Ok: I did a little experiment that actually did not involve enticing people with free
shipping or any other incentive - in fact what I discovered worked so well that I was
surprised.
Last month (technically starting on 8/27) I was given a block of free
listings by Ebay. I have sold on Ebay for many, many years. I
painstakingly redid nearly all my Etsy listings so they could be listed
on Ebay at the same time. I figured this was a "no harm no foul" thing
since if one sold on one site or the other, I could simply deactivate
the listing on the site where it was not sold.
On the first day of listings, I sold items immediately on Ebay that had
been sitting in my Etsy shop for at least two months. I even inflated
prices on Ebay given that the commission is higher than Etsy to cover my
costs comparably. Some items I marked up anywhere between $10-$40 over
what I was asking on Etsy. I sold 26 MORE items in that specific time
frame on Ebay than what I would have sold on Etsy. In comparison I only
sold 18 items on Etsy and they were mostly some of the least expensive
items I have in my shop with the exception of two winter coats. Furthermore, the 26 items I sold on Ebay does NOT count all the sports jerseys, costumes, modern clothes, etc. that I also sold on Ebay that I CANNOT sell on Etsy.
On Ebay, buyers have the option of offering less than what the Buy It
Now price is - people love this feature. Even if they are getting $5 or
$10 knocked off they are more likely to buy because they feel they are
getting a great deal (I mean who does not want to pay less?) You also
have the opportunity to "haggle" a price back and forth.
However, I do not believe this is the sole driving force behind the
large sale discrepancy between Ebay and Etsy. On Ebay, I have triple the
views...TRIPLE in comparison to the views I have received on Etsy in
the same amount of time. Therefore, I have concluded that since Ebay
gets more exposure, the likelihood of sales are double that of Etsy at
(likely) any given time regardless of price. Given that selling items
via the internet is my job for the time being, it is my prerogative to
push as many items out the door as possible in the least amount of time.
With the results of this experiment, I believe from now on I will list
on Ebay first for 30 days, and then if it does not sell it will go onto
Etsy.
My sales have picked up recently on Etsy so I decided to try and put more effort into my social media marketing. I have had a Facebook page for Gray Cat Vintage since 2010, but I never really used it and no one ever visited it aside from family. I guess I really did not know what I was supposed to do to generate interest in the page. Fast forward to now. Last year or the year before I got on Pinterest. I have several boards with many followers, but my most successful board is for Gardening and Outdoor Ideas. Since people were looking at my pins, I also made a board for my Ebay and Etsy sales - to which I immediately had people "following" that board.
Why was this successful and the Facebook page was not? Since I do not post EVERYTHING I sell on Pinterest, it is not flooded with stuff. I pick the "highlights" of my listings and include those. I think that the "less is more" idea was more favorable than just linking a zillion listings to Facebook - which was what I did in the beginning and no one ever visited the page. Now, I update the Facebook page with "news" including recent listings, updates on sales, popular items, etc. and I have found a few more people following the page.
The biggest difference however has been that my Facebook page is linked to Etsy. See, Ebay does not really allow you to do this. Yes, you can link Ebay with Facebook but it will upload things automatically and self promote Ebay on your page which is not something I really cared to do. Etsy simply provides a link from my shop page directly to Facebook. Super easy - no hassle. Because of this, I also obtained a Twitter account in case in the future I want to promote sales or special deals.
In case anyone wants to visit my:
Pinterest page is here.
Etsy is here.
Facebook is here.
Twitter is here.
Ebay is here.
Last year for my birthday my boyfriend got me the BEST gift EVER - and by that I mean he really thought about this and how I would use it and it really changed how I do business. He got me a EZCube light kit. The kit had two different sizes of soft boxes, 3 studio lights, and accessories for photographing jewelry. With the soft boxes I am able to make small items look like gallery art and the lights can be used with or without the boxes to create professional looking photographs.
Now, I have an extensive photography history dating back to high school, so I have/had an idea of what to do with lighting already. But the kit makes everything so easy anyone can do it. To illustrate the difference this is a picture taken in my office with sunlight passing through the curtains. Now, the curtain I have up casts a peach sheen into the room and no matter what setting I changed on my camera, it still picked it up. If there is no sun and I must use an overhead light, it will generally look "off" when photographing clothing.
This is a picture taken with all 3 studio lights set up. There is a halo light, a small light with diffuser, and a large light with a diffuser. If my office was wider, I would be able to put the lights in ideal areas - but with low ceilings and not a lot of room I was somewhat pleased with how these turned out. As you can see, the weird sheen from the curtain is avoided and you can see where the lights are positioned by the shadows on the wall. The studio lighting also picks up true colors MUCH better - especially noticeable in the pic of the kimono where it has a black background and multicolored neon flowers. BUT - I was not liking the shadows AT ALL. I did not like that is looked like "museum" lighting since such lighting would be more appropriate for a vase or lamp. So....onto the third lighting set up.
I removed the halo light since it was causing the gray cast in the upper left hand corner. I also lowered the two cube lights with the diffuser covers to the floor and pointed them upwards. I put "daylight" swirl bulbs in the ceiling light and turned that on - as well as removed the curtains completely from the windows on a sunny day. As you can see now, all that light has allowed for a white background, solid colors, good contrast, saturation, and realistic in terms of actual colors.
I haven't used the jewelry props yet, but maybe in the next couple of weeks I will be able to show how that turns out :)
