It Takes Teamwork

As you all know, Sellers Assisting Sellers (Team SASsy) is a team of volunteer advisors dedicated to
helping Etsy sellers who are struggling or have questions. I have been a member for over a year now and know that the team works hard to help when it is needed.

I also belong to two other teams; Eastern Washington Etsy Street Team (EWAET) and the TAG Treasury Team, which was started by a group from the EWAET team specifically to do treasuries. Both teams are the friendliest and most supportive groups I have ever belonged to. They daily work to support and promote each other by using Etsy’s treasuries.

Each week, one shop from the EWAET team is chosen as the Featured Shop. The team members rally around that shop and create as many treasuries as possible for an entire week. The average number of treasuries created for each shop has been around 35. This project has proven to be a wonderful thing for several shops which came into the project with few or no sales and now have hundreds.

The EWAET team has done many experiments to find how to best use the treasury. Since Etsy does not publish rules for moving up in the treasury pages, it took quite a bit of detective work to find the best method for rising to the first page. They know that while getting on the Front Page is a real feather in your cap, but the exposure only lasts for a 30 minute period. It was determined that the best exposure comes from reaching the first page of the treasury where you may stay for 12 hours or more. Having many hours of being viewed results in a better chance of sales for each featured shop.

The experiments took place over many weeks and with many treasuries. What the group found was if the team all supported the treasuries, along with the featured sellers, they could affect the movement of the treasury. The first thing a curator does is inform all of the shops that have been featured, including a link to the treasury and a request that they visit, click and comment. Next, they send an email message to the team so other members can visit the treasury, click on favorite items and leave a comment. This will normally get the treasury within the first 10 pages. The curator monitors the treasury and if it does not continue to move up they let the team know so that those that are available can revisit the treasury a second time leaving another comment. Additional activities used to help are teaching all of the members how to make attractive treasuries, and encouraging those members who use social networking such as Twitter and Facebook to post the treasuries. One of the key elements to the success of the system is being a member of a group emailing system. The treasuries could never be as successful as they are without that. This concerted team effort has resulted in first sales for some shops. When one of my shops is featured my views go way up and generally there are sales to go with that. It sometimes seems like a lot of work but there is no denying that the efforts have given new life to some shops that were struggling, not to mention bringing new hope to some shop owners who thought they could never succeed in the Etsy marketplace.

Teamwork is the key ingredient. Truly caring about how the other shops are doing and supporting each other means we all win.

Article written by www.digitalexpressions.etsy.com

How to Make a Treasury and Save it for Later.

There are two spots in Etsy where you can feature items you enjoy. The main treasury and treasury west. Space is limited and snagging a spot can sometimes be a race. To increase your chances on a Front Page selection it is best to plan ahead and start piecing together your selections now. A great way to do this is by using the Poster Sketch tool provided by Etsy. [Bookmark this link as it is hard to find] Below I will show you how to use this tool to organize your picks and copy them to a treasury when the time comes.

Go ahead and open your poster sketch in a new tab or window. This will make for easier transition back and forth from your search results. From the previous window, search for items that fit your theme or desired look for your treasury.

After you have chosen your item you will need to copy and paste the listing numbers into your poster sketch. Listing numbers are located in the listing URL and below the seller information along the lower right side of the listing. [Highlight the numbers, right click to copy]

Go back to the poster sketch (tab or window) and paste your numbers into the appropriate box. The first three listings in each row will be the featured items and the last will become your alternate. Now Click okay and your listing should appear.

Keep doing this until all spots have been filled. Etsy automatically saves your picks...however you can copy all the listing numbers from the bottom of the page and save them into a word document. [I do this if i have more than one treasury in mind]. You are done.!! All you have to do now is wait for the treasury to open a spot. For more details on how to make or snag a treasury please read here....

About the author: I am Amanda, owner extraordinaire of Sygnet Creations. I have been selling on etsy for almost 2 years now and I loving it! I am a full time mom and military spouse. I tend to know a little about everything and I am always a friendly ear and convo away. Ask me anything.

UPDATED- Hearts, Views and Treasuries

Since my last post there have been updates to the search features available below:

Craftcult.com has now added a feature tab where you can find if you have been featured on the front page of etsy or in the gift guides! You can also search by member name, and date appeared.....check out "The Vault"

Craftopolis.com has also updated their site to include a gift guide search.


Happy Searching =)
Amanda
Sygnet Creations

Hearts, Views and Treasuries

Ever wonder how many shop hearts and views you have, if you are featured in a treasury, gift guides or front page? Check out these great tools created to help sellers just like you!

Lets start with views and hearts: Most etsy sellers know that by going to each item with in their shop they can click the link 'see who hearts this seller' and 'see who hearts this item' to see how many hearts they have...... But did you know about CraftCult? Craftcult is the home of the Heart-o-Matic

Type in your username and hit submit. You can see recent hearts, which items have hearts, and there is a tab to update 'real time' views that your shop has received. If you are looking to spread the word about your shop this is also a good promotional tool. click on the link at the bottom about advertising and found out how you can get your shop listed along the side.

Are you in a treasury?

You can go to the treasury and treasury west tabs with in etsy and search page by page for that lucky little star or you can head over to Craftolopis. All you have to do is type in your username and you will see all treasuries currently featuring your items. There is also a tab for gift guides, which are coming soon. In the mean time try this handy trick. Go to google search and type in

username site:http://www.etsy.com/gift-guides/

So this is what I would type in:

sygnetcreations site:http://www.etsy.com.gift-guides/

This search will bring up each gift guide you have ever been in not just the ones where you are currently featured. Have fun searching!

Was I on the front page?

All of a sudden your views are up, sales are up, and your hearts are flowing in... but you didn't see yourself on the front page. Don't worry, There is a group on flickr that pools screenshots of all treasuries that have made it to the front page of etsy. Just go to the Etsy Front Pagers group and search for your shop name in their picture pool.

You are now armed with fun tools to ease your obssesion.... but be warned..... You will find a brand new addiction to checking these sites daily for new info!

About the author: I am Amanda, owner extraordinaire of Sygnet Creations. I have been selling on etsy for over a year now and I loving it! I am a full time mom and military spouse. I tend to know a little about everything and I am always a friendly ear and convo away. Ask me anything.

My Top 10 Tips for making a Front Page worthy treasury

Learning to make a great treasury is an art. It is also an important education for any seller who wants to get their work featured on the Front Page of Etsy. If you take the time to learn what makes a treasury worthy of the Etsy Front Page, you will quickly learn how to make your listings the kind that will get chosen for that honor.

Take a look at the Etsy Front Page Flickr group. This is full of screencaps of treasuries that have been on the front page. Notice how each one looks amazing, the photos are top quality and the treasury always has a theme, be it a shape, color or something else.

For those of you who don't know what a treasury is or how to catch one check out this article.

As a seller who was been both curator for and featured in Etsy Home Page treasuries, here are my top 10 tips for making a Front Page worthy treasury.

1) Use the Etsy Poster Sketch.
You can build as many treasuries as you like there, although only you can see them. You can always save your sketches to use when you actually manage to grab a treasury. (bookmark it in your browser because the link to it is hard to find on Etsy)

2) Choose a theme.
The theme can be colour, tone, shape, emotion or anything else you like. You can also pick one listing from your favorites to start with; try to find other listings that match it in some way. Think of your entire treasury as a piece of art, each listing should go well with the others.

3) Use the Etsy Tag Fractal.
you can use the Tag Fractal to search for listings that fit your theme, you can search based on their titles and tags here. It is a great tool. (bookmark this one too)

4) Choose listings that look great a thumbnails.
Take a look at my next post for further explanation on this

5) Vary the types of listings in your treasury.
Unless your theme is a certain type or category of listing, try to avoid having too many of the same kind of listing in your treasury. For example, not more than 2 pairs of earrings, 2 toys, 2 illustrations etc...

6) Vary the prices of the listings in your treasury.
When Admin choose a treasury for the front page they make sure that the price range varies. they don't want everything to sell out before that front page's time is up. If everything is too inexpensive then the items will sell out too fast and cause technical difficulties for the front page. To read more about what Etsy Admin said about this check out this forum thread

7) Fill up all the alternatives.
When you make a treasury you get 16 slots to show off, but only the 12 on the left can be seen. The other 4 are called the alternatives. If your treasury makes it to the front page then when something sells one of your alternatives will take its place. Admin will only ever choose a treasury that is full, including the alternatives. Make sure your alternatives are just as good as the others.

8) Don't feature yourself.
You are allowed to feature yourself in one listing of your own treasury, but if your treasury gets picked for the front page then your listing will get swapped out for an alternative. From an Admin's point of view you will only have 3 alternatives instead of 4 as they won't ever have the curator of a treasury featured on the FP too. It lowers your chances significantly and it is considered by some to be an "unwritten rule" of making treasuries.

9) Choose an interesting title.
Titles are hard to come up with, so while you are filling your Poster Sketch try to think about your theme and what title would go well with it. A good title will get a few more people clicking on it, just to see what is in there. I should say that Etsy Admin has stated that they don't pay any attention to a treasury title, they are interested in how it looks and the price ranges it includes, so it’s not essential.

10) Promote your treasury
When you have caught a treasury and filled it, tell your friends about it. If you belong to an Etsy Street Team then post it in your team thread. If you are on Twitter then post the link there too. If there are threads in the forums sharing the latest treasuries then post there too... you get the idea. The more views, clicks and comments your treasury gets the "hotter" it becomes and the higher up the treasury list it will go. The more people see that you make great treasuries, the more chances you have of making it on the Front Page one day.

Good luck and happy treasury making!

About the Author: Anna Greaves is the founder of the Sellers Assisting Sellers team and runs her shop The House of Mouse full time from her home in The Netherlands.