This subject has come up many many times before but unfortunately, it can never be ‘resolved’ because there’s one bit of info that nobody knows. That is, how many sales come from being seen on the recently listed tab and how many sales come from other routes.
Unless we know the stats from each, we don’t know whether it does make a difference (for all we know, the number of people who buy from the recently listed section may be less than 1 percent).
For example, my beach huts picture is going to be bought by someone searching for beach huts or beach picture, and using either google search or the folksy search. It’s not going to be bought by someone looking at the recently listed tab.
Hope that helps to allay at least some of the concerns about the re listing for those who don’t have folksy plus.
yeah this is what I thought, I know if I am looking for something I usually use the search button, or else I get to the item by somewhere outside of Folksy (facebook, twitter) I’m not on here long so I haven’t figured it all out but it seems like there isn’t much passing trade with Folksy- it’s targeted selling (if those are the right terms!!) In which case the recently listed wouldn’t make a huge difference.
I have only been on the home page a couple of times and each time it brought a sale from a new customer…other than that my sales have just been from other shop keepers or old regulars. Not sure if that is relevant or not.
My instinct is that I agree with you, I think folksy encourages pretty targeted sales, but I read Brenda’s comment below, which confirms that’s not always the case!! As I said, I’m not sure we’ll ever know, which is most frustrating!!
That’s great news - I’ve been on the home page a couple of times but it didn’t bring any sales in that particular week. I’d love a definitive answer but suspect there isn’t one… I think the only way I can work out is to try and track back sales from my shop, but they are relatively few so I’m not sure if I have sold enough to make any assumptions valid!! Also, I sell cards and pictures, and I suspect the buying behaviour for each is very different!!!
I guess I did miss the point, Lizzie. I agree with you that seeing hundreds of listings from one shop is annoying and certainly doesn’t improve the buying experience for shoppers but I still don’t think the individual seller is the one that deserves the blame.
This seems to be an issue that Folksy needs to address by changing the way they allocate front page views, not the behaviour of individual shops. I don’t think it its fair to blame shop holders who pay a premium for the privilege of being able to list/relist at a set cost. To me, that is good business on their part. We all have a choice to make and in my opinion its down to those who disagree with the practice to make a case to Folksy and not blame those who use the system as it exists.
With regard to the comment regarding department stores, there again I’m afraid I disagree,
Concessions or brands (who pay a premium for their space in the shop) do indeed monopolise the shops’ windows. The other vendors have to rely on either advertising or footfall to make their sales. Improving SEO, marketing through other sites coupled with excellent product, descriptions, photos and customer service is what makes an online seller successful.
I have only been on Folksy for a couple of months and during that time I have been “on vacation” for about six weeks so I really can’t gauge what works and what doesn’t here But, three years on Etsy taught me that complacency isn’t an option if you want to make it. I doubt that it is any different here so I will take advantage of any means available to me to sell my stuff!
As a plus account holder I do re-list a few items (about 10) every couple days but I suspect that most of my sales/hits come from searches, whether from within or outside Folksy. Search Engine Optimisation is the issue here- what do your customers actually search for? If you rely on a brief moment of glory on the Folksy front page, you won’t get many sales.
I use the re-list faclity and try at least once a day to re-list a ‘page’ each morning which is usually around 40 items, and do the same on a Thursday and Friday evening when there are more people around, and yes I do do that in one go, though I have a good mix in each page with a variety of items.
It took me ages to feel comfortable with doing this, as like some of the comments here I felt it was somewhat unsporting, but sales have been slower than in previous years and the fact is I pay for my plus account and work hard with very limited time to promote my shop and others when I get chance through twitter, FB and pinterest. I work full time as well as this and would love to be able to promote little and often rather than in short sharp bursts but unfortunately I can’t do that as I only have maybe an hour in the early morning and a hour in the evening when I can do this.
I also have only been on the front page a handful of times in the 5 years or so I have been on Folksy, and never been in any of the Folky guides or been a chosen shop, I just make the best use of what Folksy offers as best I can
You make some good points Maxine, I too work full time and have to fit Folksy and social media promotion in with work and daily life, along with some time to make my items! I’ve been on the front page a couple of times but I can’t say that I noticed it leading to a surge in sales; and I’ve never been a featured shop either. I don’t know what one has to do to be a featured shop but I suspect that one has to have a product range which fits in closely with the image that Folksy likes to project for itself…
I have just noticed the items in the “recently listed” strip at the bottom of the FP do not appear to be the most recently listed but rather a random selection so although you may get knocked off by others listing chances are you may reappear.
I’ve looked through the analytics and in the last month 12.2% of visitors to Folksy used our ‘search’ facility. Visits 'with search’ accounted for around 37% of the total revenue on Folksy, with a conversion rate of 3.91% (so 3.91% of searches resulted in a sale).
Most visitors (34%) came to Folksy from organic searches (from Google etc), and this accounted for just under 43% of the total revenue.
By comparison the number of visitor looking at ‘Recently Listed’ section was around 0.3% and accounted for only 0.2% of the total site revenue.
I really think the Recent Activity should be just that: Recent Activity, meaning something you recently created or recently listed. Or small batches since this is a benefit that comes with Plus Account holders.
Not the entire collection in your shop, not batches of 60 and 70 items and listing batches more than once. That is spam, isn’t? I rarely look in that section as I know what I’m going to find - just thought I’d bring this up as it doesn’t look attractive.
From my reading of this thread, it’s not the fact that plus sellers relist in batches but the fact that all of those relists appear in the recent activity? Perhaps they could be limited to 5 or 10 items in the “recently listed” showcase at any one time?
Like Max, I relist a page every day - it helps me to stay near the top of the search engine. This is one on the benefits to me of having the plus account. I don’t do it to appear in the recently listed section as items are only there for a fleeting moment and as Camilla says, sales don’t really come from there anyway.
my biggest beef with relistings, is not the front page, but going to ‘sections’. i go for a good browse, to buy or <3 stuff, and it’s all the same stuff as the previous day because a single shop has done a mass relist.
as a customer, i think it looks boring and static - did no one list something genuinely new in the last 24 hours for me to look at?
as a seller, i think it looks a bit desperate - here are my same 4627462374623764 items again because i still haven’t sold anything.
although - hypocrit - i do relist my entire shop every month or so
I rarely sell anything anymore on Folksy. I never seem to get to be in a gift guide and am never selected by Folksy for whatever reason. I probably made a mistake (based on sales in previous years) in having a plus account. I relist in batches of 40 because I swing past here for 5 minutes whilst I do some tweeting promotion for my shop. It is easier to relist a whole page (of 40) than to relist individual items, you just tick the top column. Maybe @Folksycontent need to make relisting different to do?
At the end of the day if you have paid your money and are not getting sales then it is something proactive you can do to try and be seen.
Desperate - maybe…but if it is your living rather than a sideline/hobby quite frankly you need to try anything!
Thanks Camilla @Folksycontent, that’s really interesting. Nice to know where our views & sales come from!
As @fionaT says, the re-listings show up in searches etc too, so the problem is more widespread than just “Recently Listed”. It really is off-putting to potential customers, to have to wade through pages of the same shop’s stuff… I am not the only one that has said this - I’m forever reading it, here and elsewhere online (facebook for instance). It’s just a pain really.
The suggestion that perhaps only a certain number of each re-listing session appear in the recently listed section (and perhaps also the other search lists etc) is pretty good - never thought of that @StephanieGuy!
It is certainly an issue that gets debated regularly and creates strong feelings!
Thanks Camilla. So for me, now that I know the overwhelming majority of sales come from search, I’m off to improve my descriptions!
But as an aside, I can see the logic that mass listing from one shop in the categories might give either an unduly positive or negative experience of the site (depending on whether I, as a shopper, like the items listed!). So would it be possible to introduce a limit on how many items from a shop would appear in the various recently listed sections, as has been suggested?
Mind you, if resource is limited, I think I’d rather have a more powerful search tool, given that’s where the majority of sales are occurring. But if the above was relatively simply to do, I guess that would alleviate a lot of concerns, so might be worthwhile.
I am a pluser and have tried to organise my shop so that something needs relisting every day. That along with any additional makes for that day, means that some days I have up to 7 items to list, I am now aware that some dont like bulk listings and will space them out throughout the day. Which probably fits better around kids, dogs, life etc Rachel
The search facility is quite good now, I have found it very helpful when I have wanted to buy. Long titles are rewarded now, whereas it used to be the shorter the better.
I don’t think items should be restricted in searches, as that would be trying to second guess what a buyer is looking for.
The only place it would be useful to restrict items is in the recently listed and possibly the categories.
But resource is not infinite and there are many other things worth changing first.
Chose your name tags for your items carefully, then when you use the search facility it should come in the first few pages. I would reckon many buyers would use the search facility ( not just newly listed items) to find items they wish to purchase eg Female birthday card or cat themed earrings.
I have a Plus account and re-list daily some new items and others as re-lists. I pay £45 per year for that function so use it the best I can and I still pay seller’s fees and also Paypal fees too.
Plus account are available to everyone and even if you only stock 20 items, you can still save money with a Plus account if you list all your items daily, which might also increase your sales.
