Debating an Artfire Store... Hmmm.

Tweet Before I went on vacation, there was a decent amount of buzz about the deal Artfire was offering for a pro membership.  If you haven't seen it, Artfire is pretty much a direct competitor to Etsy.  However, it's pretty new so it doesn't have the traffic and recognition that Etsy does. 

The biggest benefit of Artfire?  It uses a monthly subscription fee, not fees to list or renew items, and no percentage of sales fees.  The deal that was running in September was $5.99 a month for a Pro membership (it's now $9.95/month).  Etsy's search function displays the most recently listed or renewed items first in the results, so sellers really have to constantly renew to get to the top of the searches (20 cents per renewal adds up fast).

It looks like Artfire also does a much better job of getting its shop listings at the top of Google Shopping results.  Considering my recent obsession with SEO, this totally appeals to me.  More views means more sales, which means happy me.  And I hear their seller support is amazing - they have people that actually answer phone calls, for heavens sake!

However, I LOVE the look of Etsy and I'm certainly not closing my shop there anytime soon.  I think it's clean and polished, while Artfire kinda seems like a cheap imitator.  Also, people have heard of Etsy, which counts for a lot.  At the Rocky Ripple Festival I had tons of people ask me if I have an Etsy shop.  The fees stink, no doubt about it, but with my pricing structure I can absorb some fees (and Etsy has to make money somehow).  It's just REALLY tempting to try out a cheaper option.

My sticking point is the time I'd have to devote to maintaining two shops.  Luckily Artfire has an importing tool that allows sellers to import all of their Etsy listings.  Evidently you do have to change up your titles and listings a little bit because Google Search will ignore duplicate listings, making both listings disappear from Google search results.

I'm leaning toward trying it out through the holidays.  My marketing budget is super tight, so the $30 I'm going to have to shell out really chips in to some of the things I've been planning on buying (like a pop-up tent for shows and and a stronger sewing machine- look, isn't this one pretty?).

Here are some good forum posts if you want some more opinions.

• Etsy vs Artfire Post (via Etsy Forums)
• Etsy vs Artfire Post (via Artfire Forums)
• My Etsy Post

Generally, I think Artfire shops are getting the traffic, but not necessarily the sales.  Etsy is getting less traffic per shop, but more sales.  I think Artfire is at a turning point now - it could potentially grow quickly due to all the sellers who want to minimize fees, but if there aren't enough buyers, it's just going to fizzle.

Any opinions?  I go back and forth on this by the hour!  Artfire does have a free membership, but it doesn't include the Etsy importer - should I just retype all those listings to try Artfire for free?  Am I devoting too much brain power to this when I should be baking cookies or something?

Last Minute Craft Show Prep

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Yesterday my wonderful sister-in-law watched my kids all day so I could get some stuff done for the Rocky Ripple Festival.  I know I've said it before, but it is amazing what I can get done in an empty house!  I got everything tagged and ready to sell.  I also made some cute aprons - whatever's left after Saturday will go up in the shop next week after I bribe my little model with suckers.  I couldn't help but make myself a little apron to wear while manning the booth too.

I do have to run to Cash and Carry and pick up bags for those hundreds of sales that are surely coming my way.  I've been trying to prepare myself for the worst and hope for the best - even if I make (God forbid) no sales, at least it's practice selling at a craft fair, and it's getting my name out to people.  The weather is supposed to be beautiful - sunny and 72 - so if nothing else, I'll get to enjoy being outside all day.

Today I'm going to pile everything I need in the kitchen so Kenny can help me load my car tonight.  I went through this ridiculously comprehensive list yesterday and made my own (somewhat) shorter list of things to bring.  Let me tell you, I love a checklist - they make me feel organized.

Disappointingly, my SEO experiment seems to be headed toward failure.  My views are back down to where they were, and yesterday was even slower than normal.  It may be a combination of factors, though - yesterday I didn't add a new listing until almost noon, and my traffic peaks at 9 am.  Then, I was having Photoshop issues and didn't get my second listing up until 6:30 or so.  I'll give you a more detailed recap next week.

This weekend will be slow for views for sure - I'm going to put my shop in Vacation Mode Saturday so I don't have to worry about selling something on Etsy while selling the same thing at the festival.  For those unfamiliar to Etsy, Vacation Mode makes your listings inactive for a set period of time so no one can view them.  I'm pretty sure that's going to put quite the damper on my weekend page views.

Speaking of vacation, I'm not sure what to do when I'm actually on vacation.  Do I leave the shop open with a note that I won't be able to respond for a few days?  Or do I put the shop in Vacation Mode?  I probably won't have much traffic coming through when I'm not posting new stuff, but I'd hate to miss a sale.  I know sometimes buyers don't even read the shop announcement, so should I put a note in each listing?  If there are any Etsy sellers out there with advice, I'd love to hear it!

Look out for the Show Recap on Monday and have a good weekend!

Changing up the Shop for SEO

Tweet Thanks to all that SEO research last week, I made some changes to my Etsy listings on Friday.  First, I added the line "bobaloo! unique handmade gifts for kids and baby" to the beginning of each item description.  Then, I added "handmade" as a tag on every item except for the prints.  I also tried to add more keywords to the item titles which I think looks a little awkward.  If the new titles bring in more traffic, I guess I'm going to have to learn to like oddly long comma-filled titles.

I also rearranged some item descriptions so the most relevant descriptive terms come first.  For example, instead of the Diaper Clutch description starting with "The Diaper Clutch is a stylish accessory for every mama on the go", it now starts with "This listing is for a Diaper Clutch in a 2D Zoo print by Alexander Henry, lined with a cocoa circle print".  I don't think I changed them all, but that's definitely something I need to be conscious of for future listings.  I gotta tell you, changing all that stuff was monotonous.  I had 37 items to go through - I can't imagine what changing 100 items would be like!

I think it's a little early to tell, but I think it may be working.  Here's a screenshot from Craftopolis of this month's views.  The number over the little purple guys is unique visitors, the number below that is pageviews.  See how much higher yesterday (Monday the 20th) was the than previous two Mondays?  I'll give you guys an update later this week.

This screenshot also illustrates the wonder that is making it to Etsy's front page.  See September 1st?  That's the day I was on the front page.  My views stayed up for DAYS.  On Friday the 10th there was a link to one of my products on Prudent Baby, so that's why there's a healthy spike in pageviews there.

I got a fun new toy last week - a little Zyron sticker maker.  I bought it with a coupon at Michael's on a whim since it was less than $15.  I made some cute stickers to hand out to kids at the Rocky Ripple Festival this weekend.  Hopefully I have enough left - my daughter has been sticking them all over herself and her brother all week.  I think I may make labels for my packages with it, too.  I read somewhere recently that the scrapbooking craze is grown women reliving their Lisa Frank and Mello Smello obsessions of childhood - maybe that's why having a sticker maker is so much fun? 

I have a blog housekeeping question for you guys.  Do you prefer I respond to comments right in the comment section, or email you directly?  I like the idea of responding in the comments section, but I know I forget to subscribe to new comments via email when I comment on other blogs all the time.  Plus I like everyone being able to see the conversation.  On the other hand, I don't know how often people come back after commenting to look for a response.  Any opinions?

SEO and Product Testing (which means something free!)

Tweet After that first rush of orders, my sales have pretty much screeched to a halt.  I did have one last night from a friend (hi Kara!), but my pageviews are slipping slowly and I gotta shore up the dam before things get ugly.  I think my experiment with listing at my busy times may be helping a tiny bit, but it's too early to tell.  I REALLY want to be in a good position shop-wise when holiday shoppers start buying, so I'm doing my research now.

I'm going on a tangent here, but the holidays are on my mind today and  I'm obsessed with this holiday fabric.  It's Colorful Christmas by Riley Blake and some is on its way to my house now.  It is rivaling my love for Michael Miller's Funky Christmas, and that says a lot.

Back to business!  I've been reading and reading and reading about search engine optimization, or SEO.  SEO deals with setting up your shop and listings so they show up as high as possible in Google (and other search engine) results.  I'm still so new at how all this works, but I have been changing a few things around in my shop announcement (the message at the top of my shop page) and my item titles to use more common key words that people search for.  This great article on Etsy was a big help, and I thought this blog post on how Google Instant affects SEO was so interesting.  I'm going to work on implementing some changes over the next week or so and see how the shop views situation progresses.

After reading for a while, I tried playing around on Google Adwords.  I'm still thoroughly confused about that whole thing.  If I'm understanding its purpose, I'm supposed to enter an item name (like burp cloth) and see what keywords people searched to get to that sort of item.  I did that.  I got a page of stuff.  What to do with that stuff, I have no clue.  I'll let you know if I get it figured out.  In the meantime, if you have any good articles about AdWords you can point me to, I'll love you forever.

I mentioned in my last post that we just found out our one-year-old is allergic to peanuts.  Now I have to carry an Epi Pen around EVERYWHERE we go, so of course I needed something cute to carry it in.  This little pouch is what I ended up with after a four rejected versions.

Then it occured to me maybe I should sell these in my Etsy shop for other moms like me.  Since I'm new to carrying this bad boy around and could use some other opinions, I'm doing my first round of product testing!  It sounds so official, right?

So here's the deal.  I already posted on Facebook and rounded up four product testers, but I'd like one more.  If you carry an Epi Pen or know someone who does, leave me a comment with your email address so I can contact you.  The first to respond gets a free carrier/pouch in the mail in exchange for a little feedback.  You even get to keep it - hopefully it's so great you won't want to stop carrying it!  Oh, and the pouch needs a name too, so if you've got any suggestions I'm all ears!

Thanks for your help everyone!