How To Install A Scrolling Shopping Cart Widget on Your Blog

written by cricketscreations.etsy.com



There's a new widget for our blogs from http://cr8tivity.com/ that creates a scrolling "Buy" shopping cart direct to our Etsy shop (see the "3 Product" widget at upper right)! Here's a step by step instruction tutorial on how I placed this scrolling photo shopping cart on my blog, Crickets Creations Handknit Scarves:
I went to http://cr8tivity.com/

I typed in my etsy shop username into the white field and hit the "helpers" button

I clicked "Widgets" in black font at upper left of screen
I clicked "3 Product" to have 3 items shown at a time (choose how many products you would like to see displayed on your own blog)

I placed my cursor in the "Original Version" text field and hit Ctrl + A at the same time on my keyboard to highlight all of the text in that field.

Then I hit Ctrl + C at the same time to copy that text

Then I went to my blog and logged in (I use blogger/blogspot)

I clicked "Layout" and then clicked "Add a Gadget"

I clicked the "+" sign next to "HTML/JavaScript and a new field appeared

I placed my cursor in the Content field and hit Ctrl + V at the same time on my keyboard to paste in the coding I had copied from the Cr8tivity site.

I added a Title (Shop with Crickets) and clicked to "Save"

I THEN (very important, all your work will be lost without this last step!) clicked the orange "Save" button on the "Add and Arrange Page Elements" page

Then I clicked to "View Blog" to make sure I did it all correctly. :)
Lastly, a made a donation to Troy at http://cr8tivity.com/ as a thank you!

Hope this is helpful for your Etsy online shops and blogs,
Celeste (Crickets)

written by CricketsCreations

Sellers Assisting Sellers Team now on facebook!

Custom Logo Cupcakes by shortbreadnyc

The Sellers Assisting Sellers Team is now on facebook! As well as linking to our new blog posts, we’ll also be sharing other useful business resources and announcing upcoming live critique sessions! You can find our facebook page here


Love Letter Necklace by SimonDesigns

Also, to make it easier to keep up with the articles published on this blog, you can now subscribe via email so that you don’t miss anything (in the box on the right panel). We’ll soon be interviewing some of The TeamSASsy mentors so that you can get to know the team and hear their best etsy tips.


If you’d like to join the team and become a mentor yourself, we’d love to have you! You can find information about how to join here

Le Gros Chat Noir Pendant by SuperVery

Posted by morphologica.etsy.com

Interview with a TeamSASsy Mentor: KreatedbyKarina

Interview by morphologica.etsy.com, adapted from a post on
The Etsy Business Tips Blog



Karina of KreatedbyKarina is a seller of luscious bath and beauty products with over 1900 sales on etsy. She kindly agreed to do an interview to share her perspective on achieving success on and off etsy.

How did you get started making bath and beauty products and what did you do before you started selling on etsy?
During a trip to England I came across a local soap-making class and took it on a whim..I immediately fell in love. Short, but sweet. Before I found Etsy, I was living in Toronto, Canada where I'm originally from and started selling my own bath and body products on the side at craftshows while maintaining a fulltime job as a caterer. I discovered Etsy in 2006 after I'd moved to the US, set up shop and haven't looked back since.


Chocolate Espresso Shea Butter Vegan Soap

How much of your business is conducted through etsy?
Etsy is the only venue I can be found online. It's a large part of my business but much of my income is through craftshows (roughly I do about 2 shows a week during the busy season), wholesale accounts and private soap home shows. Last year I started doing Virtual Soap Shows held through my Etsy shop (it's like a soap party, but held online). What's wonderful is that Etsy has introduced us to doing wholesale as retailors contacted us through them.


Coconut Cream Shea Butter Vegan Soap

As someone who has been able to ‘quit your day job’, what is the main advice you would give to someone wishing to go full time with their business?
Develop a business plan. You can find free templates as well as a LOT of support through www.sba.gov . Your business plan will cover your ideals and goals for your business, budgeting, marketing plans, fiscal projections for several years ahead, start up costs, etc. After you've done this, if you're wondering if it's possible to survive on your craft income alone, a good idea is to bank your regular job paychecks for a period of one year, and live off of what you make with your sales. This will give you a good idea on how much money is coming into the household versus what's going out, and if you can still live within your means.


Handmade Soap of the Month Subscription

Do you have any tips for sellers wishing to pursue the wholesale angle?
You may want to tag your items with the word "wholesale"..as I've said before, all of my wholesale buyers discovered me through Etsy---so retailors ARE searching on the site. You can also approach wholesale buyers yourself, by determining which stores "fit" the type of items you offer and then calling ahead to set up an appointment with the store's merchandise buyer. Don't just walk in and expect them to drop everything to look at your stuff, no matter how cool and wonderful they are. They won't have the time, and you'll leave feeling frustrated that you never had their complete attention and excitement over your items. Making an appointment is beneficial to both of you. Also, before diving into wholesale, be certain that you can afford to. If you're buying your supplies at retail cost, there's no way you're going to be able to make any sort of profit after lowering your cost per item to entice wholesale buyers. Remember, they will traditionally expect about 40-50% off the final cost. Source out wholesale suppliers for your materials, and buy in bulk when you can to lower your own costs.


Candied Ginger and Orange Peel Body Souffle Whipped Soap

Can you share your top tips for online promotion and how much importance would you place on this aspect?
I don't do a lot of online promotion---and in fact I'd say that most of it can be a waste of time, resources and energy. While it's great to join networking groups and participate in several crafting forums, mostly it's made up of other sellers--some of whom are your direct competition. Instead, I focus on offline promotions---doing plenty of craftshows, handing out business cards, and participating in sampler distribution companies (where you send in 50-100+ samples of your work and they sell them to interested parties). These things work the best for me. I recently put up a fanpage www.facebook.com/SoapThatMakesScents and have gotten a lot of hits from that. Also, try to be featured in as many blogs or print magazines as you can---you can email the blog owner and ask them about their requirements for being featured.

Is there anything you would do differently with the benefit of hindsight?
I would have started a Newsletter much, much earlier than I did. I used to write in a blog, and it got frustrating because I never had any idea if people were even READING it...plus it can be time-consuming to have to write in it everyday to keep it looking fresh. A newsletter is better, in my opinion, because you're already sending it to people who have expressed an interest in what you do and want to learn more about you. A good place to set up a free Newsletter is www.Bravenet.com which allows you to maintain a list of 500 subscribers for free, and offers some statistics on who's opened and read your mailing updates.


Mocha Java Shea Butter Lip Balm

Can you tell us something surprising about the lady behind the soaps?
I love doing everything I can by hand. All of my invoices are hand-written instead of printed out, all of my product labels are printed at home, handcut and then either hand-stamped or hand-colored (you wouldn't believe how much money this saves in colored printer ink yearly!!)...is it a lot of work? Definately. Surprisingly, it's also therapeutic in a way...I prepare several hundred labels every few months so that they are done ahead of time and I think it adds to the aspect of my business being "handmade". It's not uncommon to see me sitting behind my booth at a show with my clipboard, coloring away inbetween customers! It's a good conversation-starter too. :)

Blogging Could Be More Effective Than You Thought - Google Analytics & Etsy Minis

written by morphologica.etsy.com

Brain in a Jar by YourOrganGrinder

After noticing that views from my blog were lower than they should have been in my Google Analytics stats for my Etsy store, I began to do some investigating and realized that clicks on Etsy minis show up within Google Anayltics as visits from within Etsy, rather than visits from a blog or website.

This means that some of the traffic coming from your blog or website (when people click on your Etsy mini) won't be identified as having come from that traffic source (yourblog.blogspot.com), which may lead people to underestimate the effectiveness of blogging as a promotional tool.

I Love you Blogs & Tea Print by Jeniferramos

Fortunately it is possible to find out how many views have come through Etsy minis, and also whether people have clicked on the link in the mini that leads to your shop or a specific item.

Instructions for assessing visits via Etsy minis:

Step 1. Go to the dashboard in the left panel within Google Analytics. Click on 'Content'. Next, click on 'Top Content'.

Step 2. Go to the bottom of the page where you will find a search box with the option to 'Filter page containing:'.

Step 3. The code for traffic from etsy minis is 'em', so type 'ref=em' into the search box and click 'Go'. This will then show you the visits to your store that have come via etsy minis (and the item numbers if they clicked on a particular item in the mini).
Don't forget to show more rows of results if necessary (that option is also found on the bottom panel where the search box is located).

As well as etsy minis on your blog, some of these visits may have come from other people's minis if they have featured your item as a favorite, or from 'related items' in a Storque article, as the code is used for that as well (thank you to Ferrolux for providing that insight).

Thank you to http://bloghandmade.blogspot.com for the em coding. Other codes are also available from the code list on the bloghandmade blog.

Statistics Cufflinks by Bellamodaartist

written by morphologica.etsy.com

Making Prints for Sale on Etsy

Written by beckykazana.etsy.com

To welcome the new year, I thought it might be fun to share some of the questions I receive as a member of Sellers Assisting Sellers. I'll include my answers and hope that all of you will share your advice and experiences as well. Whaddya say we start today?

Photographic print by Ninainvrom

Q)Do you have advice about making prints of my work? I am super confused about what type of paper, ink, printing method, printer, archival quality, etc I need to have for my prints. Can you offer some suggestions?

A) There are lots of ways to go about making prints of your work. I have invested in a very nice Epson printer and scanner so that I can print images and cards as needed. After my watercolors are complete, I scan them, color correct them in Photoshop and then format them to fit on an 8.5 x 11 piece of acid free 100 lb paper.

If you are just beginning, I would suggest having some prints made at your local print shop. They will be very knowledgeable about paper types and printing techniques and you can see the difference in quality and make the value judgment about what you want to offer on Etsy.

Frida print on polycanvas by AFancifulTwist

Another fun way to answer these questions is to go shopping! Poke around on Etsy and look carefully at the work of an artist you admire. Pay special attention to how they describe their prints. Look at artists that are selling lots and lots of prints- that's the goal after all! Also, look at sellers who are making the same kind of work as you are and how they are printing it.

Gocco printed greeting card from TwoGuitars

Try searching for key words that you use frequently in your own listings and see what other shops come up. If you like what they are doing, poke around their shop. In the right hand corner of their shop you can see how many sales they have. Read through their listings, see how they are describing things and what their store policies are. Strike up a conversation with them and ask if they have any suggestions or advice for newbies! The best thing about Etsy is the community. Check out the forums and the pounce tool for more fun ways to meet and learn from successful sellers.

Good Luck and Happy Etsying! Becky

Written by beckykazana.etsy.com