Listing clubs

So did the April listing challenge pay off? Is it really worth the effort of listing each day?

The short answer has to be......

(pendant by chinacherie)

yes....

definitely....

..... well for me, anyway.

So here are my stats:

(ceramic stat pendant by Surly)

For my etsy shop:
Etsy - sales up from 4 items up to 8 sales of 10 items
Visits, up 100%
Page views - up 115%
Pages per visit up 7%
Time on the site up 21%

 
And for my Folksy shop

(which excludes the beginning of the months for comparison as I was featured on a website and got LOADS of traffic for a day or two at the beginning of March!)

Sales up from 1 to 8
Visits, up 124%
page views - up 182%
Pages per visit up 25%
Time on the site up 65%

(plate spinner print by beckykazana)

So a nice busy month for me, with a sale on average every other day. Well worth the gruelling listing regime. It is difficult to list everyday, but it certainly helps bring visitors into the site.

However, it's not been the same for everyone I know some on the challenge got similar results, such as FairlyGirly, andAccidentalVix but for others the sales just weren't increasing.

 Traffic print by Ruka Ruka

It seems to me that I was just getting more traffic - which eventually resulted in more sales. So I thought it would be useful to look at where the views came from. For both shops direct traffic  and search engine traffic were up significantly. But the bulk is still referring sites as it always has been e.g. other people featuring me on their blogs, site forums and also twitter. I know for a fact that at least a third of my sales, and possibly more have come via twitter, so I'll be looking into all the ins and outs of tweeting and report back soon.

In the meantime I just need to get some more things made so I can try and list most days as it seems to be the way forward!!

April Round Up

I feel the need to do a little round up of April.
What a month!
In the past thirty days I have:

• listed an item a day on my etsy shop 
• listed an item a day on my folksy shop
• had a table at a craft fair
• attended a weekend long course in fingerprint and image jewellery
• become a registered childminder 
• got a childminding portfolio, and legal documents together and taken on my first 2 mindees
• spent a weekend trying to find a way for my Volcano stranded dad to get home from Spain
• and entertained both kids for the first 3 weeks while  my 5yo enjoyed the super long easter holidays from school

What I haven't done is blogged very much.

oops

At the end of March I somewhat foolishly started a thread on Etsy and folksy to ask if anyone fancied joining me in listing an item a day. Bit of an impulse thread start to be honest, and I didn't expect more than 1 or 2 maybes that would drift away, but the listing clubs were formed. And what a lovely bunch of people I met.


The listing an item a day may not seem like that much effort to the uninitiated, but believe me it was a slog by the end of the month. Making the piece is the easy bit (or at least the most fun), then after doing a sun dance in the garden (which incidentally seemed to pay off most days - phew) there are the photos to prepare, take, edit, resize, the tags to identify, the wording to write.  I think I, and the others who joined me in my little challenge, deserve a medal - though to be fair, I'd be happy with a few more sales, and that is just what I got.

But I'm jumping ahead of myself. I'm going to see if I can figure out whether it has helped me and the others, and will blog about the results of the listing club for both etsy and folksy very soon.....

Folksy Friday - Listing club

I am loving the listing club - and it's great that I'm actually getting into the listing groove, I'm pretty sure it is helping my sales and viewing numbers. I might even carry on in May.

Anyway, as you know I'm doing the listing club on both etsy and folksy, and today it's the top picks from the folksy listing club aka the folksy fools.






1) SteamPunk Storm2) Accidental Vix3) The Sequinned Sheep 4) NOfkants Curios5) The Pink Fairy Cake
6) Birgitta Designs

Please click on the pictures and go and have a look through the shops! They have some lovely lovely stuff.

Esty April Listing Club - Week 2 picks!

Yep - I am still completely neglecting my blog - but the kids go back next week so I should be back in action properly then. There will be a review of how the club is going, (i.e. does it make any difference if you list each day) at the end of the month.

In the meantime - here are some top picks from the etsy listing club listed over the last week.

So far the listing club is going really well. I've met lots of nice people in the forums, and we're all helping and supporting each other to keep going. In terms of my shop - I'm definitely seeing lots more views, and some more sales! I'll do a proper review at the end of the month!

Etsy listing club - week 1 shop picks

I've not been blogging much recently; the kids are on holiday at the moment, we've been busy doing easter things plus, I've got lots to do with my "list a new item every day" challenge.

I've been spending LOADS (far, far too much time) browsing in my fellow etsy listing clubbers shops, and have the first of my top picks to show you....click on the pictures to go the the shops and have a browse....!

There'll be more picks to come each week in April (hopefully!!)

Folksy Friday

This weeks Folksy Friday is a pick of the listing club entries.... if you haven't heard about this yet, I thought given my pile of stuff that I never get around to listing, that I'd see if anyone else on Folksy and Etsy fancied joining me in a listing challenge - namely 1 item a day for the whole of April.

I thought maybe 1 or 2 people would like to join in, but the response has been brilliant. Loads of people are now attempting to list 1 item every day for a month - I know I'm making it sounds like a big deal, like some kind of everest climb or something, but the fact is it does take a while to list something, and time is something I don't have much of.

Anyway - here are just a few of the April listings...click on the picks to check out these folksy fool's shops.

And a huge thanks to Haptree for the brilliant tutorial on how to put these mini treasuries together!

Listing Club

I've started a little club - I'd thought it was going to be just a very small group, but its grown to a size where I'm sure we need a special handshake and possibly membership cards.

(Bird Gang by Petit and Cute Design)

I put a call out on the forums of Folksy and Etsy, where I run my shops, to see if anyone would care to join me in my challenge to list a new item every single day throughout April. I keep hearing that this kind of frequent and regular listing is a great way to really boost your presence in these big online marketplaces (and obviously would boost the number of items I have in the shop which can only be a good thing too).

It seems like there are lots of others who also wanted to get their act together and needed a little push too - which is great - nothing like a little peer pressure to help get you moving.

So the plan is that each day in April we'll be logging into the forum to show what we've listed, those of us who blog will be running posts and features using fellow listing club members goodies. And on twitter we'll be using the tag #listingclub, or #folksylistingclub to find each others' items and retweet. I'll give you a round up each week on the blog of how it's all going.


Two days to go and I've got about 10 items made, and took some pictures over the weekend. I'm thinking it's going to be hard work to get the rest of it sorted - thats five new items a week to make, photograph and list - what have I let myself in for...... wish me luck!

Leave a comment below if you're going to be involved!!