look but haven’t worked it out. :slightly_smiling_face:Thankyou again

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Thank you for your very interesting response to my post this morning. Very much appreciated. I have taken your advice and as a result I have changed my “about”picture. Have also considered your other information on statistics. Thanks again.Matt.

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your boxes are beautiful…you need to keep listing as often as you can…as I tell people…if you see a new shop in the high street, you look in the window…next time you pass you look again…but it is the same stuff there…so in the end you get bored and stop looking. IF every time you look, there is something new to see, you will go back and might see something that you want to buy.
I know it is difficult to keep listing, especially if items take a long time to make but list as often as you can…
Also, it is early days yet…I waited 3 MONTHS for my first sale on folksy…hang on in there…who knows, your first customer might arrive tomorrow
Don’t give up…come and chat on as many of the forums as you can, so that people get to know you…and welcome to folksy

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That looks great! People are very visual, so anything of interest which you can add will make people remember you and your shop. @JOYSofGLASS has been very good by sharing her sales figure - I will work out mine too later this evening and would be pleasantly surprised if I manage as high as 1%.

This is a great article to read about the sales funnel, which articulates it better than I could (!) and gives lots of ideas. I’m going to have a review about what I do too, as you’ll be surprised how things can change and also what you forget in the day to day of running your shop.

The key is to keep going, and you’ll get there.

https://www.mailmunch.co/blog/sales-funnel/

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Hi, I will pin your items on some of my boards and tweet them for you. Your boxes are lovely x

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Thank you Heidi. Including your own, I have had several responses to my titled post, all of which have been very helpful and kind but have also managed to put things into perspective. Perhaps I need to lower my expectations a little!!! I don’t know! Thank you again. Matt.

It can be difficult not to feel it’s something you are doing wrong. Your boxes are lovely, but you can’t just list them on here and hope! You need to put time and effort into promoting on social media, but also try other online outlets, try physical craft fairs, or any combination of those. The sales will come somewhere and help your confidence.

A little while ago Folksy was my best outlet. Now I haven’t had a single sale here in two months, but elsewhere I’ve sold £100’s in that time. Same items, same prices, fickle customers. If I was only on Folksy I would be wondering what I’m doing wrong. But thanks to those customers elsewhere I am happy with my items and my prices, and will hang in here until Folksy customers agree :smile:

Matthew, I have sent you a message

Matthew, I am baffled…original I clicked on your message to reply to it but it bounced back saying it couldn’t be delivered…so I went to your shop and sent you a message by clicking on Contact Matthew…there I typed you a long message and sent it…goodness know where it has gone…I looked on my dashboard to see if I could find a link to “sent messages” but there is nothing there…hey ho…one of those days…

Just to cheer you up a bit.
Im on folksy since 2014. Its 2018 and yeah-nothing. Big fat 0.
Sometimes I got few views. But mainly nothing.
Fingers crossed x

These hearts are lovely