My Photo Saga

Written by beckykazana

You've heard it over and over again: One of the greatest challenges to selling products on the web is good photography. Despite a few college photography classes (we were probably the last in history to learn on regular SLRs!) I have struggled long and hard with getting good shots, particularly of my pipe cleaner gals. They are a quirky product and I knew that they needed the right kind of photos to showcase their particular little personalities, but I was continually frustrated. I wanted to share my saga with you, because I really do believe that I've finally had a breakthrough.

I'm going to skip my efforts with my pocket sized Cannon. It was a great little camera for travel, but I had no control of the zoom function and images of these small objects were often blurry or focused on the wrong parts.

The shot above was taken sometime in November with my new Nikon D40 . This is a complicated piece of equipment, but the image quality was noticeably better, even with the camera hand held on auto. Christmas is obviously a good time of year for ornaments like these and I wanted to set the mood properly, but a lot of the detail and color is lost.

A later effort where I tried to take advantage of the lovely diffused light that enters our apartment in the late afternoon. Though you can actually see the gal better this way, the details in the background are still distracting.

My next brainwave was an outdoor photo shoot with the incredible blooming rosemary bushes dotting our apartment complex serving as a backdrop. I thought it might give that garden fairy ambiance I was looking for. Instead, the direct light cast harsh shadows and gave an amateurish backyard feel that I hated.


I had tried using a light box with mixed success while we were in China. Eric helped me rig up a rickety approximation and we clamped the lights directly to the sides, which had the same effect as the outdoor lighting; garish shadows and washed out color.

This time he constructed me something really marvelous. He cut out panels in an ordinary cardboard box, hot glued white fabric to these windows to diffuse the light, bought some halogen work lights (oi! Do those suckers get hot!) and also invested in a tripod for my fancy new Nikkon. (Thanks for all that hard work Mister!)



These shots are an improvement, but I was still disappointed with the contrast and detail. I had to start playing with the settings and reading the darn manual- a recipe for a big headache, but also the key to success. It is important to me not to have to fiddle with photo-shopping my Etsy listing images- to do that with five images for every single listing at the volume I have in my inventory makes me absolutely cringe. I just can't do it. So I wanted to get good shots on the first try. My next thought was to switch to a colored backdrop, adjust the f-stop and exposure time.

After reading this post, I decided to take the plunge and bought a few sheets of colored Canson paper at vile Michael's, adjusted my light meter and went through lots of trial and error, but I think I've finally arrived at a winner here. There is no distracting background, good contrast without any fiddling around in Photoshop, bright vibrant color that sets the playful tone and looks great in thumbnails. I'm a very happy camper. I know I still have a lot to learn about my new camera and photographing for the internet, but the flush of success feels good after all this time!



Here are a few of the other new shots just for fun. It's made a great difference in the look and feel of my shop. Any suggestions out there from others doing product photography? I'm all ears!

You’ve Got Your First SALE! Now What?

Written by Kim from UnemployedDesigner

I see a lot of elated new sellers come to the Etsy forums looking for the answer to this question right after they’ve gotten their first sale, and just as many who simply want to know what to do so they’re prepared ahead of time, so I thought I’d put my personal step-by-step process together here in hopes that it would help!

1) First and foremost, do the happy dance!

2) Make sure you’ve gotten paid. Go to your sold (orders) page and look at the status box in the right-hand column. If payment was made with PayPal, the received payment box will already be checked, but I still advise that you log into your PayPal account to verify that funds have been received (JUST in case there was a glitch!).


If sufficient time has passed and you don’t yet have Payment from PayPal, or if you accept other forms of payment, such as checks or money order, you will need to contact your buyer to arrange payment. But wait until you check on a couple of other things first…

3) Compare the mailing addresses on both Etsy and PayPal, if that’s how you accept Payment. If they match, great! If not, I suggest clarifying with the buyer which one is correct before sending. (Note: PayPal only offers seller protection if shipping to the address on record with PayPal, though you may elect to forfeit this coverage by shipping to the Etsy address.) But before you do that, check one more thing:

4) Check the message from the buyer section of your receipt page – there may be a request or other special information that you need to pay attention to in that section as well.


5) Now is when I contact my buyer to acknowledge the order and thank the customer.

If everything is all good with steps 2 through 4, I also let them know when I expect to ship their item and how to reach me if they have any questions in the meantime. (When I happen to be able to ship the same day or within 24 hours, I generally combine this “acknowledgment/thank you” and the “your order has shipped/tracking” info all together into one contact.)

If there were any issues (Not paid yet? Address discrepancy? Need clarification on that note to seller) I first address those issues and follow up with shipping info once settled.

6) Package your items. Include any thank you notes, business cards, coupons or other literature that might go with the order. I suggest also including an itemized packing slip. You can print these automatically via PayPal, and they can be set up with a personalized message to your buyers. It’s a nice opportunity to give the customer important information, such as how to reach you if they have a concern about their order, maybe reiterating your return policy, and just thanking them for their order again – look at the packing slips you get from big retailers for ideas of the type of information to include.

7) Optional happy dance.

8) Arrange shipping with delivery confirmation to protect yourself against claims of non-delivery, and insurance, if the cost of the item is higher than you’re willing to take a loss on in case the package is lost. If PayPal is used to print shipping labels, then delivery confirmation will be added automatically.

9) If you didn’t provide this information when you first acknowledged the order, follow up with the customer to confirm shipping and to provide carrier and tracking information, if available. If you’ve printed your shipping label via PayPal, then an email with the tracking information will automatically be sent to the buyer. There’s also a spot where you can personalize a message to the buyer in this email as well (I use it to – guess what? – thank the buyer for their order and let them know how to reach me. It’s repetitive, I know, but you never can tell which of these communications get read by the customer, or which they will have handy if they do decide to contact you).

11) Try to remember to go back to your sold items page and check off the “shipped” box in the right-hand column.

12) Do one last happy dance.

13) Try to calm down.

14) Okay, one more happy dance won’t hurt anybody.

Okay, did I leave anything out? Please feel free to comment below with any questions or additional advice for handling first time sales!

[About the Author: Kim from www.UnemployedDesigner.etsy.com is a mother and wife, freelance apparel designer, fashion illustrator and teacher living in NYC, and an avid crafter since childhood. She and her husband share, among other things, many years of retail experience between them, in addition to her extensive internet shopping habit.]

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.

What are banner ads good for?

(by Judit from vadjutka)

Let me start with a personal confession: back in my technology journalist past, I was clearly against banner ads. "No one clicks on them, and they are rather a nuisance than something useful for the internet users" I thought. Now, as I manage my own online business, I changed my mind. They definitely do have a place under the Sun, but they are not going to bring traffic and sales directly. So what are they good for?

The success of a banner ad is measured by the so called Click Through Rate (CTR): through the years it has declined significantly from around 5% (in the 90s) to less than 1% (nowadays). This CTR number is the ratio of the number of users who clicked on an ad on a web page and the number of times the ad was delivered (impressions). According to a longitudinal analysis of 5000 websites across Europe, done by tech group Adtech, the performance (CTR) of ads are low: they vary between 0,35 and 0,24%. Not much, hm? Experts say, that it can be much higher (1-2%) if the ad runs on a targeted site: for example in the case of a banner of a film on a movie site. Also, the performance of the banner depends on number of other factors, like the design of the ad, the size of banner, the place of the banner on the site.

The table below shows the click-through trends of the last four years

(by Adtech)

This means, that we should not expect sales directly from a banner campaign. I think that banners are good for showing your face to the public, to show that you and your shop exist. It is good for image and branding purposes, as part of a mid-term strategy; or at least this is what my experiance of using banners says. (I had banner campaigns on several sites like Glibea's Blog, Indie Shopping Blog, Scoutie Girl and Paper'n'Stitch.) Spending your money on banners systematically may result in sales, but first of all: visitors of the hosting site will learn your and your shop's name slowly.

OK, so if you decided to run a banner campaign what factors you should consider when choosing the host for your banner?

- type and thematics of the site

If you have a jewellery shop - like I do - it is more likely you will be noticed on site about fashion, lifestyle etc., though you may consider running a banner on a paper art site...after all its readers are likely to be interested in jewellery as well.

- traffic of the site

The more popular site you use, the more chance you have for being noticed. BUT: usually these sites have more banners than others, so the "banner noise" is bigger.

- cost of the banner and additional services

Some of the sites - with themes about handmade, fashion, design etc - offer blogpost mention or some kind of mention embedded in the content.

Time Management and Etsy

Etsy and Your Full Time Job
Keeping up with your Etsy Shop when working full time can be overwhelming, however a little planning can go a long way. Start with a list of the hours a day that you can dedicate to Etsy related activities and be realistic about it. Once this is done, you can assign time slots per day to the different tasks to be performed. Now you can focus and stick to your plan for a while to see how it works. Pretty soon you will see your accomplishments and feel good about it. Remember, you can always adjust it!
Author: Patricia from www.karmacrochet.etsy.com

Etsy and You Part Time Job
If you are like me and have a part time career unrelated to Etsy (I’m a scientist) but you are also a seller for the rest of your part time, we probably face the same two major challenges every week: Managing Time and Keeping Focus. Since we have just part of the week to dedicate our keyword is organization! This presentation was first meant for Holiday time management I find it a very useful guideline for every day organization. My personal favorite time saving tip is to prepare the coming week listings all at once. How? Create a listing but don’t click Finish, copy and save the URL as text somewhere (you can even send it to yourself by email in case you want to use it far from your computer). Later, when you want to list your new item, just paste the URL in the navigation bar, click enter and tatata!: your listing is still there, all you need to do is click Finish and you have your fresh new listing. (discovered by www.Littleputbooks.etsy.com )
Author: Fru from www.Fruccidesign.etsy.com

Etsy and full-time student life
Running a successful Etsy shop while attending the University full-time can seem somewhat daunting. For many students / Etsy sellers, it is a way of supplementing income and gaining real-life experience in business. The key is learning how to prioritize projects while never loosing focus on the larger educational goals. Being honest with both yourself and customers will only benefit in the long-run, by making sure never to take on too much or agree to overly ambitious custom orders during exam times.
Many students have dual work / study spaces, keeping both organized will save time and headaches. Same goes for your computer, it is super-helpful to keep all Etsy-related files, photos and more separate from coursework. This also makes it easier when you need to focus on your studies with no distractions!
Author: Monica from www.UrbanBead.Etsy.com

Time Flies When You’re a Stay-at-Home Parent
Being a stay-at-home parent is a 24/7 task. As the mother of two small children, I admit it is a challenge. The first question I encounter when I tell someone about my home based business is “How do you have the time to do that?”
• Take some time in the morning to decide what you want to accomplish for the day.
Make a list of things you want to accomplish and separate these items in order of urgency and importance. Be realistic about how much time you have.
• Utilize nap time to the fullest extent.
When nap-time comes, immediately tackle your high-priority items. Don’t have nap time? (I rarely do) Have activity time where your children can create along side of you. This will allow you to work, even in short bursts.
• If you have a partner, encourage them to be on board with your business plan.
When your partner/spouse is supportive of your business, you can utilize some time at night and on the weekends without having it interfere with family time.
• Utilize the resources available to you.
USPS Carrier pickup the best example of this. Then you only go to the post office if you have an international package. All other packages are picked up from your front door. http://www.usps.com/pickup/welcome.htm
Author: Jessica from www.buggalove.etsy.com

Time Management Tips for the Full Time Etsian
Managing a full time Etsy shop is quite a task. Here are some creative ideas I use to keep up with the 40+ hours I work on my shop and manage my home and family.

• Allow only so much time for “surfing” per day. Research and online chitchat are real time eaters.
• Create an Order Summary Spreadsheet: I fill this out for every single order. It tells me at a glance where I am on order fulfillment, packaging and shipping.
• My fields include: Date, Item, Buyer, Address, Paid (yes/no), Shipping Label Printed (yes/no), Item finished (yes/no), Item Shipped (date)
• Batch printing of Shipping Labels (via Paypal) – a great time saver.
• Create a Shipping Center - Make sure to always have plenty of shipping supplies on hand – running to the store or waiting for a shipment causes unwanted delays.
• Make sure to let your seller know in a convo or email your ship date. This helps keep procrastination at bay. A high level of customer service will bring buyers back for more.

Author: Steph from www.SStargell.etsy.com

7 Timesaving Firefox Add ons Every Esty Seller Should Use.
You will need to download the current Firefox web browser to use these.

• Sxipper This will save you from having to type in your password each time you want to log in to Etsy or anywhere else.
• Morning Coffee Opens the web pages you use daily (email, Etsy, your blog, etc.) with one click.
• Plain Text Links This allows you to right click on any plain text link to open the URL.
• ReminderFox allows you to set simple reminders for anything you need to remember. It’s simpler than an online calendar and easy to use.
• QuickNotes is like a little post it pad for your desktop. It saves automatically too.
• PasteEmailPlus lets you save text that you use often and paste it anywhere. If you have text files saved (think email to buyers thanking them or letting them know their order has shipped, etc.) this will streamline the process to one right click.
• GreaseMonkey allows you to run Etsy Hack scripts, designed especially for Etsy sellers.
• For full instructions & more about EstyHacks go here

Author: Andrea from www.kitsandcaboodles.etsy.com

Our Top 10 Tips for Time Management

• Organize your work space and daily routine.
• Be realistic with your time.
• Focus on your goals.
• Don’t procrastinate.
• Take one step at the time.
• Create “me” time when family and friends know not to interrupt you.
• Create batches of time for certain tasks. For example take all your photos for the week in one session.
• Use all the resources you can to save time.
• Make lists to stay on top of your daily tasks.
• Relax! Don’t work yourself too hard. A stressed out seller makes more mistakes.