Being Found - the results

After many months of building up my little Etsy shop, improving my searchability, picture taking, inventory, and a little promoting, my traffic is pretty consistently averaging 65-100 new visitors each day, and about 200-400 page views. I don't know if that's good, but I know it's growing and that makes me happy.

I started using Google Analytics as soon as I knew about it. Between Google, Craftopolis, and Statsy - there are so many tools for Etsy shops to know where our customers are coming from, and how we were found. The data mining really appeals to my no-so-inner geek.

So of course last Tuesday, at lunchtime, I hit up my Analytics and saw 137 visits already for the day, and the pie chart showed a big influx of traffic from Etsy's newsletter app. I watched the traffic in amazement all day (between calls to my favorite gem supplier for more garnets!).

Net results? For the day of the newsletter: 1574 visits + 6395 pageviews! It tapered off, of course, in the days following, but I'm still seeing a few visitors from it even today. My shop has been tagged as a Favorite by about 100 new Etsy shoppers, and yes I had a whole bunch of sales ;)

So, back to normal now, but I'm putting up some new items this weekend trying to get close to 100 listings, and to maybe create another design that catches the eye of the next newsletter compiler.

Etsy Finds - Found my Garnet Earrings!

I'm so excited! Every day Etsy admins put together a daily email of the "Finds" - estimates are in the 200-300k range for the audience. I noticed yesterday that one of the Admins marked my garnet earrings as a favorite, and today here I am in the top row of "Under $50 USD" for the Valentine Shopping Guide!

To view the whole guide, visit here:  January 25 2011 Etsy Finds

And here are the earrings, also one of my real personal favorites!

The traffic today alone is already tenfold in my shop so I'm going to make this post short for now, and go back to spamming my "sold orders" page to keep up with renewing!

As I mentioned the other day, I want to focus more on adding necklaces and bracelets this year. Here's a start: Rubies in sterling necklace.

This citrine bracelet took seemingly forever to create - wrapping each of 15 stones carefully - but I'm pleased with how it turned out. These coin gems are a really beautiful color of amber.

I'm going to work on a new banner also for my shop - so I laid out some of my favorites in a row:

Love the decadence of lots of stones all together! Will work on this later in the week.

2011 Orchid Show - Fort Lauderdale

Mum and I have been going to this January show for at least a dozen years. We've got this thing down to a science (two laps, one to peruse, one to buy), and enjoy mocking the overpriced, understocked, and no-it-won't-bloom-for-2-years-who-are-you-kidding sellers.

This year we were committed to not buying any more white Phals (I think I have a dozen). I picked up a red Asc. with roots more showy than blooms, and a pair of red Phals potted together (4 spikes, 3 feet each - this one will be showing off on my living room coffee table for the next 3 months).

I also picked up an Aerides - they don't usually bring them to the shows as they are late spring bloomers - maybe mine will do the same!

Things I didn't buy, but were awesome, starting with this black orchid: ($200 blooming or $80 for a baby..yeah....not happening!)

This vanda won "best purple vanda" in the show, it was almost a grey purple, very cool:

And I found some Paphs and Catt's also - (Paphs still creep me out, so Day-of-the-Triffids).

I said no white Phals, but behind this one shop, there is this ramp, and a backstage area, I always sneak a peak at the stock sellers are holding for the 2nd day, and just, well, how can I resist - they perform so well!

Boca mini-show coming up over valentine's weekend!

Grape Clusters

For some time now, many of my earring designs have focused on either a single focal gem, or trio of stones, usually accented with some other gem, but a simple theme.

I made my first "cluster" (8 stones in one earring) in December, in blue Iolite, which promptly sold to a return customer. I made them again, and then decided to go a little Bigger with design of garnets. These red earrings are getting lots of visits - of course it is January and red is popular for Valentines Day.

These are the original Iolite:

Now larger in Garnet:

So I went back to the Iolite and made another longer design the same as the garnets. And now greens with a similar design in Peridot. These take far longer than other designs to make, and of course use a lot more stones, but I really like how they are turning out.

Resolutions - ok so I'm a bit late

1 - No more "graduated" strands of gems. I'm a bit of a perfectionist OCD freak. Matching pairs is probably my biggest time suck of designing earrings. When that strand catches my eye "8mm - 14mm" I must resist the urge and go looking for smaller variation ranges, or none at all. Just gimme a strand where they are all the same size is that too much to ask!!! Ok this is easier with rondelles and small stones, but the focals, briolettes, etc., not so much.

2 - Build inventory - Getting the shop up to 100 listings by January close, and 200 by November ready for the next holiday season. This will be harder than it sounds, but the most successful jewelry shops on Etsy all have 2-3-4 times my inventory and I want to be competitive.

3 - Diversify - more necklaces, and hey why not some bracelets. Necklaces actually are a good way to use those single stones left over with no match - I have this one great strand of citrine where a good 3 or 4 NICE big perfect stones just are too individual, so this will help me with #1 as well.

4 - Make more Etsy treasuries. Fun, free, exposure, and networking all in one. Yes, a bit time consuming but most good things are. 1 per week MINIMUM! Like this one:

Pretty in Pink

5 - Lose 10 lbs, run more, etc. etc.

6 - Blog more!

Etsy Finds - Featured in a high traffic Treasury

It's not the coveted "Front Page" (yet), but it's certainly more exposure for which I'm very grateful to the Treasury Friends Team (and Retropops!).

Every day Etsy sends out an email - Etsy Finds - to the subscribers (shops and buyers), est. about 200k folks. They typically include handpicked items within a them and sometimes link to curated Treasuries by members - needless to say these emails get good readership and traffic, and so do the resulting links.

My garnet earrings (the ones I wrote about the other day) have been placed in a few treasuries lately, including one that made it into the Finds email on Jan 4. I saw a large uptick in traffic as a result.

(that's me, 3rd row down on the left). Nope they haven't sold yet, but I'm not worried about that - there's tons of browsing for garnets and reds between January and Valentine's shoppers right now, the extra eyes on my shop is good enough news for me.

New Year, New Designs

Happy New Year!

I've enjoyed relaxing the last week or so with a break from the "real" job. Got a few new designs up in the shop as a result. More in my head to come, and some more strands of gems on the way. My near term goal is to get myself up to 100 different creations in my shop by the end of January.

I indulged in a fantastic strand of deep blue Iolite that has inspired a simple necklace and a few pairs of earrings:

Not entirely sure I like my new background style, but I wanted to try something a little different and the contrast with the bronze candle dish gives a neat effect I think.

And these garnet cluster earrings are my new favorite design:

Overall I was very pleased with the traffic and sales my little shop produced in December - earrings went everywhere from California to France and to Australia - it was nice to see a few sales after Christmas as well. I put up a coupon code sale for this holiday weekend on Etsy, hoping to kickstart January!