Summer has arrived (hopefully)

Where has the first half of the year gone? I can't believe it's July already.  At least summer seems to have finally arrived though.  I just hope that we get good weather for the school holidays.

We live on the north east coast of England and our town's main beach, Sandhaven, was recently awarded with a Blue Flag award.  As we live here, I don't think we always appreciate how scenic our area is.    

Although, at times, the sky looked a bit ominous, the sea was almost totally calm.  

There are a number of artists and photographers who have produced some great pieces based on this beach and its surrounding area.  

One of my first landscapes was based on a scene from Sandhaven's neighbouring beach, Littlehaven and shows a view across the River Tyne with the Groyne Lighthouse in the foreground.  This little lighthouse was built in 1882 and is situated at the end of a small pier that was built to prevent sand from Littlehaven Beach being swept into the river by the incoming tide.

This design is available on greetings cards in my Etsy shop. 

Keep everything crossed that the good weather continues throughout the school holidays.  x

Etsy Shops

Today I thought I'd do a post about Etsy.  Although I have known about it for some time,  those who are not crafters seem to be relatively unaware of it.  

I opened my shop, Ruby Patch, in August 2012 and have had between 5 and 15 items up for sale for most of that time.  To date I have had a total of 4 sales!  Not a great outcome for the period of time I have had the shop, but when you compare the cost of putting the items up for sale, the minimal effort it takes to do the admin and the subsequent income earned, I have had a good return.

I have spent approximately £10 in fees for £100 of sales which isn't too bad in my opinion.  If only I could get more sales though.  

I have therefore decided to invest some time and effort in my Etsy shop and will share my experiences with you in future posts. 

My first improvements were completed today and consisted of:

Designing an eyecatching banner 

Your shop's banner should catch customer's attention and make them want to see more.  Here is my original banner - a plain reflection of my logo and name.

Although it reflects most of my branding well, I have changed it as I felt it was leaving too much of the banner blank white. Here's my new banner.

I don't imagine that this will make too much of a difference, but it looks more balanced on the page.

Standardisation of Photography

Last month I did a lot of work re-photographing my products inside of a whitewashed wooden crate.  I uploaded these photos to my website but hadn't got round to doing this on Etsy.  

Photo of Travel Journal

Unfortunately, I then discovered that plain backgrounds are more likely to get your products included in treasuries as they will blend well with other people's products if all of the backgrounds are similar.

New photo of Travel Journal

Personally I like the first version, but am willing to try the plain approach to see if it affects sales.

Uploading More Products

I am adding a lot more products, the total is currently standing at 29, and intend to add even more.  As it only costs $0.20 to list an item, it seems silly not to have had everything on here from the start.  After all, people are never going to buy products that aren't being advertised as being for sale are they?

Joining Teams

As with most other selling platforms, Etsy has very active seller groups, called Teams.  I have joined a few and will try networking on here for a while to see if this has any effect. 

So that's been today's progress.  I will update on any other adjustments I make and also on the astronomical increase in sales as a result!!  :)