Opening my new Etsy shop

[Bettonte Lino Snc]

Hi and Merry Christmas to everyone! During these months I struggled to open my business etsy page and I need some advices now! please take a look at my page: https://www.etsy.com/it/shop/BettonteJewelry

You see that I have for now only 61 items on sale, since I've just started this page, with three main sections.

I had a few visits since I opened my shop and just 2 fav on 2 different jewels. To improve my overall performance, do you have any advice? I see that my pictures are a little bit dark, respect to other pictures that look a lot more bright and maybe i'm going to invest on a better camera and on a better place to take pictures. Then you see that what is important in my shop is customization: you can buy the jewel in any color that you choose on my list, and that should be interesting for a potential customer ... do you think that i'm doing it right? Then what about the prices .. are they fair for you? we are using original swarowski created stones for our jewels, even if we can't say we are using them on our shop since we are on a waiting list for authorized crafters, so I have to refer to best cubic zirconia .. which is a little bit general.

Thank to anyone that's going to help.

Cheers

Federico

[Paul Townsend]

Hi Federico,

A few comments from me -

1. I think as you have already pointed out, your pictures need to be improved, if you search for a product on ETSY the image is very small, so it needs to be as clear and as exciting as you can possibly make it.
2. You have listed all of your products on 10 Dec - when a customer searches for a product the results are returned in Date order, so you are better listing them gradually so your products are spread out through the search result listing rather than all grouped together.
3. I would list the same ring 3 or 4 times but with different coloured stones in it. The more items you list the more chance you have of a sale.
4. Your shipping is quite expensive, which can be a psychological barrier to some customers, I would increase the cost of your product, and reduce the shipping cost so you still get the same money but the ratio of product cost and shipping cost looks better.
5. Once you have improved your images I would pay for some ETSY adverts as this does work.
6. Like most platforms you need to be active - you need to start liking other ETSY vendors, joining groups etc ...
7. You could always set up a few dummy vendors and buy a few items from yourself and give yourself a good review (not tooo good) as a lot of customers will not buy unless your have some feedback.

I hope that helps ...

www.beaujangles.etsy.com

Good luck !!!

[Wallace]

buy from yourself?? Isn't that dishonest behaviour? Am I being naive?

ThE pictures are very dark... It is a little hard to make them out, maybe lighter so they can be seen in all their natural sparkle.

Promotion via many other social networks would be of benefit. Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter. Paying for promotion may be of use. Use all the tags in your description to include your business name and product - Use all 15 tags. Put up at least 100 items. Finally, Be honest with the customer about your product. I understand there are more things you can do. There are so any people you are competing with, keep at it. Let people know where you are.

[enigma]

I would say you definitely need brighter photos, you may be able to raise the lighting in photoshop though rather than retaking them all.
Definitely a good idea to show each item with the different stone options where you can.
Etsy is a difficult platform to get started in jewellery sales as its so big and so many people are selling jewellery.
Have you visited Etsys own forum and asked for advice there?
The main advice is generally to work on your SEO-tags etc which they will often help with if you ask for critique.
Good luck

[Goldsmith]

I agree with others that your photos are dark. Get a good camera with a macro lens and some lighting. As Sarah says you can brighten up your photos on Photoshop, like this.



James

[Stacey]

[QUOTE=Wallace;74983]buy from yourself?? Isn't that dishonest behaviour? Am I being naive?

Sadly, yes to your questions. My own naivety was shattered looking at reviews for a new business book on Amazon and recognizing that most of the reviewers (all positive, of course) were friends of the author.

HOWEVER, as Federico indicates the Etsy shop is their first venture into the online world. I don't think it would be dishonest for a few customer of his bricks-and-mortar store to review jewellery they purchased on the Etsy page. I don't know how Etsy works to know if that means an item needs to be "purchased" online and verified or if there is some other way to post or link to reviews.

The shipping costs that I see are in dollars, which I find quite strange too.

Finally, it would be useful for a native English speaker to edit your text so it reads well. It's clear, but there are a few grammatical errors and some word choices are awkward for a U.K. (or U.S) audience. So many of us these days are bombarded with spam emails and one key to detect fraud is the quality of the writing. It's possible that some people may be put off from buying because the text seems "foreign."

[Wallace]

Sadly, yes to your questions. My own naivety was shattered looking at reviews for a new business book on Amazon and recognizing that most of the reviewers (all positive, of course) were friends of the author.

HOWEVER, as Federico indicates the Etsy shop is their first venture into the online world. I don't think it would be dishonest for a few customer of his bricks-and-mortar store to review jewellery they purchased on the Etsy page.

I have no problems with friends making purchases, that happens. I have a couple of author friends, have purchase, or been given their work and if purchased, a review has been left. On Amazon, the 'verified purchase' tag lets you see if the review relates to a purchase. Otherwise it is a view. On Etsy, reviews are only available after a purchase and can only be added after the sale for a limited time.

Etsy is the one that has done the translation too. They have a multi-language platform that means grammar is not as fluent in the non-originating language.

My point was purchasing from oneself to leave feedback. Not only does it cost to purchase, go through the payment systems and costs related there, but the idea is really NOT something that sits well, at all.

[Dennis]

All the points above are valid, but to summarise:

You are selling relatively highly priced costume jewellery, not by a well known name and not described in fluent English. This would generate a feeling of mistrust.

The English would need a thorough overhaul by a skilled translator who is a native English speaker.

The photography is not a major problem, as it can be photo shopped.

However, you cannot expect to sell your work in the UK as being of silver or sterling silver with out a UK hallmark.

It gives me no pleasure to discourage you, but you have set yourself a daunting task, which you might well have to give up on without radical and expensive revision. Dennis.

[Bettonte Lino Snc]

Hi and thank you so much for your answers, you helped me a lot!

I'll definitely buy a better camera ... I'll buy a nikon d3200 or a d3300 so I can take better pictures for my shop but also for my personal photos. Thank you so much Goldsmith for taking the time to modify my picture: it looks a lot better! I have Photoshop too, could you please explain me which filter/setting is involved to reach that result?

I'm personally not interested in pumping up my business with "fake" buyers, that's not my idea of commerce but I respect your point of view

For what concern prices and shipping, I see different shipping rates for different areas/values in my page, so you see dollars in USA for example is that right?

Prices are a bit high since we have to keep up all the costs we have, I have just a 20% off the prices you see as my personal gain, the other part of the prices includes manifacturing, stones, setting the stones, rhodium bath, shipping (part of) 3,5% taken by etsy, 3,5% for PayPal and our italian killer 22% VAT. That's why the price can be high, but for a solitary that you buy for 75 € I gain only 15 €. This is a bit hard since I try to keep the quality of the final product set to top standards and since I buy Swarowsky only stones for 0,35€ each (in 1,25 mm for example) and 0,35€ goes to the stone setter, so 0,70€ for stone setted. So my multicolor pavè heart has 112 stones, with 78,4 € for stones and setting. But as I say again, my jewels have stones setted just a gold ring, you have to pay for quality in my opinion. For shipping, honestly speaking, I have included 15€ in my original item price, so Italy is free (cos it costs me 15€) Europe UE goes for 10€ (cos it costs me 25€) and so on. But I think I offer top shipping, since it is next day express delivery and it's also insured. I can't rise the price, or I'll risk to kill Italian customers as you understand.

For the language, I wrote anything in English and I'm writing now the Italian part (I should instead do the contrary on the beginning). What do you mean by saying that english is not correct and "funny" as I understand? I'm not an expert in English but I thought my English was not so bad at all. If you have time, can you please show me the parts that you find uncorrect and unfluent? You can help me a lot doing that.

For what concern hallmarks, dear Dennis, 925 is also used in UK with the rest of the hallmark you use there (maker ecc) am I right? We are using 925 PLUS our factory number PLUS Italy origin hallmark, so I think we can sell silver with no problems at all since you can find imported goods (from Italy) with our same hallmarks, or not? We are also working to get the Swarowski card to include with our product, but we need to pass through our swarowski wholesaler so it's a long story, then I'm on a waiting list to get the "divalenza" hallmark http://www.divalenza.it/ to prove our origin since I think that Valenza is still the hometown of jewellery worldwide ... do you think so? Can this hallmark help me selling more?

Thanks again for all your kind help,

Federico

[CJ57]

Hi Federico
I think it might be difficult for us to advise on pricing and postage from somewhere other than the UK as hard as we try.

I've no knowledge of Italian hallmarking laws but if you reach their requirements then that must surely reach selling requirements. If it isn't produced in the UK then that isn't a problem I wouldn't have thought.

I can understand to an extent what the others say about your English, I don't find it strange as I was brought up in a mixed race household and I can only say that you write English with a foreign accent there are idiosyncrasies that are obviously not English speaking but not offensive to me. Having said that if you want to sell to an English speaking market you could do with some help in getting the phrasing right but it would be easier for you to get it in Italy perhaps otherwise it would take too long. Your English is as you say not bad at all but it isn't fluent, I feel bad about pointing this out when I don't speak another language :/
This is why I haven't got around to setting up my etsy page, it seems fraught with difficulty even for an English speaker!