Yesterday I posted a simple tweet:
"Sales slow? Try this: Pick 5 items in your etsy shop, raise the prices by 20% or more, renew them and then Tweet and Facebook the items."
I got so many replies that I thought I would better explain myself. One reader said she had started a 50% off sale to generate some income but it wasn't working. She wanted to know why she should raise her prices.
When people are searching for handmade items they expect to spend more for them. Yes, perhaps, they can order something similar from China for a fraction of the cost. People today are trying to get away from spending their money of cheap mass produced items. So, they are searching for handmade items.
Every time I raise prices on items in my shop I experience a bump in sales. That means I was probably underpricing myself to begin with! Anytime you have a sale of over 25% - 30% without a reason, such as a holiday or celebration, people see that as desperate and are not likely to take you up on the sale.
I wrote an eBook about How To Price Your Handmade Items that really spells out the how and why of pricing. It is only $3.50 but is a wealth of knowledge. In the eBook I go into detail on how your pricing is regarded by your customers. You should also look at you competition and see how similar items are priced. When I say competitive, I mean people who are selling the same type of items you have. And I mean selling, not just listing the same type of items. Your competition is the one who is outselling you with the same product type.
I hope that clears things up a bit. Let me know what you think. Leave a comment or send me an email: MarketMyShop@gmail.com
I see people say to renew items all the time. So are you telling me that people really throw away .20 all the time or is there another way? I mean, I could see doing that if I got more revenue, but...
ReplyDeleteCecella,
ReplyDeleteI combined this article with this one http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2011/putting-your-shop-on-top-etsy%E2%80%99s-most-relevant-search. The article I linked says that items that are posted recently are more likely to show up in the search results. So renewing it might lose you .20, but may help when people are searching for an item that you sell because it will come up higher in the search page(s).
Renewed items are also likely to show up in the feed, so they might get seen there too! I go thru phases of renewing 2 or 3 items a day. Personally, I wouldn't renew more than that just for the sake of renewing them, but I see sellers in the Etsy forums say they renew MANY more items for this very reason.
ReplyDelete