This email dropped into my inbox a couple of days ago:-
“Hi Stuart,
I am an old customer of yours, I have purchased Prints Make Profits, Upcycle Print Profits, Your Etsy Profit Machine and the Etsy Mini Guide. The guides are very good and I enjoyed reading them.
I don’t want to sound like a Whiner, But I guess that what I am. I recently purchased Upcycle Print Profits, Your Etsy Profit Machine and the Etsy Mini Guide. I have tried to follow your advice and worked very hard to impalement it. I listened to an interview audio tape you made about moving from ebay to etsy. So I set up a etsy shop for my upcycle prints. I have followed all your advice on setting up a etsy shop except for the social media stuff and that’s because I am social media challenged and it is going to take me some time to learn that part of your advice.
The reason I am e-mailing you is to see if you could help me. Maybe you could take a look and see what I am doing wrong. I am very frustrated with my shop because I am getting zero traffic to my shop and no sales since I put up my shop about a month ago. I have changed and moved around all my key words and tags about a hundred times with no results. I can understand no sales, maybe I don’t have the right products. But the no traffic part is what I don’t understand and I just don’t know what else to do.
It would be great if you could tell my want I am doing wrong so I could fix it. So if you have time could you PLEASE take a look at my etsy shop and tell me want I need to do.
Digital Dictionary Art
Here is the link to my shop. https://www.etsy.com/shop/DigitalDictionaryArt?ref=listing-shop-header-item-count
Thank you very much”
I get a lot of emails just like this one from Bill and Diana who agreed they would be happy for me to provide my advice and suggestions in the form of a blog post so others may benefit too.
The Sales Process
When I think of the sales process I picture a funnel with shoppers being attracted to your listings/shop by your titles and tags at the top of the funnel – as they move down through the funnel your descriptions, prices, images, shipping fees, refund policy etc. convert some of them into buyers.
There are two stages in the sales process –
1 SEO – To attract shoppers into the funnel you must use the keywords that shoppers are searching for.
2 Conversion – To convert shoppers into buyers you must convince them that your item satisfies their needs and that buying from you will be a pleasant and hassle free experience.
Bill and Diana’s concern is a lack of traffic to their shop/listings and this tells us that something is wrong with their SEO.
If they were using the keywords that shoppers are searching for in their tags and titles they would be getting traffic so my advice is to consider their items carefully and write down a list of keywords that shoppers would use if they were searching for those items.
I try to use 3 different types of keywords in my tags and titles.
1 The niche/subject of the item, for example “cat art”, “Erte print”
2 What the item is, for example “cat art print”, “Erte Art Deco dress design”
3 Who the item is for, for example “Mother’s Day gift”, “nursery decor”
Always put your best keywords at the front of your title as this carries more weight in search and repeat these keywords in your tags and in the first line of your description.
Multi-word tags are more effective than using single words – so “cat art print” will attract more targeted viewers than “cat”.
Bill and Diana’s titles and tags are very heavily weighted towards describing what the item is made of – “Dictionary art print”, “Vintage page art”, “Digital illustration” which are not the keywords that shoppers use.
In my experience, the buyers of art are searching for a particular subject to hang on their walls or to give as a gift for a loved one, friend, colleague etc. They are looking for cute images of dogs, cats and horses or colorful designs by famous Art Deco designers or a million other subjects and artists – they are not searching for “dictionary pages” or “digital illustrations”.
With the ‘Upcycle Print Profits’ model remember that it is the subject of the design – Alice in Wonderland, a vintage camera, an octopus, vintage anatomy etc. etc. that attracts the shopper into the funnel. If we write a compelling description of how our antique book page adds value to the image this will help persuade our viewer to become a buyer but it is crucial we use the right keywords initially or they will never get to read our compelling description.
Having had a really good look at Bill and Diana’s designs I do think that they need to consider very carefully whether they appeal to Etsy buyers. Remember that 99% of Etsy buyers are women so popular designs will be images that women buy either to place on their own walls or desks or to give as gifts to their husbands, fathers, mothers, children, friends etc.
Conversion
My final suggestions relate to stage 2 of the sales process – the “conversion”.
I strongly recommend Etsy’s Direct Checkout for processing payments as I find that the vast majority of my buyers prefer it.
I believe that shipping internationally is also important to maximize conversions.
I’m not in favor of mixing digital items with physical items in the same shop because I believe it confuses shoppers and confused shoppers don’t buy……….my advice is to set up separate shops – Bill and Diana’s shop name is better suited to selling digital items.
Bill and Diana would love to get your feedback and suggestions too to help improve their shop so your comments are very welcome!
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I was doing some research and this is for you Diana and Bill. I was using the keywords “alice in wonderland decor” to see what results would be displayed. Much to my surprise there is a seller making a killing. The shop name is Prrint, simple brand. Anyway, the seller is located in Spain and opened their shop January 28, 2011. They have 26,737 in sales. Average is 470 sales per month or maybe about $4,700 profit or more. I read their listings. This is a seller to watch, to read and to compare. They’re making money and it is similar to your product. Go thou and do like wise. Have a great day. Here is the link:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/204736467/alice-in-wonderland-decor-alice-riding-a?utm_source=marmalead&utm_medium=api&utm_campaign=api to their shop.
Stuart thanks for the good sugestions, I will be using them in my store.
On Diana’s store I feel she is on the right track. Pricing and shipping cost
is on track to what Etsy shoppers want. Doing SEO is difficult for most of us.
We are looking for that right verbiage to attract customers and sound like we
know what we are talking about. To Diana don’t give up, stay focuss and make corrections and you will find what they are looking for.
Best Wishs
Reg B.
I looked at their start date and it is September 16, 2015. This couple is very new on Esty, maybe even to Internet marketing. I have always had a problem with SEO. Probably, most people have a problem with it too. I’m sure some people will buy the Esty programs and understand them, needing some help, but they get it. They asked for help which is a good thing. Learning a business and executing the plan can be a challenge. It is hard to be objective about your personal work. I hope they don’t give up. Marmalead has a lot of good insights into creating good listings with their free training. I think they might have a Facebook group, too. The best advice I can give them is take your time. Compare what you have against other successful Esty sellers. Create the swipe files like Stuart recommends. Learn and learn and apply what you learn. You will get better. It may take you longer, but you can do it in the end. Hang in there.
Some good advice, Bob!
Yes, Marmalead is a very helpful tool
I’ll have to agree with you there Stu. Not to be harsh, but their titles and tags are terrible. They don’t describe the subject and are all the same. Search engines like unique relevant content.
An aside question do the titles of your images you upload matter as well?
Thanks for your comment, Reynard
As far as I know the titles of your images aren’t picked up by search
I was also thinking about setting up a store for specific niches. For instance, how about a store that just sells dog and cat prints, anatomy, or fairy-tale prints. By sticking to just one niche you make yourself the authority for that particular niche and the go to person in that field. Make yourself stick out when everyone else is selling a hodge podge of different prints that really have no relation to each other. Just a thought. I would also suggest adding text to their prints and pick prints that people like. I looked at the prints and although they did good work on them would anyone really want to buy. Also, don’t price them to cheap because that takes away from the perceived value.
Thanks for your thoughts, John – all of which I agree with 100%!
It is important for everything you sell in your Etsy shop to be connected by a unifying theme – this leads to multiple and repeat purchases.
Hi Stuart,
I had a look at Bill & Diana’s Etsy page and too be honest I’d agree with pretty much everything you’ve said.
The issue of mixing digital delivery and physical delivery could put shoppers off, I know it caught me out, I thought the price was really cheap till I saw the digital download thing. Personally that would put me off.
The issue of whether the items are suitable for the market, ie do the shoppers want to buy them, will make itself obvious once you start getting sellers. It’ll be easy to fix, just drop off the non-sellers and replace with images similar to the best sellers. By similar I mean similar theme, feeling, occassion, etc
The biggest issue, I think, is the tags. Take this image for example https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/249209637/dictionary-art-print-quote-typography?ref=shop_home_active_2 the tags for it are ‘Dictionary Art Print, Quote Typography Wall Art Print, 8×10 Wall Decor, illustration Dictionary Page Print, Poster, Wall Decal’?? How about using something like ‘Beautiful yellow rose art print – Great Gift for Christmas’.
I found that when I work at something I get a bit ‘binocular vision’ on it and I’m thinking of the details like ‘Dictionary Art Print’, ‘Wall Art’ etc, I need to give myself a bit of a shake and get back into my marketing frame of mind and instead of thinking about what it is, I need to think about what ‘need’ it fulfills. A shopper isn’t looking to buy a ‘Dictionary Page Print’, they are looking to buy a beautiful image that is a little quirky to give to a friend at work, or maybe a flower design (she likes flowers) that has a bit of yellow in it (to match the curtains), with a funny quote (she thinks her sense of humour is good). A generalisation of course, but hopefully I make my point.
This all sounds very bad and terrible but the shop is pretty good and the designs look good, it’s just a little tweek to get it working well, I think, I’m not an Etsy expert so I might be talking nonsense 🙂
Good Luck
Jim
Thanks for your encouraging and constructive comments, Jim!