Christmas On Etsy

Yes, believe it or not it is time to start thinking about your Christmas sales campaign! It's time to start thinking about what items you are going to be featuring, what type of gift wrapping services you are going to offer and much more!

I generally offer to do free wrapping. For me, it is quick and easy and helps to add that little extra something that gives your customer a smile. You can purchase inexpensive wrapping paper from the dollar store so you won't be out much and it might just be that extra something that makes the sale happen!

You may also want to think about posting mailing times. Most people forget that the mail slows down a bit around Christmas. So you might want to post cut off dates for your customers to get their items in time. With Etsy allowing mailing upgrades it is a good idea to have a link to your mail upgrades in each listing.

Of course there is a lot to think about between now and then. It is just time to start switching gears and getting ready. I am sure you're all going to have a Black Friday sale too! That is something that really needs to be in your planning stages right about now.

Over the next few weeks I will be posting articles specifically about getting you7r shop ready for the holidays so I would really appreciate any and all suggestions and questions. As always you can leave them here as a comment or send me an email to MarketMyShop@gmail.com

10 Tips For Holiday Promotions

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day and Christmas is but a month away. These are the biggest shopping days of the year. If you are having a sale you need to get the word out. Today I have come up with a few ideas to help you out this year and to prepare for next year.

1. If you can afford it, send a post card to everyone who bought from you during the year. Wish them a happy holiday and offer them a special deal. Maybe free shipping or 20% off. Mail this out the week of Thanksgiving so it is in their mailbox when they get home.

2. Send a virtual happy holiday card to all your shoppers. Same as above but no postage cost.

3. Tweet a link to your shop/sale 3 or 4 times a day. Make sure the tweet is different each time. Remember not everyone is on Twitter at the same time. Be sure to make some tweets in between so as not to sound too spammy.

4. Look for forums talking about sales and specials and post yours in the appropriate threads. Again try not to be too spammy.

5. Change your email signature to include information about your sale.

6. Put ads in Craigslist. This can really work, especially if you offer custom made items. Just be sure not to post the same ad more than once.

7. Get together with a few of your fellow crafters and put a cooperative ad out there somewhere. Maybe in the local paper or even a national magazine. What seems too expensive for you alone may not seem so bad split 6 ways or more. Co-Op ads are the best way to get exposure for a fraction of the individual.

8. Write a press release and send it out. That's right, a sale is newsworthy. Send it to your favorite bloggers, newspapers, magazines both online and off.

9. Make sure your listings have links to your sections, especially if you have a sale section.

10. Don't put anything on sale that you can't afford to. If your sale price is going to cause you to lose money, exclude the item from the sale and make it very plain. Or raise the price of those items so that if someone does want it, you won't lose money in the sale.

That is it for today. I hope each and every one of you have a happy and safe Holiday weekend. I will be back Monday. In the meantime, leave your comments or send me an email: MarketMyShop@gmail.com

Selling Holiday Items On Etsy and ArtFire

When do people start buying for the Holiday Season? There is no simple answer to that. Hobby Lobby and other supply stores leave some of their Christmas items up all year. There are even Christmas stores that keep their doors open all year long. I started working on my Christmas Ornaments, pictured above, in August and plan to have them up for sale next week. After that, I plan to leave them up all year long.

It is a good idea to use one of your 10 shop sections on Etsy for Holiday and Seasonal items. It is a little easier on ArtFire because they allow many more shop sections. I think it is worth it to keep the items up all year, even if it will cost you $0.80 a year on Etsy. It is free to keep your listing up on ArtFire all year long.

The rest of the Holidays, other than Christmas, should also be left up all year. There are plenty of people out there that decorate for Halloween all year long, believe me, I know a few. You just never know what people are going to buy. People may stumble onto your item in May and bookmark it to buy it in November.

Leaving items up all year long will help to prepare you for any and all Holidays. It will give you a bit of a head start on everyone else, too. Etsy sent out a newsletter that was a preview of Christmas and that will get customers started to get into the Holiday spirit and just maybe get into the buying spirit!