Business Tips - Packaging and Tagging

I know, I'm sorry. I just don't give you enough tips for you business anymore. After all, who wants to hear about the crazy lady next door ripping open her garbage and throwing it all over the yard, or see pictures of the tree that fell on our house. You want to see better ways to sell your wares, right?

I had to share this one, because I'm very proud of the idea. I've been wanting to wholesale, because I really hate craft shows, but online just doesn't get the traffic I need. If only I could sell what I make at the winter holidays, all year round. But to be able to wholesale, you have to still have a profit with a hefty discount, and I didn't have many items that could support that.

Recently I started making bow ties. They're very popular and material cost is decent. Time needs to be worked on, but I see ways that making larger quantities can cut that down. My bow ties are easy to use and can be sold at a pretty decent price for bow ties.

The problem with wholesale is packaging. You can't just tissue wrap and tie with ribbon. Smaller items need to be carded or window boxed. I ordered clear pillow boxes, but those still need cards and the cost is bout $.25 each.

Then I thought that Post cards might do the trick. They're about the right size I could match them to my business cards, and have info and care instructions on the back.

Here's the front and back of the card. The bow will be on the front and the ribbon band will wrap across the middle of the back. I can reasonably make custom cards for the seller too. And I can whole punch the center for hanging.

There was a sale. So the cards cost about $.10 each and they are nicer than if I printed my own, which with ink, could cost more. Click to enlarge. I got them at overnightprints.com. Their quality is pretty good and I like their postcard size better than Vistaprint.

My daughter uses business card to print little tags, by having 3 tags printed across the vertical card. She cuts them in strips and uses a swift tagger to tag them on a seam of her clothing. Merchandise can't be returned to her if the tag has been removed. Another clever idea.

When you buy business cards on sale from vistaprint.com, they are incredibly reasonable. Much better than printing your own tags.

I'm also considering making fabric labels at spoonflower.com. Their quality is much better than my printer printed labels, and at $15 a yard, I can get a LOT of fabric tags made. I think I can use a spray fabric stay to keep them from fraying too.

Hope this gets your creative juices flowing. There's a lot of innovative ways you can use the resources available to you. Why you could make cute tags for your jewelry boxes from those little business card strips, couldn't you? Oh and of course you can make business cards or post cards too.

Bizz Buzz - Relevancy of Adtuitive

“…I found out it is not what happens, it is how you tell it and who does the telling.” 
― Nancy Willard

I promised to give you all the information I could find on all the Etsy changes and what the heck relevancy does Adtuitive have. Because I have been permabanned (like permamuted, but with a blocked IP address, and yes they really did) from Etsy I can only give you information and links I have found on the internet, but I'll do what I can. 


You, of course can find all the information Etsy has to share about relevancy (slim to none), but what do others have to say about it? I love ecommercebytes.com because they have the latest info on all top seller sites. Here is a Great post on the Why of relevancy Etsy Pulls Trigger on Relevancy Search


There are so many tips on relevancy that I just can't list them all here. EVERYTHINGETSY has some good ones. Here are more great tips from Brittany's Best. You can search Etsy Relevancy for more great tips.


I can tell you though, that relevancy is pretty direct, logical and intuitive. ARTFIRE uses it, and it took me some time to get the Etsy brianwash out and us it. For instance, go to Bing or Google shopping and search Black Eyed Susan Jewelry. Look at what you find. It's my necklace at Artfire. 


Relevancy is simple. Look at what you are selling, It's not a Midnight Amanda Parabola. who the hell is going to look for that? Etsy Trend colors terms will only get you other sellers (but might get you in Treasuries or Finds. I guess Etsy is going to have to watch what they preach if they want  peapod to only pull up pea pods and not every shade of light green.


I also found that although Handmade Jewelry or Sterling Silver may be the most searched terms via Google Analytics, there is too much competition for that out there. You would get better results from Blue Stone or Orange Flowered Hat. If it's a shoe, call it a shoe, but whatever you do don't use the term RED HAT, because you'll get saturated with competition for that Red Hat society, unless that's what you're selling.


So what does all this have to do with Adtuitive? Here is what EcommerceBytes has to say about that. Etsy is not divulging much information on it's Adtuitive information, other than that they have hired 5 "Etsy simpatico Geeks" to work on it and probably integrate with their "Showcase". 


As relevancy trumps recency in search results, the money they were making from your frequent $.20 relisting fees will be vanishing like the popularity of the moustache festooned mugs. And as Google and Bing shopping search results don't bring outsiders to Etsy, I would venture to guess that the new Adtuitive in combination with Etsy Showcase will. Hold on to your wallets guys, Etsy is not through raping you yet. So enjoy the break while you can, because while you are all struggling to get found, I'm picking up sales like mad at my Artfire shop.