December 15: Newsletter Time

For a long time, one of the benefits of etsy was that it could bring massive traffic to your shop, much more so than a stand-alone website where no one could find you. Lately, though, I think that situation has reversed: it’s much harder to be found on etsy now with the increased competition, whereas sending customers to your own shop means they not only “stay” in your shop, but there’s also less fees.

When friends of mine have asked their etsy handlers about their drop in sales or search relevancy, they’ve been told it’s their own fault; they need to promote etsy over their own personal sites, which is of course a bunch of malarky.

All that to say I’m of two minds when it comes to how to promote my digital collage sheets, and where to send potential customers. For the moment, I’m all about etsy. So when sending out my newsletter today all the links pointed to my etsy listings (thus a higher than average day sales-wise). And since sales often beget other sales, in theory there should be a snowball effect for the next couple of days. That said, it’s definitely time to re-vamp my personal site as well. Being beholden to a company that can make major changes on a whim is not a great long-term solution.

By the way, here's what my most recent newsletter looked like, in case you're curious.

Day 15 - December 15th
Etsy Sales: $36.78
Etsy Views: 608/day
Total Etsy Items: 392
Updated Etsy Items: 5/392
Facebook Likes: 321
Instagram Followers: 500 (finally!)