Etsy Tips - The Psychology of Color and How it Affects Your Etsy Shop

Color is so important. You use it in your Etsy banner, Etsy avatar, logo, products, packaging, website, ads, and promotional items. Keep these study results in mind when you're choosing colors in your Etsy shop:
Consumers associate the colors:
blue and white with trust.

blue, green, and black with security.

red with speed.

orange and yellow with cheapness.

black and blue with high quality.

blue and black with dependability.

purple, red, and blue with courage and bravery.

red and black with with fear and terror.

orange and yellow with fun.

How can this information help you?

• Center the colors in your ad designs, Etsy avatar, and Etsy banner around the image you want to project.
• If you're selling children's jewelry in your Etsy shop, you might want to have a color scheme centered around orange and yellow, since consumers associate these colors with "cheap" and "fun."
• If you have your own website, you might want blue to be your dominant color, since consumers associate it with trust and dependability. In your shipping information section, you might want to use red, because of its association with speed.

A Study on Color and Purchasing

A study by Seoul International Color Expo 2004 revealed the following information:
92.6% of respondents said they put the most importance on visual factors when purchasing products. Only 5.6% said the physical feel via the sense of touch was the most important. Hearing and smell each drew 0.9%
When asked to approximate the importance of color when buying products, 84.7% of the total respondents think that color accounts for more than half among the various factors important for choosing products.
What does this mean for you?

It means your photos might be even more important than you already thought. But, more importantly, it means that competition from brick and mortar stores probably isn't as rough as you thought.

For more Etsy tips, get Etsy: Advanced free at http://www.jessicaschope.com/etsyadvanced.aspx
Jessica Schope

9 Sneaky Etsy Tips

Here are some helpful tricks to help you improve your Etsy business:

• Re-new or list a few items before Etsy treasuries open up, and you'll be featured in a lot more treasuries.
• If your Etsy item makes it to the front page or gift guides, make sure to edit your quantities (if you have more than 1) so that it won't sell out and get your item kicked off front page or gift guide.
• How to make a listing in advance, without activating it: Create the listing. When you get to the final page, don't click the finish button, and then bookmark the page. Go back to the bookmark when you're ready to activate.
• Use your Etsy shop name as one of your tags. When people are new to Etsy, many times they don't know that they have to click the drop down menu and pick "sellers" before they can search a seller. This way you'll come up even if they just use the regular search.
• Customers can complete check-out without a Paypal account. At checkout, have them choose "Pay with Paypal" and when they get to Paypal they can click Continue next to a small form that says "Don't have a Paypal account? Pay with your credit card or bank account."
• Whenever you go to your Etsy shop, click "apperance" and then "save" at the bottom of that page, even if you haven't made any changes to the page. By doing that your Etsy shop will move to page one, if anyone is doing a search in "shop local".
• Use "location" to is fullest. Put your city, county, state, country, zip, and city or country nicknames or abbreviations. Example: US, USA, America, United States of America.
• Use stats from flickr and majaba to find out what is most popular and keep those top items on your first page and use them as your Etsy avatars and showcase items.
• Instead of making trips to the post office, have your mailman take your packages with him. It's called Carrier Pick-Up, it's free, and it's offered by USPS. http://www.usps.com/shipping/carrierpickup

For more Etsy tips, get Etsy: Advanced free at http://www.jessicaschope.com/etsyadvanced.aspx
Jessica Schope

Selling Crafts - Just How Important Are the Search Engines?

Chances are that if you're reading this article about selling crafts it's because you've heard that search engines are important to your craft business but you need more information.

Happy to oblige!

Search engine traffic (traffic being what we call people visiting your craft site) is free - always a good thing - and should be as a result of someone entering relevant information into Google, Yahoo, Bing or whoever. As a result that visitor should be highly targeted. In other words they should already be pre-qualified as someone who is interested in what you craft items have to offer.

Obviously good news - and important because it's much easier to sell to someone who wants what you've got!

But if you're selling crafts you've got to have time to actually make them! Many crafters have other pressures too. Most of us have to prioritize in some way, so how much time should you pay to getting into the search engines and ranking well?

As much as you can - but I understand there are limits. To grow a business beyond your local area you need the internet but you don't want to be spending all day in front of your computer at the expense of your craft work.

So although Google and it's competitors can be a great help, concentrating on SEO (search engine optimization) is not your number one goal. Spreading your craft marketing efforts by using a number of tactics will pay off better in the long run - and actually help your ranking too.

A craft blog is naturally more search engine friendly than a traditional website so if you haven't got one, get one! It doesn't have to be one or the other, it's a simple addition even if you already have a substantial site.

Then look at article marketing, which will provide the search engines with valuable content and you with more free traffic. Look at you linking strategy because the search engines also judge you on who you link to and, more importantly, who links to you. Did you know that a comment on someone else's blog can frequently look like that blog linking to you in the eyes of the search engines? So craft blog commenting can be another valuable free tool.

Selling crafts successfully on the internet is not about finding a secret, it's about doing a number of things a bit at a time. If you can give half a day a week to marketing your craft site your rankings will improve surprisingly quickly. If you can give less then your rankings will still improve - they'll just reflect the amount of time you are able to give. Every little helps. There's only one bad way to do this - and that's not to do it at all!

As we've seen, search engine optimization is just one of several free ways to improve selling your crafts. To make the most effective use of your time you need more detail and you need to keep up to date with what works most efficiently. Over at Selling Crafts you can pick up no end of great info, sign up for their important free craft business newsletter also pick up your free copy of the highly acclaimed fact file "Craft Success Online".

Be silly not to take advantage really.

Blog Income Boosters For Crafters

Selling crafts online is getting easier all the time. The latest developments in blogging mean you can have both an ideal communication method and a super-efficient shop set up in the same package. Except for a few dollars a month for hosting, you can get it all going for nothing.

Even if you can't do it yourself - or don't want to - there are extremely cost-effective services that will do it all for you for less than a couple of hundred dollars. You'll have to manage your craft blog yourself, of course, but that really is easy. If you can operate a digital camera and click a mouse, you can run a blog selling your crafts on the internet. No problem.

What's also nice is you can add extra income streams as well.

So, for instance, you could have any of a huge range of books for sale on your blog. What's more, the bookstore themselves will provide you with a clever bit of code which will show appropriate books. If you sell candles, you can show candle-making books, not books on how to repair bicycles! Installation is again as simple as copy-and-paste.

You can also run small ads which take just moments to install and can also be tuned to suit your site. I'm sure you'll have seen these on other craft blogs. When you're selling crafts online there is a risk that a competitor's craft products might show up, but in fact if you find an ad that clashes with what you're doing you can just block them out.

The first option will generally pay you something in the region of 5% when someone buys. The small ads work slightly differently in that they don't require a purchase for you to get paid - they will pay you a couple of cents per click. It might not sound a lot but it can soon ad up to a few extra dollars a day. It's not going to make you rich on its own, but all you do to get it was install a little bit of code, just once, and then leave it to earn money for you.

It's not difficult to imagine your craft blog earning you a couple of hundred dollars a month extra on auto-pilot. There's no cost involved in setting it up, all you do is check your account balance!

Some people worry that these ads might be intrusive and distract people from your own crafts. I'd have to disagree. On a properly set up craft blog they're going to appear over on the right-hand side, out of the way. It's not until people have finished reading about you're crafts that they'll look over there. Eventually your visitors are going to leave your blog anyway. If they haven't bought anything from you and left via your checkout system, the least you can do is try to give them an exit route that's also a secondary way of earning you money.

Selling craft online should, of course, focus on what you make. However, a successful craft business is also commercially astute and should maximize ways to get your customer to put their hand in their pocket!

Practical, professional craft selling advice: Selling Crafts Online.

SEO and Other Mumbo-Jumbo!

If you want to sell crafts online then it stands to reason that you're going to have a much easier time of it, and be much more successful, if you can put your crafts in front of as many people as possible. Without a doubt doing well in the search engines is of great benefit, but is there a danger that we can put to much effort into one area and find our craft business suffering as a result?

There's a lot of hype about SEO - search engine optimization - a lot of mumbo-jumbo. Some of it is just the language of the subject. Every business has it's own phrases and terms and SEO is no different. Some of it though is at the very least misleading.

Search engines like to be able to figure out what your site is about, so basic SEO is simple. To sell crafts online, make your blog or website specific. Don't go off here, there and everywhere. If your craft blog is about knitting, fill it with relevant, useful, regularly updated information about knitting - the search engines will love you. Don't make it about what you did at the weekend, or where you're going on holiday or what new car you are interested in... and about knitting. Do that and the search engines aren't sure where to put you, and you won't rank well.

But concentrating just on the search engines is getting unbalanced. Being active at relevant forums can draw traffic to your craft site, guest writing on other blogs can do it, article marketing can get individual short posts ranked higher in the search engines than your site might, especially if you target specific keywords... and there I go using "trade" words and phrases, some of which might be complete mumbo-jumbo to you!

The point is, that as important as good SEO can be it's not the only way to ensure you can sell crafts online. You need to do some research into the areas you don't know well and learn how to best market and promote your crafts. Selling online is not a five minute fix, as some would have you believe, but the market is so huge, so much bigger than you could reach in any other way, that it's worth a little effort to get it right.

There's plenty of mumbo-jumbo about to catch the unwary. Fortunately there are down-to-earth blogs like Sell Crafts Online where you can get expert advice, plain and simple. You can also pick up your free copy of the highly acclaimed fact file "Craft Success Online".

Sell Crafts Online - Guilt Buys Grab Customers

Here's no doubt that if you sell crafts online you can reach a wider audience than was ever possible from traditional craft business. The potential exists for you to take your craft income to a whole new level. There can be just one fly in the otherwise rosy-smelling ointment, and that's the touchy-feely bit.

What do I mean? Well the trouble with the internet is that although people can see what you're selling, they can't touch or feel it. Sometimes it's not important, but some people will always want to put their hands on things, run their fingers over the contours. I bet you do it yourself sometimes.

The solution is what I call a "guilt buy" and it has it's origins in craft shows and fairs where, incidentally, it still works very well.

Here's the scenario. Someone comes by your craft booth. they clearly like your work, but because of it's quality it's all quite expensive. Your visitor might talk to you about your work but regrettably they don't have the money. So they leave feeling slightly guilty, but unable to afford your craft nonetheless.

Enter the "guilt buy". In effect it's a much lower cost example of your usual work. It's a couple of dollars or less and it gives your visitor the opportunity to buy something from you so that they don't feel guilty. Believe me, this tactic works.

When you sell crafts online, the "guilt buy" is just as effective. Provided you can make it and ship it for relatively little cost, people will buy.

This is such a powerful principle that I want to make sure you're getting the full impact because it's not about selling one small item for a coupe of dollars. In fact it doesn't matter if you don't make a red cent out of the deal.

What you got was a customer. That's far more important. First, you got their interest. Then you led them through a purchasing process, in itself a major step. You've proven they've got money to spend. You've delivered a sample of your craft that they can touch, feel and/or smell so they've got personal contact with it. Finally (and providing of course that you produce quality work) you've removed an objection to them buying a more expensive piece from you.

They might even show it to their friends and recommend you!

There's only one proviso with the "guilt buy" and your aim to sell crafts online. It's a warning too. Don't confuse low cost with cheap. "Cheap" is something we associate with poor quality and that will never do. Your low cost craft item must be high quality. That might take some thinking about but it's worth spending time on. Done well, it will remove the recipient's objections and could turn them into a lifetime customer of huge value to you. A cheap item, on the other hand, will reinforce their fears and they will never buy from you again.

f you want to turn your craft hobby into a full-time occupation, or build a secure and very comfortable living from your home-based craft business, this blog is packed with absolutely invaluable free information to help you succeed: Sell Crafts Online.

Selling Crafts Beyond eBay

Are you tired of paying eBay for the privilege of selling your crafts? I am not trying to put down eBay or anyone shops or sells there. They provide a wonderful service for crafters to sell their products, but they have limitations.

On eBay, you are bound by their terms and subject to what ever limited traffic they send you. You are also required to pay their fees, cutting into your profits. At eBay, you are a tiny fish in a very big pond. Isn’t it better to be a big fish in a small pond?

Most successful eBay crafters have websites or blogs (probably both) designed to drive traffic to their eBay crafts. If you are going to all that trouble, why not just sell your crafts yourself and keep all the profits?

I am not suggesting you pull all your crafts from eBay, but we have all heard the old adage, Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Just think. Are your crafts really shown to their fullest on eBay. Would they be better complimented on your own website, designed specifically to showcase your crafts?

As a stepping stone to the world of e-commerce, eBay is unrivaled. It is a great way for crafters to get started, but why stop there? By creating your own online craft website and finding the right niche for your crafts, you could generate more traffic to your crafts than you ever imagined on eBay.

With your own craft website you can build credibility with your viewers and develop a much more personal, mom & pop sort of relationship that is just not possible on eBay.

If your crafts are upscale in nature, does eBay give you the type of targeted traffic you need to maximize your profits? Selling crafts on your own website allows you to target the right market for those crafts.

Remember, eBay is an auction house and the customers there are savvy bargain hunters, an absolute must in this day and age. But, as a crafter, you need to ask yourself if your crafts merit a more unique setting.

It may be time for you to take the next step in your online craft business. Creating your own craft website may not be as difficult as you might think. There are many resources available today to help the novice get started.

Why not start today? With a little research, you could be on your way to realizing the full potential of your craft business. Who knows, you might even have fun.

Theresa Momber owns and operates her own website, http://cashcrafters.com – A free guide to starting an online craft business. Learn more about selling beyond eBay -http://auctions.sitesell.com/cc3.html