Etsy Questions

[TeeDee]

Hope this is the right forum for this.
I recently opened and started populating an Etsy shop having read a fair bit on the forum about the pros and cons.
I had a lot of initial viewings and an unexpected early sale but since then things have slowed to a trickle in terms of views.
I must confess that due to the pressures of retirement, house maintenance and a love of my motorcycle (2nd to my wife and family of course), the shop has taken a bit of a back seat lately but now I must press on.

I really would appreciate though if any Etsy shop owners could advise on a few issues:

1 - Policies.... are there any statutory requirements for returns/refunds for both UK and overseas sales? I have looked at various shops and they often have differing policies.

2 - Advertising....Any advice on linking to social media as I am registered but am a near Facebook virgin and don't Tweet at all. Facebook seems to have options to 'advertise either as a 'Local Business' or as a Product or Brand' which option should I use?
Also any advice on using their tags system to increase exposure?

3 - Payments.......Why do some people only accept Paypal? Is this just to keep the transaction costs down? I have currently opted to use Etsy's online payments system as the cost seems quite reasonable especially when compared to gallery commission costs.

Also, has anyone used http://www.madebyhandonline.com/ ? I went to a craft fair in Bovey Tracey (Devon) at the weekend sponsored by them. very interesting with lots of high quality work from many different crafts.

Tim

[EmmaC]

I haven't sold on Etsy for some time, but a lot of sellers blatantly disregard distance selling regulations such as providing your actual address, and giving a the statutory cooling off period, returns etc., which is why shop policies seem to vary so widely. The rules have changed recently, there is a load of info here http://dshub.tradingstandards.gov.uk/dsrexplained and on the governments own website .gov.uk which is worth checking out

I've recently got rid of my Facebook page as posts get to only a fraction of the people liking it, unless I pay to boost the reach. Even my own mum stopped getting posts of my artwork in her newsfeed. Eventually I didn't think it was worth my time, however this is just my personal thing as I decided recently to concentrate more on doing work rather than worrying about the promotion and sales aspects. Some people still seem to do quite well on Facebook though. You must have a page if you want to sell, I'd go for local business and again you will need to publicly display your address if you wish to conduct sales via Facebook.

I think people use PayPal now because it's quite easy, I'm not sure how the charges compare to Etsy's own system now.
Good luck with your venture

[TeeDee]

Thanks very much for taking the trouble to reply Emma,
The Trading Standards link on Distance Selling Regs is really useful and certainly not as dry a read as a HRMC guide!
Its certainly given me a few ideas to cut through the mental blocks I was having regarding policies. ( strange really as in my old job I often had to put together policies and procedures but then that was another life)
I think my address is displayed on Etsy whenever an order is raised but I will check.
At the moment I am hoping to use Facebook just as an extension to marketing, but your observations are really useful to me.
Interesting your comment about making rather than promoting. I've been treating it as a bit of a hobby really and every time I learn a new technique I get the bug to make a few things. Unfortunately I now have about 50-60 hallmarked items that I really need to move on and hopefully recoup some of my outlay.
I never realised though just how much work was involved in setting up and maintaining just one Etsy shop let alone setting up a website.

I took the opportunity to look at your website link and I think your artwork is quite stunning. I see you've posted on other threads so I'll add my two pennyworth on one of them.
Thanks again
Tim

[CJ57]

I registered for etsy but have never done anything because it seems so much work. I have a FB page and before the open studio I seemed to spend as much time taking editing and posting photos as I did working, I now need to do the same for the gallery website. It's just so time consuming and I find FB just a showcase and hard to keep up interest made worse by the fact that little gets shared now. People think that if they like something it's job done but they really need to share or comment or your audience just doesn't grow

[EmmaC]

I *think* the distance selling regs are changing a bit on 13th of June and buyers will then have 14 days to return items, I'm not totally sure of all the changes but I would think there would be something in Etsy's UK and Ireland support bit.

Some people are amazingly successful selling online, but I think it requires a large investment of time being online promoting, re-listing items, and networking. I ended up with burnout as basically I couldn't cope with that, doing the actual artwork and the small holding, I never got any down time, which is how I got into jewellery as a creative hobby.

If you are thinking of a website I can totally recommend clikpic. I've been with them for ten years, the sites are easy to maintain and use. You can integrate PayPal for purchases online, so you would pay no commission on any sales.
I recently registered with Folksy as I also wanted to recoup some funds and thought I'd get a bit more traffic than to my website alone. However I was told time and time again on their forum I was solely responsible for bringing all the traffic to my shop. From a business point of view personally I think it makes far more sense to drive that traffic to your own website, no chance then of a customer straying off and purchasing from anyone else, as well as less fees. I've since closed my account as I couldn't see any benefit to being there if that was the case. There's a lot of pressure to keep listing new stock to bring in new views on these sites, although I will be very interested to see what happens with Etsy as they are going to advertise on TV to make UK buyers more aware of the site, so in theory you should get more "passing trade" on there.

Many thanks for the compliment too!

[camalidesign]

A quick few thoughts on having your own web site versus listing with e.g. Etsy (I do both, as well as NotOnTheHighStreet.com)

With Etsy you can have a shop set up and working in minutes really! Descriptions, prices and photos have to be done first obviously but that's the same with your own web site. Yes, on Etsy you are competing with a LOT of other sellers, but they do a lot of marketing to drive traffic there, so there are also a LOT of potential customers there. I sell on Etsy and although I have only sold a few bits yet, there are some people even in the UK who do really well there, so I keep persevering! Listing regularly is definitely the way to go, so I tend to list my one of a kind pieces there, which varies with time as opposed to my ranges which stay pretty static over time. Etsy also don't charge very much, think it's 20 cent per listing and then a PayPal fee, so pretty low.

Having your own web site is all very well and yes you make the most money that way, but it can be costly and time consuming to have one built for you. Setting up a DIY one can work well for you if you want a basic shop but as soon as you want something wiht your own unique branding and some functionality out of the standard ones you are stuck. You get a larger proportion of the money on each sale, but you also need to get traffic to come to your site and get the right kind of traffic (those who actually buy as opposed to just browse!) and this can be very time consuming and requires some knowledge of search engine optimisation. Well worth the trouble if you are serious about selling. Having your own site shows you are serious.

I think, if you are just selling a bit as a hobby, then Etsy or similar is a quick and low cost version, if you are trying to go pro you should probably do both. I find that since I have already done all the pricing, photos and descriptions etc. it isn't that much more work to list on my own site as well as on Etsy and NOTHS.

Oh, and for Facebook, if you have your own web site drive traffic/link to your own web site from Facebook and Twitter obviously.

Just my two pennies worth...

Carin

[TeeDee]

[QUOTE=EmmaC;67392]I *think* the distance selling regs are changing a bit on 13th of June and buyers will then have 14 days to return items, I'm not totally sure of all the changes but I would think there would be something in Etsy's UK and Ireland support bit.
QUOTE]

https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...s-guidance.pdf

A bit of light bedtime reading!( actually its not that bad)
After a couple of people mentioned this, I had a trawl and found this Government Implementation Guidance note which may be helpful.
If I am reading it correctly it seems that the Distance Selling Regs 2000 are actually being replaced by the Consumer Contracts (Information Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations. I guess any reference to regulations in Etsy Policies will need to reflect this now.
Sections D and H seem to be the most relevant and as Emma mentions the cancellation period extends from 7 - 14 days.
I expect the DSR already covered these but there are some interesting exemptions for bespoke and customised products as well as things that are sealed for hygiene. Does anyone one have a source of single use sealable transparent bags for earrings?

I'm beginning to feel really glad about starting this thread although ignorance was quite blissful before

Tim

[Victoria]

(oops that was a long reply - sorry!)

[TeeDee]

(oops that was a long reply - sorry!)

For a subject like this, I like long detailed replies Victoria. I tend to be a bit obsessive about getting things right so the more detail I have the better.

All the responses to my original post have been really helpful especially being written in the light of experience. As a result I have already discounted setting up my own website for the foreseeable future and will concentrate on Etsy + a couple of galleries I have contact with.
I haven't yet worked out how to link the Etsy shop to my forum signature as some do but if anyone cares to look it is called Teedee925 (yes corny I know).
Always interested in feedback good or bad on anything from photography, pricing, standard of work to descriptions and shop layout. Please bear in mind though that it is effectively still under construction
............if any feedback is really bad though you might want to PM!

Many thanks to all of you, you are a great help

Tim

[Victoria]

Hi Tim

I sell on Etsy and it's been brilliant! I couldn't have got my business where it is today without it. But it does require a fair bit of effort to drive traffic to your shop, especially at first...it eventually snowballs to the point where I'm pretty lazy now about following people/creating treasuries/being active in teams and I still get sales. I have found that there is a much bigger market in the US for buying handmade jewellery online, though the UK is catching up. To be successful on Etsy you need good photos and good product descriptions. I'm not sure you need to keep listing new stuff, but the more you have listed the more likely you are to get found.

I have recently joined NOTHS and have had good sales with them. On the downside they're expensive to join, take a massive cut of each sale and have lots of annoying rules BUT they are good at advertising so you hardly have to make any effort to get sales compared to a site like Etsy. I did also have a Folksy shop until 2 days ago when I've finally given up - jewellery just doesn't seem to do well on there and I've found there's just too many people on there selling very cheaply and I can't compete.

Whichever site you choose I'd say to stick to one site. I've tried most of them but in the end it got too much work trying to keep them all up to date and I ended up with different prices, etc, on different sites.

If you want to have your own url (e.g. www.victoriajarman.com) but don't want to set up a website you could just buy the domain and then link it to your Etsy shop. If you do set up a separate website then there will be an initial outlay of time and effort to set it up (as with setting up Etsy) but it's then just a case of maintaining it. I use Wordpress and can take Paypal payments through that. It really depends how technical you are but it's fairly straightforward to get something basic up and running.

In general - to anyone with their own website - I would recommend registering as a business on Google - I've done this recently and it's made a massive difference to the hits I get on my Wordpress site which = lots of direct sales without any fees

Re. policies - yes, you need to be in line with the Distance Selling Regulations. As other people have said they've changed/are changing soon (I need to update mine!) I prefer not to advertise my address as it's my home as well but it is provided in the transaction email to customers.

Re. advertising, Facebook can certainly be helpful for driving traffic to your site but you do have to post regularly. I try to post at least once a week and do ok but I have a friend who posts daily and she does get a lot of work out of it. In terms of the paid advertising I have tried it and whilst it does get you lots of new 'likes' I found that these are fairly fickle likers who will unlike you just as quickly. It's best to try and get authentic likes rather than buy them.

Re. payments, Etsy will always take 20p for a listing and 3.5% of each sale. If a buyer pays with Paypal then Paypal takes a further 3.4% + 20p. If you set up your Etsy shop to accept credit cards then Etsy will charge you 4% transaction fee so it's slightly more expensive than Paypal. I guess this is why some sellers only allow Paypal but it's still a pretty tiny % compared to galleries. People don't necessarily realise that you can pay with a credit card on Paypal and they don't need an account so I guess could be put off by Paypal only payments.

Hope some of this helps! I'm afraid there's no easy answer - selling online requires a fair bit of effort at first but it does pay off! If you get stuck on Etsy feel free to send me a message. I'd be interested to hear if you try madebyhand and how it works out as it's one of the few I've not set up a shop on!

Good luck!
V