I paid for an Etsy showcase spot in the Paper Goods category yesterday. I should've thought to take a screenshot of it--oh well. Too late now.

It was a showcase spot on a Monday, and it was a category showcase--so of course, not as much exposure as in the main showcase.

Here's how my shop, Attention to Details, changed during that 24 hour period:

Number of sales: 0
Number of additional shop hearts: 1

Featured item (for most of the day): Pink Mother's Day Card. Went from 21 views to 44 views.
Featured item (for the rest of the day): Pastel Card set. went from 47 views to 53 views.

My other items all saw an increase in views over the last 24 hour period. Not all of it can be credited to a Showcase spot--typically there is a bit of increase anyways. The items saw between 1 and 7 additional views during the 24 hour period, in total accruing 32 additional item views. None of my individual items were hearted.

In total, what I got from the Paper Goods Showcase:
Number of sales: 0
Number of hearts: 1
Number of additional item views: 61

Are these typical results? I have no idea. I'm just recording what occurs.

Breakout for individual items (using the labeling system from previous posts): 
1 - 6 views; 2 - 2 views; 3 - 1 view; 4 - 3 views; 5 - 3 views; 6 - 4 views; 7 - 4 views; 8 - 7 views; 9 - 23 views; 10 - 3 views; 11 - 4 views; 12 - 1 view

My time on Etsy: 15 days
Number of items posted: 12
Number of shop hearts: 4
Number of item hearts: 6
Number of sales: 0

1	4/3/10	Pastel Origami Flower Cards (4)	$10.00	47 views	1 heart
2	4/4/10	Bright Colors Origami Flower Cards (4)	$10.00	30 views
3	4/4/10	Horizontal Origami Flower Cards (4)	$10.00	32 views	1 heart
4	4/4/10	Mixed Colors Origami Flower Cards (4)	$10.00	31 views
5	4/5/10	Abstract Art Flower Card	$3.00	26 views	1 heart
6	4/9/10	5 Origami Flower Cards	$10.00	11 views
7	4/9/10	10 Origami Flower Cards	$16.00	18 views
8	4/9/10	5 Striped Origami Flower Cards	$10.00	33 views	1 heart
9	4/10/10	Pink Mother’s Day Card	$2.50	21 views	1 heart
10	4/10/10	Blue Mother’s Day Card	$2.50	14 views
11	4/10/10	Purple Mother’s Day Card	$2.50	19 views	1 heart
12	4/14/10	Purple Mother’s Day Card #2	$2.50	8 views

Definitely some improvement over last week's stats.

I have purchased an Etsy showcase tomorrow in the Paper Goods category (April 19th). I'm interested to see what it does to these numbers, and if it makes a difference in sales.

I realized that, especially with paper items, you need to have timely items, cards that relate to the seasons/holidays/current events, etc.

It's a little late to realize that for Mother's Day, but I decided to get into the game.
 

On Saturday I made three Mother's Day cards and posted them all on my Etsy shop, Attention to Details. The third one (with the fern) has been the most popular, with 17 views so far; the other two have had 13.

I tried to use the same visual principles I've incorporated into my other handmade origami cards--a flower and a interesting background. I also added "Happy Mother's Day" in a pretty cursive font. For the first two cards I actually used a larger piece of origami paper for the flowers. What's funny is that when the cards are set next to the other ones I've done, the cards with the larger flowers actually look like bigger cards, even though they're exactly the same size.

I realized it may have been a bad thing to post the cards all at once (one of the most common viewing methods on Etsy is most recently listed items). So I decided to make another Mother's Day card today. It is actually made from patterned origami paper.

The other thing I did was adjust price--I put today's card at $2.50 and lowered the price of the other Mother's Day cards from $3.00 to $2.50. I think I need to get more views and more hearts, and start getting purchases and ratings, and that it may be useful to have slightly lower prices and get established. We'll see how it goes.

I've officially completed my first week on Etsy.

I have had no sales yet. Which shouldn't really be too surprising, though I had hoped I could get my shop off the ground quicker. I think that's alright though--there's an interesting (and somewhat hopeful) forum topic on how long it takes to start getting sales.

My Etsy stats, as of 4/10 at 6 p.m.:

Time on Etsy: 7.5 days
Number of items posted: 11
Number of shop hearts: 4

1	4/3/10	Pastel Origami Flower Cards (4)	$10.00	33 views	1 heart
2	4/4/10	Bright Colors Origami Flower Cards (4)	$10.00	22 views
3	4/4/10	Horizontal Origami Flower Cards (4)	$10.00	21 views	1 heart
4	4/4/10	Mixed Colors Origami Flower Cards (4)	$10.00	18 views
5	4/5/10	Abstract Art Flower Card	$3.50	15 views	1 heart
6	4/9/10	5 Origami Flower Cards	$10.00	3 views
7	4/9/10	10 Origami Flower Cards	$16.00	9 views
8	4/9/10	5 Striped Origami Flower Cards	$10.00	12 views	1 heart
9	4/10/10	Pink Mother’s Day Card	$3.00	1 view
10	4/10/10	Blue Mother’s Day Card	$3.00	1 view
11	4/10/10	Purple Mother’s Day Card	$3.00	1 view

What I've done to promote my shop:
1. Put up items. People see them because they end up at the top of the categories page for a short period of time.
2. Posted a link from my normal blog, which has only 10-15 regular readers.
3. Posted a link from my Facebook page, announcing that I had started an Etsy shop. (I have about 400 friends on Facebook.)

My husband mentioned that I should build a light box to get good looking photos for my Etsy shop. Honestly, I'd never heard of a light box before. Basically, what it does is it can create a well-lit photo on a white backdrop. Nice, sharp and pretty images.

So I set off online, looking how to build a homemade light box. I used this website as a base, but made a few variations. I used an orange box that I lined with white poster board--mine's much smaller than the one shown. I did use white tape. I only bought two lights (from Lowe's hardware store) and didn't permanently attach them to the box.

This is what my completed light box looks like:

My goal was to have my Etsy shop up and running by the end of the week.

My reasons for starting an Etsy shop:

• I love making crafts and I see craft-making as an art. I like exploring new crafts and learning new things.
  
• I love browsing and shopping on Etsy, which makes me want to do contribute with my own items. I like to share my crafts with others, to see others enjoying them.
  
• I want to try the small-business model, and see what I can earn by starting out with just a $100 investment.
  

As I work on my Etsy shop, I want to record my thoughts, insights, experiences. And of course, document some of the fun things I make and how I make them. So I'm going to blog about my process.

Here's some of the things I've prepped so far for my shop:

Choosing a Shop Name

There's a great post on Storque, the Etsy blog, on how to choose an etsy shop name.

I've tried to follow its advice. Since I want to sell multiple types of items, I didn't want to limit myself to a name like Crochet Creations. I wanted it to be memorable, and expressive of my personality and interests. I titled my shop Attention to Details. It totally fits me (I admit it, I'm a perfectionist).

A Temporary Banner and a Profile Picture

So I admit, I'm not very good at Photoshop, Illustrator, or other graphic design programs. There are all sorts of useful instructions and I played around with making one, but it still hasn't turned out how I wanted. Here is one of my attempts:



You can probably see why I'm not too happy with it (this was one of my better attempts). I had some good ideas, but alas and alack, the results are just not quite at the quality I want them to be....

So I'm going to work more on crafting the perfect banner, but I wanted to make sure I started out with something that looked professional and cute and had my shop name on it. Luckily, Etsy has a free banner generator, which I used:



I'm pretty happy with it. There's 8 available styles; I liked this one the best. Ultimately I'll replace my banner, but at least I have something to start with.

I also wanted to choose a profile picture, since that's something everyone sees. There seems to be three main approaches--a visual/brand, an Etsy item, or a picture. I decided on a picture of me on top of an afghan I made--it makes it personal, and shows off my handmade skills.



It looks like Etsy automatically cropped this original picture to make it square. Which is fine by me.

Making enough items to start out

In my opinion, some of the new Etsy shops suffer from having only one or two items on them. Back when I was 17, I worked in a children's store, and I learned a few things. For example, the front window display needs to have attractive, cute items to draw people in to the store. At a certain point, it doesn't matter if the customer buys what's on the front display, as long as it gets them into the store. Then they browse the items--hopefully finding the item that's the exact fit for their wants and needs.

The same principle applies to an Etsy shop, except there's not a guaranteed front window display--shoppers can enter your store through any item, depending on if they search by Etsy category, colors, cities, or through the Time Machine. That's your window display item, and maybe someone will buy it. But that may just get them into your shop, and you want to have other options so your customer can find exactly what they want.

I'm starting out with some card sets and some jewelry in my shop. Right now I have 5 or 6 different sets of cards and 3 pieces of jewelry to list in my shop. And I think that will be a good start. Once I get these items up, I'll keep adding items as I make them.

Stamp for my cards

Since I'm selling cards, I decided to make a stamp that has my shop name and my Etsy url. That way if I sell a card and then they give it to someone else, it keeps on advertising for me. Or if I give away a card as a promotional item, it always has my name on it. I just went to Office Max and they made me a custom stamp for $20--10 minutes after getting there, I was done.

Coming Soon...

My goal is to have items up and listed on my Etsy shop by the end of the week (fingers crossed). I'll be posting about the experience, including writing a shop announcement, listing items, taking professional-looking photos, and building a light box.