The Internet verses The Outernet

The most up-to-date info on what I am doing is now found on my Facebook page. For me, that is the most efficient way to post photos and tiny updates. I think it is the way I am reaching the most people too. So if you don't follow me yet on FB, please do.
If you are reading this, I am sure you struggle with how much time you spend on the internet verses how many things you need to accomplish in the outernet, aka the real world, the physical realm. Actually, the internet is a real world and we need to operate in it. The question is always how to do so without it sucking up the whole day. I do have a smart phone, but I am not glued to it - that helps. Everything is bigger and better on my PC, so when I am in the outerverse, I can talk or text as necessary, but I save any navigation or online interaction including Facebook for when I am on the PC. I am in a minority. I am blown away by the number of people using mobile devices to buy things. When they do this, they are not reading descriptions. Sometimes they don't even know what they bought. As an online retailer, I have to try to cram all of my pertinent info into a single photo to capture that audience - like, yeah.  About 1/2 of my Etsy business is done on mobile devices. If you have an Etsy shop, now is the time to optimize for mobile. I uploaded a video to Facebook that is optimized for mobile devices, so this is one to watch from your tablet or phone. I am talking about and showing my different travel bags.
Blogs are still bomdiggity for building an audience in the sewing world, but I wonder how Facebook is catching up to that for other seamsters out there. I may have to interview someone.
For those of you who don't Facebook, here is the lowdown on my recent releases and upcoming works:
New pattern -  Cathedral Style Table Runner (instructions also given for turning it into a quilt) This is an update and slight improvement on the technique I used to make the cathedral style tote back in 2010. It is a fun and quick project that I think will put you in a holiday decorating mood.
New in the Simplicity catalog - #1335 chairs pattern.

I have testers working on my first garment pattern release, so we are getting close on that. It's a fun and easy skirt that I think everyone will love.
The Simplicity Fall catalog will have 2 new patterns from me in it. Mother, daughter, doll aprons. And casserole carriers. I will show pattern covers for those when I get them.
The Spring Simplicity catalog will have a diaper pattern pack from me. I will put the bag out in PDF format too.
I have a wingback chair to cover so I can better help all of my Craftsy class people who are doing wingbacks. Photos will pop up over on my Facebook page as I get to that.
Of course my son's birthday is this month, so I better get his backpack made and write that pattern too. LOL, that is so 3 years ago so I better finally do it this year. He wore this one out, so I have heavy duty cordura for this years version.

I updated the duffle pattern again, so if you are on Craftsy, you will get a notice. If you have already made the bag, you obviously do not need the new pattern. The bag is the same. I just made the instructions a little better for those who have not yet sewn it. There are 2 parts explained differently, the strap is now done the way I did it for the trolley duffle pattern sewing it into a loop before you attach it to the bag. And the pleated pocket is explained a lot better. I hardly ever got questions about it, but I thought it needed improving so I did it. The bag will still come out the same.
Back to the outernet and bye for now.

How to Benefit From the Etsy Finds Even When You are Not in It

The Etsy Finds refers to a number of opt-in email lists you can subscribe to on Etsy. As a seller, it is a good idea for you to subscribe to all of them. I will show you here, by using today's email, how to use them to help with your Etsy marketing.
First, subscribe to the Etsy Finds. I subscribe to all of those under shopping and all of the newsletters.
When you get the shopping emails, they look like this:

All of the words in blue take you somewhere. Spend a little time to see where they go, and take note as they apply to your shop. I will walk you through how I see this email.

The first linking words, August's Hot Topics, goes to treasury lists that are tagged with August Trends. If you are going to make a treasury anyway today, include something turquoise and items from your friends and teammates that could have made this email but didn't, then tag it August Trends. Your treasury will get extra activity over the next couple of days as people open and explore this Etsy Finds email. Your friends will love you for it. You can't really do anything for yourself directly with the treasury links. Indirect benefits of making treasuries include: you may find more people adding you to their circle if they like your picks. There may also be sellers who appreciate the feature and give you a feature in return.

The second link, turquoise, goes to turquoise items. If you have relevant items, you can renew them since there is still a row of recently listed items at the top of the page . From the looks of my screen shot here, renewing affects your relevancy too. I see 2 of the recently listed items showing up as most relevant as well. Do make sure you have relevant titles and tags and descriptions before you renew.

Competition

Turquoise links to a huge number of items on Etsy, so if you are already in the top ten pages on that link, you are doing great with your titles and tags. I have a turquoise pillow cover, but I don't think that turquoise is the most important thing about it, so I am not going to try to get in on the action here. I will leave this link for you jewelry sellers to battle it out. You will be able to see that relevancy has nothing to do with the quality of photos, so that is where your items can stand out. Take a look at the titles and tags that the most relevant items (those start at the second row.)  Check them against yours to see how you can improve your ranking. The items with the best photos probably get the most clicks. As a buyer, I am willing to flip through a number of pages to find something that catches my eye.

Here is a good way to figure out which item to work on from your own shop - Click on the link in the finds where you know you have something. There are several in today's finds that apply to me (personalized, men, dresses, and Christmas.) Let's look at dresses. I click on the link and then go to the local results to see my most relevant items.

Apply the info

Oops, my mens dress shirt shows up in dresses. I don't like that. I will check my shop stats to see if anyone is finding me by searching mens dress shirt. I will also go to google and check to see if anyone searches mens dress shirt. If it is a popular search, I will leave it. If not, I will take dress shirt out of my tags so I am not showing up in the dresses. I am pretty sure I do not have dress as a stand alone tag on that item, but I better make sure. My most relevant item looks to be my girls dress pattern, so I will renew that today and probably sell it and relist a few times. Also, when I click on men in the finds, that same shirt is my most relevant item, so I will be looking at it and renewing it - sorry in advance, if it keeps showing up under dresses.

Do I spend time everyday doing this? No. If I had a marketing person - this would be one of their daily jobs. I think having 4 potential hits in this one email, and a treasury I was going to make anyway sitting in my Brandybuck favorites folder, makes today my day to jump on it this week.

Instant banners and email signatures for Etsy shops

Some of you who know me know that I have been bannerless for a long time. One of Etsy's first big sellers, Littleputbooks, advised me quite a while ago that banners were a waste of precious space. Just get to the items and let people shop. Etsy has made a lot of changes since then. When I found this new instant banner and email signature site, and tried it out - and liked it, I checked over at LittlePut, and noticed she has a banner now. That was all I needed. If you want an instant banner like mine, do this first: renew the 4 items you want to appear in the banner, wait for about an hour, then go to Etsync.com and use the banner maker. The colors of your items will affect the background color of your banner. If you don't like the first try, experiment with different items until you get one that you like. The site is generating PNG files that you can save and use - that is how I have more than one below to show you.

Another cool feature on the site is a generator for an HTML signature you can use on your email that will be a photo and a link to your shop. The photo will always be the last item you renewed or listed. I think it is a nice way to dress up your email.




You just copy and paste the code as your email signature. Here is where to go to get your code.

Working with brides

Seems like a lot of the brides I have been working with on Etsy are getting their bridesmaid dresses at J.Crew. This makes it great for sending them a little collage that shows the dress they already picked along side my fabric recommendations for clutches. If you make other wedding related items, like the gorgeous brooch bouquet by LionsgateDesigns shown in my collage, I think you can use the collage feature on Picnik the same way I do. Just right click the photo of the dresses they are wearing, and save it to your computer. Do the same for any fabric swatch photos or other accessories you want to recommend. Upload those photos to Picnik. Click on collage, choose your layout, and drag and drop the photos into the layout. Click "done." Save the collage as a photo and email it or attach to an Etsy convo. I think it is a very impressive way to communicate with your potential customers.

Must Read for Etsy Sellers

pendant by Pendantic

Just a quick post today to point my fellow Etsians over to the Storque to read about how Etsy has enhanced their SEO and how you can capitalize on it. SEO is search engine optimization, and it is how you get found on the internet. This is a must read for anyone serious about making sales in their Etsy shop. It is a comprehensive article with great diagrams for you to read, study, and implement to make more sales. It will make you feel like the girl in Pendantic's little pendant. You may notice that the date of the Storque article is April 29 - all I can say is I am very busy sewing! Thanks for all of your great comments on my blog posts, I love hearing from you and knowing you are out there reading. Wishing you all much success.

Exposure

Though Etsy's landing page may provide us all with our 15 minutes of fame eventually, it is not the Holy Grail of web exposure. To my mind, the ultimate web experience would be to be featured in a wildly popular, professionally produced made for web film. More than 500 entrepeneurs in Seattle are gearing up to bring such a vision to life. I am excited about the possibility of heading over the mountains to take part in it. Watch the preview and you will see what I am excited about.

Lunch and Marketing

I didn't want to make you drool too much over my sandwich, so I kept the photo small, but was it ever good! Rory came home with this sourdough rye bread that a coworker brought back from Seattle for him. She picked it up at the PCC. I laughed, remembering how I used to hear that there was no good pizza outside of New York. And now I get to hear how there is no good sourdough outside of Seattle. So there were 3 things Rory liked about Seattle, sourdough, salt water, and me. I think I'm in pretty good company there. I don't think he'll ever say there's no good _____ outside of Spokane. Can any of you fill in the blank? All I can think of is potholes, dirt roads, and loooong winters. I do love hiking here, but I would rather be on a salt water beach any day.

So the artisianal bread made me think of Etsy's marketing trends for Spring. I did a post on that for the team yesterday. I also included a very brief photo tip tutorial thingy. If you are an Etsian, you might enjoy the links in that post and even learn something, which is good for your brain.

Stumbling Through Cyberspace Together

inspirational message necklace by CherishDesigns

When Etsy added the "bookmark and share" button to every shop and every item, it reminded me of my son as a two year old. His famous saying from those times is "Can I have some? What is it?" We all rejoiced over having the button but had no idea why it made us happy or how it was supposed to work. Then someone recommended bookmarking yourself, and chaos ensued. Something felt terribly wrong, so I headed over to Barry Hurd's blog to read about social media influencer marketing. Before you click on that link, let me tell you about Barry and why I went to his blog. Barry's company is called 123SocialMedia, navigating business in cyberspace is his specialty. I don't know his IQ, but I know his number is higher than mine, so if you think I am cerebral, you better swallow some ginkgo biloba before you click that link. He doesn't break up his thoughts with pretty pictures like I do simply because search engines don't look at pictures. He is all about content and optimization, if there is any entertainment factor it's all in the words. I thought of Barry because the last time I visited his blog for some heavy reading, I noticed that he had just about every social bookmark button invented, prominently placed with every article. postcard by yuuco
After reading the article, I decided that I better get serious about being an influencer, so I signed up with SumbleUpon to experience bookmarking for myself. The spirit of this process is honest recommendation, and you won't be taken seriously unless you take the process seriously. Call me an idealist, but I am going to recommend that you don't bookmark your friends products or articles out of friendship. Instead, have the integrity to recommend products and articles that have actually benefited you and these can certainly include products and articles produced by your friends. If everyone took it seriously, we could use services like sumbleupon to discover truly outstanding and helpful content and products on the internet.

fine art print by CitrusTree

The first thing I bookmarked on SumbleUpon was Barry's article that I linked to above. I was asked to write a recommendation - I think it only does this when an item is being submitted for the first time. This was easy to do because I can truly recommend the article and Barry in general. Now that I am a member of StumbleUpon, I have their toolbar on my browser, and whenever I want to recommend something, I can just click on the thumbs up symbol to submit it. If you want to connect with me on stumbleupon to show me your favorites, my username is studiocherie. If you want to recommend one of my blog articles, like Am I Worthy (the one about using poster sketch), sign up on SumbleUpon or Digg or one of the other bookmarking services, then give it the thumbs up. Remember, if you are first, you will have to write a short recommendation. The same goes for my customers, I really prefer that only people who have actually purchased my products recommend them. I am not going to submit stuff I like (with the exception of photography) unless I have actually purchased it or at least seen it live. I will continue to illustrate this blog with Etsy products that look interesting though. If you ever purchase something that you found through my featuring it here, please let me know, and if you really love it, I will submit those too. Let's stumble through this together. Hope that makes sense and wasn't too meaty for you: - )

An In-Depth Look at Wholesale

There is an informative Storque article about the basics of selling wholesale. The article covers pricing, terms and packaging considerations. I wanted to get a little more in depth on the topic with a couple of knowledgeable and experienced artisans.

wristlet by janinekingdesigns
Janine King is an established independent designer of fine quality, fun and unique fabric handbags. Working from their expanded carriage house studio in upstate New York, Janine and her husband Donald run JanineKingDesigns, a premier Made in the USA cottage company. With over 6,000 sales on Etsy.com, Janine brings a mature perspective to the topic of selling wholesale. I feel privileged that she is willing to share her wisdom with us.

pendant by 215Design

Trudy of 215Design, is a 7th grade English teacher at a private school in Kansas City, MO. Making pretty pendants and packaging them beautifully gives her a creative outlet outside of her regular work. I love the enthusiasm Trudy brings to this article.

this photo byOrganicStills Trade shows and reps are the traditional (maybe old fashioned now) wholesale venues. Janine spent time pursuing these routes before settling on Etsy as her location of choice to market her lines. Janine says, "Our items fit into the ‘Gift Market’, which is inundated, with inexpensive China imports. We can’t compete with the pricing. And we can’t mass-produce at the required levels."

My own experience with the ABC show in Las Vegas is that attendance at trade shows has dwindled over the past several years, and both boutiques and small manufacturers are seeking less expensive alternatives to sourcing and marketing their goods. In response to this trend, juvenile marketing expert, James Girone, runs a virtual trade show on his site, a must-see for anyone with infant-juvenile lines. Additionally, rep commissions are usually 15%- 20% of the wholesale price. Unless you can produce your items very quickly and cheaply, your profits will be slim or non-existent. Both Janine and I found it difficult to make a profit selling wholesale through reps.

How Wholesale Happens Janine has had several shop owners tell her they found her by stopping women on the street and asking them where they got their bag. This echoes what I have learned from shop owners over the years. They know what they want when they see it.

(Get stopped on the street by carrying this bag by ArmandoJavierDesign)

If the wholesale buyers are not seeking you out, Trudy suggests sending an email to boutiques, referring them to your shop or website. This has resulted in several accounts for 215Design. Another source of wholesale accounts for Trudy and other popular Etsy sellers has been Trunkt.org (a website where brick and mortar owners can shop for wholesale items to sell retail.)

Having a shop on Etsy does make you visible to boutiques looking for unique items to feature. Trudy says, "I have 5 new wholesale accounts from people who have found me through my Etsy shop." Janine has used her Etsy shop to streamline the wholesale process, by clearly stating her offerings and requirements in her wholesale listings.

Put the horse before the cart. (toy by twelfthdimension)

I asked Janine, "Do you find that selling wholesale helped you get more efficient in your production methods and therefore, more profitable in your retail business?" Her response reveals her business savvy: "The other way around, actually. We became efficient enough in our production methods for retail that we realized that it was possible for us to sell wholesale, but on a limited basis only. "

Trudy offers some inspiration for getting more organized: "I have had to become very efficient in my production because large orders tend to overlap each other. Keeping my supplies fully stocked and my studio tidy helps my production speed. I have also figured out a nightly schedule to produce my necklaces (my necklaces take 3 days to produce due to drying time). I have a batch of necklaces going all of the time. I have to be efficient because I am a 7th grade English teacher by day. I have become more profitable in my Etsy retail shop because people have seen my items in boutiques and visit my website. Also, my husband helps me with the packing and shipping." Organize t-shirt by hungryknife

Don’t get discouraged. Janine (remember now, she is the top seller of bags on Etsy) gets many wholesale inquiries that do not result in new accounts. She comments, "In recent years gift shop owners have become accustomed to buying inexpensive China imports that they can markup 400% and more. When they realize that they can’t purchase one of our $60 bags for $10-$12 they often lose interest. We seem to sell best to very exclusive shops, usually in upscale tourist destinations."

Here is Janine King’s advice to Etsians wanting to break into selling wholesale. "Unless your ultimate goal is to be a large manufacturer or a well known brand thus leaving Etsy altogether, I recommend that you put your energies into expanding your online retail business and use wholesale only to supplement your retail sales. If you aren’t selling enough retail on one site, then expand to other sites. This is called multi-channeling and many professional artisans do this, and if you really want to sell wholesale:
RULE #1: Make it easy on yourself. Be selective in what you offer and offer only your best selling items and/or items that are easy for you to produce. Make sure they are items that you can continue to produce for awhile. If an item sells well for a shop owner, they usually want to re-order and will be disappointed if the item is no longer available.
RULE #2: Make it easy for the shop owner to buy from you. Shop owners are busy people and more likely to buy if they can do so quickly online, without contacting you first for terms and pricing. I recommend setting up a wholesale section in your Etsy store and offer your best selling items at quantity discount. For example, we offer an assortment of 6 wristlets at 50% off retail.
Note: We stipulate in the listing that the customer must include tax-id in the ‘message to seller’ field to qualify to purchase the wholesale listing. As a general rule, you don’t want to offer quantity discount pricing to your retail customers. The intention is to grow your business with the repeat business of your wholesale customer who will come back to you over and over again to stock their store. A retail customer who buys in quantity will usually do so only once, say for Christmas or bridesmaids gifts. A retail customer cannot offer the repeat business a shop owner can. You will upset/alienate your wholesale customers if you offer the same discount to everyone and consequently they may look elsewhere to buy. " laptop bag by JanineKingDesigns

Trudy adds an uplifting anecdote. "I wasn't expecting the amount of wholesale business that I received before the holidays. I had only been selling on Etsy for a few months, and I was contacted by 3 boutiques for very large wholesale orders (over 600 necklaces). I told my husband that I was determined to finish the orders. I am a perfectionist, so I pulled a few all nighters, being fed snacks and water by my husband who would periodically check in on me in my studio. He would also assemble the ballchain necklaces. The night that we had to package the orders was hilarious. It was 3 in the morning, we were slap happy, trying to bubble wrap the necklaces and singing along to our Ipod. We would periodically take dance breaks to help keep our sanity. With the profit made on those orders, I took him away for a fabulous long weekend to Vermont. My lesson was learned - in my downtime on my summer/winter/spring vacations, stock up!! Wholesaling has been a wonderful experience for me with incredible shop owners. I have a few shops in my city where I take a big batch of necklaces monthly for them to purchase. I just love it when the owners and customers "ooh" and "aahhh" at my work. And, knowing that my product - made with so much love by me - is around the necks of people worldwide, makes me happy."

Peddle it like Peterman

Stag Secret- Vintage Locket Necklace by TheHandofFatima
This blog post about the origins of the Mary Jane shoe, got me thinking. We have a longing for history and a fascination with narrative. Seinfeld made fun of it, but who could put down a J. Peterman catalog? It was so full of adventure and romance. If true art elicits emotion, then marketing becomes an art when photos and description combine to move us to obtain the desired object. Look deeper into the old marketing adage, "find a need and fill it." Living in abundance as we do, chances are our physical needs are met. What need is left? There is true need for originality, authenticity, beauty, romance, identification, and more. I have found some descriptions particularly provocative and appealing to emotional needs. I offer them here as inspiration both to those of us who market on-line and those who "go to market" on-line.

J. Peterman himself would drool over every item in Urban Heirlooms' Shop.

leather key fob by urbanheirlooms

ToyBreaker combines masculine wit with excellent photography, while at MixedSpecies, it's all about the wit.
Cats Tooth Necktie by toybreaker



For a good clean laugh, check this out! soap by DirtySanchez

MyDeepBlueC will dress you like a rock star, even if you quit band in the 6th grade. customized boys jeans by mydeepbluec