Pricing vs. value

There are a lot of jewelry crafters in the world, tons of them have Etsy shops.  There are a lot of styles of jewelry, I only make chainmaille and simple leather.  I can appreciate the intricate beading, braiding, weaving, metal smithing, etc. but that's not what I do.

When I look at other shops with chainmaille I am often shocked at the huge price variations some use sterling silver and charge a fortune and some sell so cheaply I don't know why they bother to sell it at all.  I am flabbergasted by $5 bracelets, seriously I spend hours and hours making each piece, depending on the pattern an 8" bracelet can easily be 100 rings or more.  

Ok so maybe some of the cheapies are made with cheap rings or the person making them can throw them together in a flash but is that a good thing?   I try to use quality rings, nickle free findings and make sure my closures are tight and well aligned so as to not snag on things.  So my rings may cost more and I take my time that is reflected in my pricing, I am not a sweatshop worker I have to place some value upon my time.  

Testing Etsy Mini. . .

Never-ending process . . .

I shot some new photos and separated the braided chokers from the embellished braided chokers but honestly I don't feel like I made a lot of progress.   The idea of selfies wearing them didn't work so well, I am not one for taking selfies normally so I'm not good at it.   Most of the photos I shot were not good enough to use.  :-/   

I only tried the leather stuff though not the chainmaille.  There is still a whole long list of things I should re-shoot but with vacation coming up I kind of need to clean the RV and start packing so I guess I'm stuck with what I've got for a while longer.

I have been really enjoying the new wire sculpture work.  I have made over a dozen of them and they are in nearly every room of the house now.  Every time I post a photo of one there is a very positive response, many people have said they would like to buy one, some people want to request specific colors or special beads even.  I said at the beginning I wasn't going to sell them but I do enjoy making them and eventually I'm going to run out of places to hang them. ~LOL~   

So it makes sense that eventually I'll have to give up a few or stop making them and I don't want to stop making them so . . . I guess one day I will open a whole new section in the Etsy shop and list some of them for sale.  However, that opens up the whole can of worms of trying to figure out pricing structure and value, shipping costs, packaging, etc.  Let's just say I'm not in any hurry to start a whole new thing which will need photos, and tags, and keywords.  More never-ending work. . . ~sigh~   I like the crafting part a lot more than the business-y part.

More work to do. . .

I have decided I am going to keep working at improving my Etsy listings.  This morning I have worked on the jewelry "Sets" and changed the way they are listed and priced, instead of just one price for the whole set I have added a "variation" so I can separately price individual pieces and different combinations.  

I have also made a list of listings that could use new and/or more photos.  I want to buy one of those hand shaped display pieces like everyone else uses to improve my selection of photo poses.  There are some of the earlier listings that need to be re-done to have more continuity in the backgrounds, just to make an overall more standard professional appearance.  I am also thinking some of the necklace listings should be re-shot on my neck, not an easy task normally it's easier to shoot those kind of photos on a model but since I'm alone all the time and don't have a model I'll just have to try some selfies and hope I can crop and photoshop them into usability. 

That took forever. . .at least it felt like forever.

I have finally finished going through all 64 listings in the store, I have re-worded titles, expanded descriptions, added "style" selections and the hardest part of all used all 13 "tags" on every listing.  I used EtsyRank, which I found somewhat helpful as it finds typos in tags and highlights which listings aren't using all 13 spots, it also ranks your web-search-ability and social media effectiveness.  I found there is quite a lot more I could be doing but I am not exactly a social media mogul, I don't have a Twitter, Pintrest, or an Instagram and my blog and Facebook page are really underutilized.  ~sigh~

I have been thinking about trying to add a Twitter or Instagram but honestly I'd rather be making stuff than spending more time at my computer.  Although, I think the re-wording and adjusting on the listings has helped views seem to be up and most of them are not clicks from the promoted listings, lucky for me as I get charged for those clicks.  Sadly views and favorites are no equaling sales.  :-/

I have seen several people suggest that more listings equal more sales, possibly just because a larger variety means people are more likely to find something they really like or possibly because Etsy itself is biased towards shops that are fully like over 100 listings.   I have a way to go to hit 100 listings, I mean it's possible I could re-do some of the existing listings and separate things, like the plain braided chokers could be a separate listing from the embellished ones.  

I've also been thinking I should re-do photos on some of the listings and just add more photos as some of them only have 1-2 currently.  

 

Try try again. . .

You know the old saying, "if at first you don't succeed try try again".  So I just keep trying, in spite of low views and few sales, I keep plugging away at the Etsy puzzle.  I would compare being successful on Etsy to solving a Rubic's cube, not something that I've ever been particularly good at but I'm too damn stubborn to give up.

I have been re-wording titles, adjusting and adding tags, re-writing and expanding descriptions. ~sigh~  It's a long and slow process considering there are now over 60 listings in my shop.  I have also turned the "promoted listings" feature on, however, I have set a very low budget and low bids because I can't afford to spend a bunch of money that I don't really have on advertising that may not lead to any sales.  

I also changed out my small "banner" for a larger "cover photo".

That was no easy feat and it's still not 100% right.  It's an odd size so getting something to fit, fill the space, and actually look good was a bit of a challenge.  To be honest, I'm not totally happy with how it fits but after days of working on several attempts it's really really close so I let it go and moved on to other things.  I'll come back to it eventually and try again.