Indie Seller Tips - Social Sites

 So many of you have been told to post your product on tumblr, pinterest, wanelo, or make friends on Facebook or Twitter and get a good following so that you can get more exposure and sell more. Get a link on blogs or even get your own website. What is the right thing to do?

Here  is my experience.

I have posted my merchandise on many sites. If you are lucky to get posted on a well read article, like a LOOKBOOK for fashion or a jewelry or home magazine if that's you product, fantastic. This will bring you a lot of business. It not it has been recommended that you post on tumblr or Pinterest. From my personal experience, I have not received any business from either one of those sites.

I definitely do believe that making a store twitter and Facebook account are important to support whatever other social site you are using. But don't just rely on the autobots to post for you. Show up in person and leave a little bit of yourself there. Say hi to your friends. Share yourself, but don't share too much. This is a tricky subject and best left to another post. Just make yourself real and likable.

As for where to post? I am positive that it is different for different types of merchandise. I find that I get the most direct sales from Wanelo. I can see direct correlation from my visits to my sells. I actually get a lot of visits from google shopping, but those rarely make sales. Wanelo makes sales.

I also get a LOT of visits to my shop from RebelMouse. It's a nice little social network that just reposts sharing tweets or facebook posts. Seems to bring people into the shop.

I also get a lot of visits from my website and from blogs I have ads on. If you have a website, make absolutely sure that you are using your metatags to show what you sell on your shop so that people can find you in a search. Also make sure to occasionally post your website socially, even if you don't sell directly off of it. Any posting you do will rank you up on search engines. The more visits you get, the higher your ranking. Remember, your website is there should you decide to switch selling venues. People will know where to find you.

Remember to give Wanelo and RebelMouse a try. You'll like them I think.

Life on Mars - A Series of Fortunate Events

I've been writing this other blog Four Months - A Diary of Progress and I have to tell you, the encouragement and compliments I've received there have almost gone to my head. You see, I've decided to emerge from my menopausal fog and do SOMETHING with my life. That means earning a decent wage...I think.


It's been a kinder week. That whack job of a customer left me stupid negative feedback "BuyerBeware!Seller cancels-After I won it-Claims item had sudden"serious issues" That's going to keep buyers away. Did you ever have a customer who didn't believe their item was damaged after you apologize and refund their money?


But that was last week and this week things were kind of nice and quiet. There was some bad weather, and I did almost slide down our hill with the car. The older boy did slide down our steps outside, holding a bowl of soup, which got spilled all over his clothes. His dad saw the aftermath in the snow and worried that one of the boys got very sick. The younger boy was crossing the street with me, talking about being careful not to slide down the hill, when all of a sudden - feet in the air and he was gone, and laying in the street. It was all pretty funny, no one was injured.


Neighbors were quiet. No one was hauled off in an ambulance for a UTI this week. I really didn't get as much work done as I wanted to, but I did accomplish a bit. I also earned enough money to buy a few things to launch some of my plans. I bought packaging for my retail items and a website for my product designs. Still working on both. 


If only all weeks could be as productive and quiet as this one. Well the oven rack did pop off the bracket and the two pans of lasagna did land on the kitchen floor and I did loose 2/3s of one of them. Could have been worse, we could have lost all the lasagna.


All in all a pretty good week. 

Putting it Together - Organizing for the New Year

I'm spending a little of my time organizing my life. Don't know if I'll be successful, but I'm going to try. Every day I'm planning to do something to to reach certain goals. The problem is I have too many goals. Well not really, the goal is to make enough money to live independently. Cheaply, but independently.

I've given myself a deadline of 4 months to decide what I am going to do to earn that money, and I'm documenting it in a mini blog. Four Months - A Diary of Progress I'm really hoping it will be progress, not failure. Join me at least on occasion, to see how I'm doing. 


There are a few things that I'm doing to reach my possible goals. The first was to create my website akacinders.com. I told you about that one a previous Putting it Together post. I made a website for my daughter too. When I buy Weebly Pro, I can have up to 10 websites, and while I was putting together my product designs, I decided that I should make a site for those too. A password protected site that has files only a potential client can review, so they don't take my ideas. I can do that on Weebly too.


I also came across this great seminar by Scoutie Girl. Wish I could take it because I'm not very good at emailing to raise awareness. I am going to start emailing more and try to get people to sign up for my emails. I use MailChimp and I did send out ONE email this year. I have to work on that a bit. I will be having bits of advice and web specials if you want to sign up. It's right over there --->
Oh and Tara is a person to watch. She has some pretty great advice.


I also applied to be a featured artist and I will try to make spectacular pieces and try to find some magazines or contests I can enter them in. If anyone knows of a place I can put my work, please let me know, and when I hunt a few down, I will post them here for you. 


Hope you all have a great week and spend a little time organizing your craft and your life too.

Putting it Together - Website

I am so excited about my new website and HOW EASY it was to build, I had to share with you again. The last time I mentioned that I was working on a Website (here) it looked a little different. I wasn't so happy with the design so I worked on a different design template. It was soooo easy.

Here is my plan. I want this website to support my Artfire shop, and be a place where I can offer wholesale options to Brick and Mortar shops. I also want to offer, high end, unique designs on my Web Site. Take a look at how it's developing akacinders.com.

Also I didn't have my own domain, well I got a cheap one at GoDaddy.com and it was so darn easy to set up and for the first year only about $9 with tax. Look for a discount. Maybe at my favorite spot for that, retailmenot.com. I just followed the instructions for adding my domain from GoGaddy to Weebly, couldn't be easier.

Now I tried the website tonight at GoDaddy and I had the account for a year without ever being able to set it up.   I just love the Weebly ease of use. Look at this. You pick a template for your page and work with that. The toughest thing to do is make any graphics you might want. Maybe just a banner, like your Etsy or Artfire one. Now, grab the feature you want and pull it onto your page and edit. It's a SNAP.

I wasn't sure about making a shop either, but that is sooo easy too. If you have PayPal or Google Checkout, Weebly is set up to work with that. All you have to do is authorize it. I made a shop, but it is not visible, because I really want to have web only items for sale, and I'm still working on those. Click on the picture to go to my hidden shopping page if you want to explore on your own. I will be revising this one.

I f you've been thinking about a Web Site, like I was, but were afraid to try I can't begin to tell you how easy it is. Weebly has a Free site option or a Pro for about $60 a year. You can have 10 websites on your pro account. That doesn't include the domain (website name) but there are several places to buy that. There are a lot of options, but they are clearly explained on Weebly. You can use my link for a free month of pro (here) or just go to weebly.com.

Hard to tell from a blog, but I'm really excited about this. I just wanted to share my pure delight at how easy this was to set up. Don't get me wrong, it does take some time. Each picture is linked to my artfire shop and I had to go back and forth between sites and upload all the images. It takes time, but if you can list on Etsy or Artfire, or worse yet, eBay, you have got it made! OH, and PS, don't forget to add your metatags in advanced settings.

What Evah! - Websites and Whatnots

I still have lots to do. Bathroom and all. That's almost done. Hopefully this week I'll get the trim up and I'll post some new pictures. But with all the orders finished and packed, I'm getting bored.

I had this brilliant idea. I need to sell my Jewelry in Brick and Mortar shops. So how do I do that. I can't walk all over the country. I also want to focus on shops that will appreciate my eco-friendly flowers. So I'm starting by designing a Web Site. I started with the cool one from Weebly. If you don't have a site yet, they have free ones and the pay ones are pretty reasonable too. The thing I really like about it is that it is so EASY to set up it's sic.

I got the free one for now, I'm still working on it but I like where I'm going. Something good to work on to keep me busy on the slow days between Christmas and New years, before Valentine sales. If you're interested use this link http://www.weebly.com/link/UDhLfS to start yours. You will get a free month of their pro service when you use the link (I'll get one too, thank you)

When I'm done with my website. I'll be sending samples of my flower jewelry to various stores, first in my home town, then around the country. I think, garden societies, floral designers, and health food/naturalist shops will be great places to start. I'm only offering items that I can produce at a reasonable price so that they can be marked up for the retailer. I think I'll have to make some new designs too. Maybe with other recycled materials like glass.

So what is a whatnot? Merriam Webster "any of various other things that might also be mentioned" Word of the Day! Now back to the Bathroom trim and whatnot.