Walking For A Cause: Leukemia and Lymphoma

My Etsy friend Lisa from accesorizemecrafty is walking to help raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society through the Light the Night walk. Every single donation helps, even a dollar! If you would like to help by making a donation, please do it through her fund raising link here:

http://pages.lightthenight.org/pb/WPalmBch09/LisaWalk09

You will immediately receive a receipt to print out for tax purposes. Even better, if you'd like to walk with her, I'm sure she'd enjoy the company!

Attaining Goals and Jumping on the Bandwagon

As you know by my last post, I'm on a quest for a well rounded, and profitable business. One that performs well on line, but in the slow times, has some local business to keep me afloat...or at least as much local business as I can have without a storefront. It's a tricky situation, being that we could have to pick up and move at the drop of a hat, but I've got determination on my side, although little experience. Everything else is trial and error. Lately I've been concentrating mostly on local promotion. I will say that I *do* have some leads from the donations I did. (Marvelous!) I know this is a tried and true attention getter, and I will continue to donate to whatever cause I feel is worthy.

Over the past 24 hours though, I've been also looking back to see what can I do to stimulate stagnant on-line sales. I do set a monthly goal for myself most of the time. When June rolled around, I decided I would relax a bit, and set a goal for the "end of the summer" because summer is supposed to naturally be a down time, due to everyone on vacation, kids out of school and such. How do I decide these goals? I just randomly pick a number. Honest. I just look at how things have been going and say "I think I'll shoot for...X this month." I think as time goes on, and I actually have paperwork to support, I may try to make a more number oriented goal, but we'll see, I kind of like just pulling numbers out of my butt. So, now you ask, how do I achieve these goals? For the most part, I make them somewhat attainable, but I have to work to achieve them, I can't just rest on my laurels and expect that number to meet me in the middle.

First, I list and relist. I try for at least 10 new items a week. I'm sure customers don't want to see the same items in my shop constantly being renewed, so I always try to add new ones...whether they be candles or jewelry. However, I also make frequent use of the relist option. I try to keep my candles on the front page of the candle category at all times. (Except when I'm asleep or whatever.) It's cost me quite a bit of money in fees, but it seems to be working! Sales have increased for me in the 2 years I've been on Etsy. I know this can't work in jewelry (have you seen how many items are in that category lately?) Most times though, if I'm relisting a candle, I'll relist a jewelry item too.

I pride myself on my customer service. 24 hour shipping turn around time. As time goes on I may need to update this to 48 hours around peak season, but I'm lucky enough to have a mailman that will pick up all my packages, and just recently I've gotten myself organized enough that I can just pull off the shelf, pack and mail! I answer my convos and Emails within a few hours. This isn't always feasible for everyone, but for me, it works. I honestly think this helps keep my customers happy.

I chat, I interact in the forums, I like to look around on Etsy. I browse everything. I buy a lot on Etsy. I find that most times, I can trace back a sale to where that person saw me in someone else's feedback!

And last but not least....I don't pay much attention to drama. I don't listen to the garbage, I don't copy other people, I don't start drama in the forums, I pretty much mind my own business. I spent my time working on MY shop, not worrying about everyone else's (and that includes my competition!) I could care less, and quite honestly I don't have the time. I always say that if more people would pay more attention to their own shops, Etsy would be a happier place.

Which leads me to the next issue I want to blog about..jumping on the bandwagon. In my quest for stimulating stagnation, I've been considering jumping on the bandwagon of a few things....gift certificates for one, and also "monthly plans". Both of these *seem* like good ideas right? I've actually thought about them several times over the last 2 years, but never implemented them. I just don't know. The gift certificates would be a cinch, and I do think I'll maybe create some this winter for Christmas time. As for the monthly plan sales..it sounds like a good idea, but really, not only would it be hard to implement with candles, shipping would eat my customers alive. I'm still on the fence for this one. Any ideas?

Local Advertising and Marketing Ideas

I've spent the bulk of the last two years creating my on line presence. Now that I've gotten that going, and I feel it's headed in the right direction, I've turned my thoughts to how to get local business? How could this be done? It is totally different from what I've been trying to do. Over the past few days, I decided that to get my name out here locally, I had to get my product in front of people.

Those of you that know me, know that I'm a loud mouth, but I don't like to toot my own horn. So getting into some shops is last on my list....I still have to work up the courage for that. I know this will help my business tremendously, but it's still lower on my list.

One of the first things I did was create a brochure. I'm waiting to hear about a sale on color copying where I can get a mass amount printed, and then I'll hand them out wherever I go. Until then, I leave them in places such as doctor's offices, local eateries, the post office. I always carry some in my bag, and hand them out if people ask questions about my business. Next, I had a few t-shirts screen printed. I need to wear them more often, but I had them made! Then, I got major vinyl for my car. The whole rear view window is taken up by my logo and verbiage. Big and bold...WHAM..in your face. Has it worked? I dunno, it's only been on there for about 2 weeks. I haven't had anyone ask me for a card or tell me they saw my car, but eventually it will pay off, I know it. Lastly, I decided to donate some of my products to good causes. This past March, I heard someone at a local craft show asking a friend of mine for her donation, so I asked what it was for. She told me about the organization she was donating too, and said she did it yearly, it's to help people who have lost a loved one, they need raffle items for their yearly silent auction. I walked up to the lady in charge and offered to donate a few candles and a pair of earrings. Today I donated some more candles and a few pairs of earrings to the local Roller Derby team. They're having a match this Saturday and 100% of the proceeds benefit one of the local Animal Organizations (right up my alley). Tonight I am going to monthly bunco again at the Officer's Wives Club. The last time we were there, I volunteered to donate a few prizes, so I spent the day making cute little bunco earrings and I have a few more candles to give to them.

We'll see how all this pans out, but my goals for the summer while sales are slow are a) don't buy supplies unless absolutely necessary items (which means NO MORE BEADS!!)...we'll see how long this really lasts...and b) Market, Market, Advertise, Market!