Beat The End of Winter Blahs & Sell!

It's that blah time of year. The weather is overcast, likely chilly and seems like it's been the same for days. Combine that with tragic events in Japan and it's easy to see why people may not be buying.

What do you look for at the end of Winter? A change. Cheerfulness. Gardens. Moving homes. Rearranging furniture. Spring cleaning. Freshening up. Summer vacation planning. Weddings. Graduations. Mothers Day. Fathers Day. Anniversaries.

Green Enamel Brooch & Earrings by reconstitutions

Why not provide what people are yearning for?


Brighten up your shop. Look at your shop with an objective eye. Stand back from your computer by 5-6 feet. What primary color do you see? Brown? Grey? White? Just like everyone loves the feel of crisp white sheets in the Spring, they'll be attracted to your shop if it feels light and bright. Make it feel fresh, alive.

Vintage Cake Pan by CheekyChicVintage

Make your shop feel all new, ready to be discovered. You can either re list items or use the custom sort feature. Think of it like a treasury-give your customers a reason to come back to your shop. I like to swap out my featured items every 2 days and rearrange the front page every 3-4 days. I have noticed the featured items get marked as favorites every time I change them.

Vintage Suitcase by MellowMermaid

Rephotograph older items to give them a new look. While your old photos may be fabulous, if the item is still in your shop, perhaps it needs a new perspective. I recently bought OTT lights. Wow. My lighting has improved 100% and so have my photos. I'm now slowly going back and redoing all my original photos. It's been working! Several items I've done this with have sold within 10 days.

Citrus Litho by vintagegoodness

Raise your prices! While this may seem counter intuitive, it's actually quite sound logic. As I've blogged about here before, it's vital to know who you're marketing to. Since we can't read minds, you can operate with some general information. What's the pricing comfort zone for an item to decorate the home? If you're drawing a blank, look at Potterybarn.com or CrateandBarrel.com. Both are very popular with the 30-50 age group. Both companies are blatantly copying vintage designs-and you're providing the real thing! Raise your prices and show that your items are worth it. Nothing causes the "what's wrong with it?" suspicion more than prices that are too low.

Pear Pottery Bowls by Shoptastic

Provide companionship. Are you talking to your Facebook fans? Do you treat them as potential friends or just as an audience to sell to? No one likes to be advertised to all the time. Stop just showing them your new listings and treasuries. Ask them questions. Tell them an anecdote about yourself. This also works well on your blog. Everyone likes a conversation to contribute to, especially in these bleak last days of Winter.

Seed Starting Tray by birdie1

Think of all the catalogs that come out this time of year. They likely arrived a few weeks ago to get you in the mood. The scenes in them are staged differently for each season. Spring is about bright colors, a fresh palette and a clean slate. Update your shop and see your customers respond!

It's December 8th. What Can I Possibly Do Now to Boost Sales?

Vintage Marcasite Bow by popgoesmyvintage

I am an all year holiday shopper. I despise malls and I prefer to find unique items. Etsy was a dream come true when the site launched. I pay attention to what family and friends are into and try to find one of kind gifts for each one.

My brother is the opposite. He wakes up from an over work induced fog around Dec 20. He then madly rushes around getting gifts-ordering them off the web and paying for the high last minute shipping.

My family asks for lists each year from us. We oblige, searching for things we need. (We really don't need much-except for more chicken, dog and cat food, a farm hand and snow chains-unique, but not very fun to gifts to give!)

No matter what kind of shoppers are looking, our Etsy vintage stores should make it easy for them.

20% off Sale on Opera Glasses by hautecountryvintage

1. Keep listing. Make sure the shop is fresh. Yes, renewing your items counts a bit. But for those shoppers that know your listings and are just hoping for that awesome-amazing-out-of-this-world find, you need new things.

2. Rotate your item photos. A secret to a fresh shop isn't just moving items around. It's also switching your photos. Hopefully you have more than 1 photo that would look great as a thumbnail worthy of a treasury. Change them around. Amazing how our eyes gloss over things and then notice the littlest changes.

3. Advertise. Make treasuries. The more I've made, the more I've been featured in. Get your store name out there. Use the Circles that are under the Activity Feed link at the top. People are finding other shops and items based on who their circle members are looking at. This is viral marketing at its best-use it to your advantage.

Silver Lipstick Case by tippleandsnack

4. Stick with a consistent avatar during the holiday season. While it's tempting to replace your standard store logo with a cute holiday decoration, I don't recommend it. You want your shop to look familiar to buyers. There have been so many shops this season that I don't recognize. (why did I mark them for a favorite? I don't remember them!)  Buyers want to buy from shops they trust-especially since it's now December 7 and people are starting to get nervous about shipping.

5. Reach out to your Twitter & Facebook fans. Offer them a deal: free or discounted shipping, free shipping upgrades, free gift wrap, a store discount, etc. You have a captive audience. Capitalize on it.

Vintage Dollhouse by vintagegoodness

6. Include advertising in your packages. Never forget-right after Christmas and January are big shopping times. It's chilly outside and people are indoors. A warm computer screen is so cozy, isn't it? Remind this season's shoppers that you'll be around in January to help them find the gift they really wanted to get.

Whatever you do or don't do,  I hope you have a wonderful Holiday season filled with bubble wrap, packing peanuts and the frequent hunt for just the right sized box to ship in!

Is It Time to Grow?

"If only I could turn this hobby into a business, this would be my dream job."

Retro Business Sign by VintageGoodness

I've heard this several times recently. What sort of vintage seller are you? Are you new to it? Been at it for years? Just think of it as a hobby? Consider it necessary to pay the bills? Whichever level you're at, are you content with your sales?

Toy Cash Register by Calloocallay

Selling largely is a balance of consistency, numbers and content. Listing often keeps your shop fresh, puts you at the top of the vintage category, and indexes your item on Google. Making sure you have a variety of items, a wide range of prices and a healthy number of items listed keeps your shop interesting and worth returning to.

Perhaps it's time to expand your business. Ask yourself what kind of sales you'd like to do. What kind of dollar volume you'd like to make annually. It's easy to get intimidated by big numbers and to aim lower because it's more comfortable. Don't. I was told years ago that it's just as easy to think big as it is to think small.

WWII Poster by BookFiend

I find doing numbers in reverse to be very enlightening. For example, say I want to sell $200,000k of product in a year. Yipes!! That's a ton of money! But my handy calculator helps me wrap my brain around it. Take 200,000. divided by 365. (the number of days in a year) That roughly equals $548 dollars a day. Also a lot of money to expect daily.

But here's the interesting part-knowing your ASP. Your ASP, or Average Selling Price is critical. If your ASP is $35 (meaning 1/2 of your items are priced lower and 1/2 are priced higher) then you only need to sell 16 items a day at that price.

Bottle Opener by McYarnPants

That seems doable. Perhaps not by yourself, but with a helper you could manage it. Someone to handle shipping, or perhaps someone to post alongside you. Maybe a picker to find products and bring them to your door. Maybe a family member to help take photographs for you. Figure out what would be the most effective form of help for your business. The same formula doesn't apply to all of us. We all have very different needs.

I'm in the middle of this process myself and it's very enlightening. By breaking it down in terms of what has to to be accomplished daily and finding the resources to help, I know I'll be able to grow my business.

One of the keys of any well run business is an owner that focuses on their core strengths and surrounds themselves with others that they can delegate to. This might start by asking favors of family or friends and morph into hiring employees. My 7 year old loves filling boxes with peanuts for shipping!

Don't be an Antique Store, Be a Storefront

Ever walked into an antique store and been amazed by the vast inventory? I have. I used to wonder how they found things. It never occurred to me to ask how they sold things. Generally, most antique and vintage stores aren't completely in the business of selling. They're often more into the business of collecting and showing off those collections.

We're not in the business of showing off our collections. We're online storefronts. While it is important to keep interesting items in your shop to impress customers, it's also critical to price for volume sales. But equally as important is to make your shop accessible.

What are your barriers to entry? What keeps customers from finding you OR from buying? 

• Pricing (We've discussed this in previous blogs. Know your target customer)
• Getting found in Google Search (see this blog post)
• Quality photographs (covered in this post)
• Creatively presenting your item (this post discusses this)
• Shipping

Let's discuss shipping. Not altogether a sexy topic, but one that really can make or break a sale. Where do you ship to? Where WON'T you ship to? What won't you ship outside the country? 

A potentially hard to ship item

I see listings all the time that spell out all kinds of negative text for the buyer. "I only ship to the USA. I only ship Priority Mail, or UPS or whatever their chosen shipper is. I expect payment in 1 day or I will leave negative feedback!" Yikes!! Not a good way to start a relationship with a potential customer! (imagine if we started all relationships this way: "And if you don't put the toilet seat down, this is a no go!")

Frankly, I want customers. If they want me to bubble wrap it twice, wrap it in tissue, double box it and ship it to a small island off Brazil, I'm there. Of course, I make sure they pay for that. 

Don't assume your buyers know that "Everywhere Else" in your shipping means them. I put a lot of general countries in my shipping quotes so people get the idea I ship worldwide. Make it easy for customers. Don't make them hunt for information, or worse, assume. 

Yes, I've heard stories of scams. But if you ship it, insure it and package it well, you are protected. Why not reach as many customers as possible? Selling to a wide international base as been such a boon for me. I ship all over the world-from Spain to Taiwan to Argentina. Nearly 1/2 of all my sales online are from International customers. 

Easy to ship anywhere item

The post office picks up packages from your house now. UPS and Fedex do too. Priority Mail supplies are free. Yes, setting up a few different shipping profiles takes some time, but it's easy with the post office website (and some info from your local post office) and a scale. 

I have set up profiles for: 

1. Ephemera (light paper items)
2. Items up to 13 ounces USA only
3. Items up to 1 pound worldwide
4. Items up to 2 pounds worldwide
5. Items up to 3 pounds worldwide
6. Items higher than 4 pounds worldwide
7. Freight

Heavy, but under the 4pd 1st class limit

I just learned that while first class (snail mail) here in the USA has to be 13 ounces or less, worldwide it's 4 pounds! So shipping isn't as high as I've thought it to be. The reason I didn't know is because this information is NOT on www.usps.com. They push all international shipping into Priority or Express. I had to get this info directly from the post office, along with a rate chart. If you pay for a service like Stamps.com or Endicia.com you can do international first class. 

The barriers to entry for shipping have been removed for you. Now make sure you've removed them for your customers!