Tuesday 20 November 2012

Updating my Etsy shop again!

After the last post I updated my White Oak Jewellery site so that it links into my new White Oak Jewellery Etsy shop.

That made me see just how many mistakes I had made in the listings on Etsy - I was trying to speed things up and keep listings looking similar so I had been copying one listing to make a new one! Not a big mistake really, but if you copy an "earrings" listing to make a "necklace" listing it's probably best to try and make sure you change the category of the listing from "earrings" to  "necklace" too otherwise the listing appears in the wrong category. Doh!

Anyway, I fixed the mistakes in the listings I had already made, and linked my website entries to the relevant Etsy listing using a "Buy Now" button. Then I uploaded the site to the web and thought it all looked good.

Of course, it turns out I haven't finished with updating the site - I forgot a couple of pages had prices on them. So now I'm working on a new set of listings for the Etsy shop. I'm trying not to let the same mistakes as I made before happen, but it's slow going.

I will get there in the end, then finish the links on the site.

Then I would really like to spend some more time making jewellery. Having recently bought a Dremel 3000 with flexshaft so I can more easily polishing sheet metal - I plan to play around with some sheet copper/silver. I have so many ideas floating around my head and sketch pad.

Wednesday 7 November 2012

As expected - so many months since last post!

It is now November (as seen by the date on the computer today) - where has the time gone!

My last post was about a pamper evening I went to in March, by almost happy co-incidence, I was at a pamper evening type do on Thursday 1st November.

Again it was an evening where I expected not to sell anything while spending my time enthusing about my hand made jewellery to anyone that would stand still long enough for me to open my mouth. In the event, not only did I enthuse to a lot of lovely ladies, but many of them picked up a business card or a postcard (both with pretty pictures of my work and the website address on them) and one lovely lady bought a bracelet from me.

I enjoyed the evening apart from one factor - I had a hacking cough! I'm sure the other people in the room just loved the sound of it but everyone seemed happy to chat, or listen while I talked anyway.

It also pushed me into doing something with my White Oak Jewellery website that I've been meaning to do for the last 2 months.

As I mentioned a few posts ago (which makes it round about Jan 2012) I was looking at setting up a shop on Etsy. Well, I've done it. Very early on I had set up the banner, and the basics of the shop, e.g. terms and conditions, basic description of me etc. But, back in July 2012 I actually listed 5 items in my new Etsy shop! And people have been viewing those items too. No sales so far, but it's early days yet. As you might expect, my Etsy shop is called "White Oak Jewellery".

At the pamper evening on 1st November a number of people asked if I had a web site and having said "yes" I also pointed out that I have a recently opened Etsy shop too and that the web site links to the shop.

This link means that I only have to put the prices in one place, which will please the Etsy team as their conditions do say "don't list it elsewhere" and it means if the price needs to change for any reason (i.e. increases in the cost of materials) I only need to change one place. It does mean that the White Oak Jewellery website needs to have links to the listings on Etsy but it also means that I have to keep the listings on Etsy active - they are only listed for 3 months at a time. I'm hoping that this needing to keep listings in my Etsy shop active means I'll keep a more pro-active interest in the business.

Anyway, I started last Saturday by making active a set of listings on my Etsy shop for the items also listed on the web site (not everything being listed is available on both yet). Then I spent a few hours changing my White Oak Jewellery website to have links to the Etsy shop listings under "buy now" buttons. It was a very interesting exercise, and slightly nerve racking as I realised a few of the listings on my Etsy shop contained errors in the text, doh! So those errors got fixed and my White Oak Jewellery website now links to my White Oak Jewellery Etsy shop. Job done!

Now I just have to list everything I've made and have for sale on Etsy at least, and then link to as many of the listing from the web site as I can be persuaded to do.

I hope you'll drop into both the website and Etsy shop and have a look around.

Until next time

Anne