Jan 28, 2014

Cool things I found to help run my Etsy shop


As an Etsy shopkeeper;  I am a big supporter of teams and making treasuries. I know a lot of people see treasuries or try to make one and it takes hours and hours.  Searching for the right items, copying and pasting the links, saving it and then sending a convo to everyone that is your beautiful new treasury.  UGH, it can be overwhelming!

My little secret, which isn't that big of secret anymore is  ENHANTSY.  Enhantsy had a few hiccups in the beginning and it works great now. I joined it and pay the $2.00 a month to use all the features, because I use it all the time.
It was free but as of January 27, it will be free for one week and then the charge will apply.  Personally I think it is the best $2.49 to spend my money on.  I think of it as advertising and promotion money. (I do not do the ads on Etsy - ever!)  Since every time I make a treasury - and I mean every time, my views go up, my likes, and followers go up.  I believe and my experience backs it up that treasuries improve the traffic to my store and in turn my sales improve.  Also by making at least 3 or 4 treasuries a week, and that is a very very low estimate I am in turn featured in on the low side about 15-20 treasuries a DAY!
Treasury featuring EVT members made with Enhantsy

This application works directly inside Etsy, Enhantsy works by tightly integrating with etsy.com making enhancements and features requested by the Etsy community but not implemented by Etsy. Some enhancements are re-introducing functionality once present at etsy.com and since removed. Others are new ideas not (yet) implemented on etsy.com.  Enhantsy sits at the top of your etsy.com pages and quietly rewrites them with new functionality. Once installed an Enhantsy link is displayed in the links across the top of the page. Clicking this opens a menu allowing you to toggle which enhancements are enabled and gives links to specific Enhantsy pages.
Here are some of the things you can do with Enhantsy - There are more!
  • Treasurease - what you use to make the Treasuries
  • Treasurease Clone - use an old treasury you made and CLONE it into a new treasury
  • Treasurease Convos - instantly send Convos to everyone in the treasury you just made!
  • First dibs - have all new stores and new items show up on your home page -
  • Canned Convos - have several Convos preset to send when you create a Treasury

Want to know if an item from your shop or a treasury you made has been featured on the Front Page?
check out Statsy - Featurator   this will send you an email anytime an item or a treasury you made is on the Front Page - Statsy has some other cool features but I only use Featurator.

Another one is Craftcult.com  CraftCult   With this you can add treasuries to Blogs, webpages etc, use the widget. Also checkout the VAULT on CraftCult- you can look up treasuries your items have been featured in or all the treasuries you have made, you can do this in search in Etsy from the main treasury page too

Some other features but these are the ones I have personal experience with.

 ShopValueCalculator.com
Here you can see top shops on Etsy, the estimated value of YOUR OWN STORE!, views and all sorts of great into.  Don't get sidelined at the top stores, they may have lots of sales, but quite a few are very low value items.  I don't know about you but I want to make sure I am making a decent profit on the sales as I have them and not selling tons of little stuff for $2.00 I see that as a time suck.

Then I just found Etsy Gadget  This one is by donation, so if you love it you can donate to the author.  I think the shop status is the best use of this site. With shop status it will sort your items by view and admirers, AND the best use is it will let you know if you are missing keywords.  It doesn't tell you what keywords to use, but if you are like me you will have a bunch of items you renew over and over and they may have less than the 13 keywords.
 You can also see where your products fall in search, and where your store falls when searched by keyword combinations.

Last one for now is Etsy Fee Calculator  from Ecommercebytes.com
It will help price your items, this works for both vintage and handmade!
Just fill in the shaded fields.   Review the breakdown of fees based on the data you entered.
 If you accept PayPal or Etsy Direct Checkout, check the appropriate box.
  Use Profit Calculator to help you price your goods.
You can also check ratings of online marketplaces, all kinds of them - and find some new ones.
Another great thing is the Collector Corners Resources
Ecommerce Bytes has a ton of good info, and links to all sorts of great things - I haven't even scratched the surface.


 Have Fun!


5 comments:

RJ's This and That Boutique said...

VERY informational! I know the big "T" can be scary to some, but the proof IS in the puddin'...IT DOES WORK! This is a lot of great info on how to make treasuries easy and fun. Personally, I love making them!

jenscloset said...

Wow! Great info, thanks so much!

Unknown said...

Great information! I'll be checking out those tools, they sound very useful and well worth the cost. Thanks!

Happily Era After and The Vintage Reader Etsy Shops said...

Thanks for all the good info! I'm going to check out some of those suggested sites!

Unknown said...

Great info Patti! Thank you for putting it all together so we can refer back to this when needed!