More etsy oddities. . .

Today on my etsy shop dashboard I have a huge banner of sorts. 

I'm not sure what to think about this. 😐

I'm not sure why it's there all of a sudden. 😕 

My shop is not new, my "first sale" was years ago, like 8 years ago. Seriously, I literally just shipped 2 orders on Tuesday, I'm actually getting close to 300 sales on the etsy shop front. 😎 

So yeah, I admit I am a bit confused by the "quick guide to getting your first sale". 😅 Although, sales have been slow and there is always room for improvement, right?  

So, I clicked the links to check out the info, first the "how to create great listings that sell" opens a pop-up window (which I hate) and it's a youtube of an old etsy-up (she mentions the 2021 trend guide). Not sure how that's helpful or even current. Next the tips for photos and keywords links go to articles in the Seller Handbook, cool but the photo article is almost a year old, I already read that. The keywords article is recently dated at least, March of this year, but much of what is in it is standard and a bit repetitive if you watched the recent etsy-up event or previously read almost any of the etsy handbook articles over the years.  After that is just a push to get the new app and add more listings, so nothing really helpful for my shop, but maybe it will help others.  😇

Personally, I don't really plan to add more listings on etsy, I moved all the art to goimagine.com and the new app won't download on my phone so until I cave in and upgrade my phone no new app for me. 😅 I do miss the cha-ching. 

Well that's odd. . .

First off, I'll start with I've been on etsy for 8 years, so I know a thing or two about how they operate, and I've been regularly annoyed over the years because the "stats" are often incomplete or inaccurate in some way.  This is not a new problem it comes and goes, the inconsistent and inaccurate counts are always worse when I run ads, I think because the ads and the regular stats are on different time zones. I used to really struggle and regularly argue with etsy staff over the stats issues, mainly because I didn't like being charged for ad clicks when the traffic never showed in shop stats, the fact that things didn't match made it seem like etsy was just randomly charging for ad clicks. 

Honestly, I still feel that way, but sales have been non-existent, so I turned etsy ads back on about a week ago. Every day I login and try to reconcile the main stats with ad stats and it makes my head hurt. 😅 Now the bad math is not the only thing that has always bugged me about etsy stats, often there are no "traffic details" like those ads etsy puts on google, it will tell me the click came from google but it never shows what listing they looked at or gives me the search terms. Similarly, the "direct & other traffic" category almost never gives any info on anything, no listings, no search terms and usually no source site. 

And now with all that in mind, this morning I'm look at my etsy stats and find . . .

that for once there is information tied to a click in the "direct & other traffic" and super weirdly it says the source is tiktok? I do not have a tiktok account, I have never posted on tiktok, heck I've literally never even looked at tiktok unless you count them showing clips on the news. 😏  

Work, work, work. . . .

I really need to spend more time working, but I've been a tad distracted.  It's not often we have company and last week I had a plumber in the house for almost an entire day. The good news is my kitchen drain is fixed and I can use my dishwasher again which was great timing considering the dinner party the other night. 😎

Now however, starts the real tick-tock clock on preparing for the craft show which is only a month away. . . 32 days.

The first thing I need is full pages in the "book of trees" but not just full pages for display purposes. . .these little rainbows tend to always sell so having more than 1 seems like a good idea. I'm going for 3 and if they all sell that would be great, but even if I have 1 left that is also great since it's listed online at goimagine. 😇 3" inch rainbow tree  

After the trees for the book, I need to make some rubber stretch bracelets, purple helms chain keeps selling out on me, and medium rainbows. 

All the hours in between that I'm not physically making things I will spend obsessing over tables and racks and display layout and decor. There is still the beach themed booth decorating contest to plan for, I'm thinking some fishing net, a beach ball, all ocean waves and fireworks paintings up front, a few seashells on the tables. I'm also thinking of changing my 6' foot rack from a corner unit to a 2-sided slant A-frame style, the great thing about that racking is I can just move the clips and reconfigure it. 😇 If I do that I get more art hanging space and a slightly smaller footprint in the booth, but I lose shelf space for the chainmaille displays, so. . . still thinking about it.

I'm a little nervous. . .

I am preparing for a craft show next month, but I am more than a little nervous about it. 😕 First off, this will be the first event I've done in nearly 2 years.  Secondly, being the first event since the cross-country move I have to actually find all my tables, racks, set-up stuffs. 😣 Also, it's the first event in a whole new area, state actually, and who knows if they even know what chainmaille is.  I have some fear that I will end up just sitting there all day and no one will buy anything.  😏

Ok, so nervous may be an understatement or my social anxiety is getting the better of me, it is over a month away and I'm nervous and obsessing already.  

I do have quite a lot to do to get ready aside from digging through the garages to find my racks and shelves and tables.  I need to find a box to hold all my displays. I need to make a few things to fill out the displays. I need to wash and press my tablecloths. I need to find my big metal sheet to display the magnets. I need to figure out how I'm going to display the bigger wire trees because this event is indoors, I can't just hang them from the canopy, I won't have a canopy. 😅 

I may need to rethink which tables and racks I take, if I drive my little car I'm limited to the 4' ft. racks, if I borrow my husband's truck I could take the 6' ft. tall racks and have more space to hang art and at shows like this tall things tend to attract attention. I may need to ask the organizer for some more specifics on space and use and if I'll have a wall. 😐 So many questions with a new venue. Since the event is having a beach themed booth decorating contest, I plan to put the ocean waves paintings front and center and lucky for me my tablecloths are already blue. 😉 After that I get a bit stuck with no canopy or uprights "decorating" gets a bit tricky my tabletops and racks are pretty crowded already with so much stuff for sale. It really is a good thing I have so much time to plan. 😅

Summer Craft Festival 2023

I have not done an in-person event since fall of 2021 before we moved to Georgia last year. 😏 The moving was a process; stuff was in storage for months before we bought the house and actually "moved in".  Even once we had the house and I unpacked everything I couldn't just start doing events I had to register with the state and get sales tax certified, etc.  

I have been researching and looking for events for several months now and the truth is I'm surrounded by really small towns and I don't really want to have to drive hours just to get to events, because I do them alone it just makes too long of a day for me to drive far, set-up, sell all day, break-down, pack-up and drive far home. I was looking at one that was over an hour away and I would have had to get up at 4:30am and by the time it was over and I drove home it would have been like a 17 hour day.😒

I have had some success and yesterday I officially registered for my first event in Georgia!! The Thomasville Summer Craft Festival, I am actually really excited because it is held at the local fairgrounds and I got an indoor spot, so I don't have to pack the canopy, it makes my "set-up" time shorter and easier. 😁 

I really hope it goes well because there is a second "winter" version organized by the same person also at the fairgrounds, so it would be great to do both. 😇

April = taxes

For most people the title may be true, but I did my taxes back in February 😁 and when I say "I" did my taxes I mean my husband. 😉

Although, since moving to Georgia I have to do sales tax filings monthly, which seems weird to me because Indiana had me filing annually. 😏 With slow to no sales online and no in person events, it seems pointless to me to have to file zero returns monthly, but I have been told that after a year I can "request" an annual schedule instead.  

It has been a weirdly unproductive couple of weeks since the "surgery" and stitches, but the good news is it's mostly healed and I will get back to making stuff soon. 😎

Do you want me to be nice or tell the truth?

Not sure why that is a saying? One can tell the truth diplomatically and to me telling the truth IS nice.  I would rather hear an unpleasant honest thing than any lie, maybe that is just me though.  😕

So, when people post things like "hey I just listed my first item did I do it right?" or "I just opened my shop how does it look?"  I do not understand telling them that things look great when in fact their banner is bigger than the screen, the listing only has 1 photo and no sizing info, when their shop is incomplete and has no Meet the Maker or Policies, or, or, or.  Because there are so very many things that most people could improve but you have to be able to tell them that and they have to be able to hear it without taking it personally or being offended. 

Goimagine sends a "getting started checklist" with the welcome email and boy oh boy do I wish more people actually used it. Getting Started Checklist | goimagine Maker Support Center

It is a 7 "step" instructional that goes tab by tab to complete shop information, it includes the correct size for a banner, it includes the definition and difference between a "tag line" and an "announcement", it includes suggestions for what should be in shop policies, it has links to other help articles.  In other words, the checklist has just about everything one needs to start setting up a shop properly so I'm not sure why/how so many people seem to ignore it.  😔  

Maybe they are just excited and think it's not important. 

Maybe they don't get the email because it goes in their spam folder.

Maybe they think because they have an etsy or a shopify or whatever they think they know what they are doing, even though every platform is different. 

I like helping people, I like answering questions.  I wish everyone watched Sarah Sewell's shop critiques and then took her advice to heart and followed through on it. 

I want goimagine to become a huge success, we all know that sellers are an integral part of that, that is why I want every shop to be as complete and professional looking as they can, so we all have the best chance.  😇

If I tell you your banner needs resized or listings need more than 1 photo or more than a single sentence description, I'm not trying to be mean, I'm not picking on you or trying to humiliate you, I am in fact trying to help you see from a buyer's perspective that your shop and/or items could use better representation. 

I know my shop is not perfect, my photos need work, my listings descriptions are dry and technical, my mosiac needs more banners, we all have things we can improve. 😉