Mutants

Like everything else, headpins are subject to natural selection. Especially with 28 gauge argentium sterling silver, there are plenty of headpins that get a little wacky. Here are two (three, actually) that didn't make the cut. Not to worry - the scrap will be returned to the metal shop and recycled.

More is more

If you've been keeping an eye on my shop you'd see that I've been adding tons of new styles/gauges of headpins. My goal is to become more of a one-stop shop for headpins (especially sterling silver) because few other sellers on Etsy offer them and I know from experience it can be a pain to amass all the various types of headpins you'll need.

20 gauge argentium - as suggested by a customer. These would be fabulous to bend into earwires - just don't forget to file the ends so they don't slice anyone's earlobes open.

22 gauge argentium - great as earwires for very light earrings or for larger beads.

24 gauge fine silver gauge headpins

...and now any headpin order can be oxidized for a flat fee of $5. I'm seeing a lot of jewelry artists do some amazing work with oxidized metals, so I figured I'd make their lives a bit easier.

So there you have it! More headpins you can shake a stick at.

My very next project is adding 24 gauge argentium headpins...it's a glaring omission I will fix soon.

As always, these headpins (and more!) are available in my shop.

Twitter: you're doing it wrong

Yesterday I saw a blog post by a fellow Etsy seller in which she gave detailed instructions on how to have your Twitter feed automatically update with your shop listings.

I follow a few people who do this. I don't know why they do it, nor why I continue to follow them.

Imagine this: you're at a cocktail party meeting new people, exchanging some witty banter, and chattering away happily.

Then a new person arrives and all they do is plug their business. They don't care about what you have to say: they just want to repeat news of their GREAT DEALS and NEW INVENTORY and the like.

That's when you ignore them and hope they'll go away, right?

Twitter is like that cocktail party.

Twitter does not need to be spammed with automated bullshit. By subjecting your Twitter followers to this crap, you are:

• Boring the pants off your followers
  
• Alienating your current and potential customers
• Wasting a perfectly good opportunity to use Twitter to have interesting conversations, gather useful information (Twitter is like a free focus group) and handle customer service inquiries
• Wasting a good opportunity to show your customers our human side - which, after all, is the whole reason they're following you on Twitter
• Wasting other people's time
• Adding spam to an Internet that has plenty of spam already, thanks

Talk about mundane stuff all you want: your baby, your dog, what you ate for breakfast. That stuff, at least, can be the start of a conversation. And it reassures people that you are, in fact, a person and not some sort of robot. Hell, talk about the process of making stuff and selling it. We're all waiting on stories of creativity and glue gun accidents (especially glue gun accidents). Maybe once in a while, have a bitchin' contest or promotion (note: that is not the same as yelling FREE SHIPPING FREE SHIPPING at your followers every five seconds).

So, my plea is this: keep Twitter random and noncommercial. Don't fuck it up with your spammy nonsense. You're only losing business, bub. Actually, I would really love to hear the story of someone - anyone - who has gotten a single sale from doing this.

By the way, follow me on Twitter if you want to argue about this. Arguing 140 characters at a time is one of my many talents.

Penelope Trunk on being an artist

I just discovered Penelope Trunk's blog today, so I can't vouch for her, but she has an interesting piece entitled How to Build a Career as an Artist. Some money quotes:

The starving artist routine is total bullshit. I know because I did it. Once you know that you are not going to make rent, you can't really make art.
...
Your art reflects your surroundings, and you can live like a pauper, but that limits the range of your art.
...
So if you think you're an artist and you are not making art now, but you think that in the right circumstance you'd make art, you are lying to yourself. I'm sorry. But it's true. Unless you are starving. If you are starving, see point number one: You need to get a job.
...
Are you making money and you're wondering if you should quit your job to do art full time? Take this test: Did you marry rich? Do you have a trust fund? Do you have reliable buyers for almost everything you produce? If you did not answer yes to any of these, then keep your day job.

I think the last point is particularly important. Etsy has a whole series of articles called Quit Your Day Job. It's an irresponsible thing to push, especially in this economy. Incidentally, many of the artists featured in the Quit Your Day Job series are supported by a spouse.

Why I buy 200-foot-long spools of wire

Via kottke.org, an except from a book called Art and Fear:

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the "quantity" group: fifty pound of pots rated an "A", forty pounds a "B", and so on. Those being graded on "quality", however, needed to produce only one pot -- albeit a perfect one -- to get an "A". Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the "quantity" group was busily churning out piles of work - and learning from their mistakes -- the "quality" group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

Put another way: practice makes perfect, especially when it comes to art.

Or, put yet another way: the way to have a good idea is to have many ideas.

Artists: go forth and make your 50 pounds of pots!

Seven ways Etsy can improve in 2009

I've been thinking about website usability and online communities a lot lately. That's partly because it's my job. But I've been thinking about Etsy's usability and community specifically. I also read a fascinating book – "Why We Buy" by Paco Underhill – that focuses a lot on the ways that retail spaces can be made more amenable to shoppers. Since a longer time spent in the store translates to higher sales, retailers need understand what frustrates, annoys or confuses shoppers – and, alternatively, what delights and engages them.

At work, when we're reporting on the success of our clients' sites, we often take note on time on site as a significant KPI. It's amazing how small tweaks can translate to much more time on site – and better sales.

So, back to Etsy. The whole reason I joined Etsy as buyer, a couple years ago, was because I liked the products on the site, and I thought the community (i.e. sellers) were neat. I still believe those things, but Etsy staffers – as creators of a major online community of crafters, tinkerers, buyers and sellers – sometimes screw up, bigtime. And they're missing tons of opportunities to make their site more amenable to buyers and sellers alike.

So here are my ideas:

1. Diversify currency and payment options

Adding Google Checkout would increase sales overnight. So would adding support for British pounds and other currencies. E-commerce is global. It's pretty amazing how provincial Etsy is in this regard.

2. Expand Etsy services

I have a few ideas here, and the beauty is that they would make life easier for sellers, life more fun for buyers and would add to Etsy's bottom line.

a. Encourage the use of gift certificates and coupon codes that are valid sitewide

Etsy currently bans gift certificates. Not only should they reverse this stance, but they should enthusiastically embrace anything that keeps Etsy buyers returning to the site.

Before making any purchase online I search around for coupon codes - and I'm not the only one. Why not offer a coupon code (for $5 or $10 off, say) to new buyers, in order to entice buyers into the Etsy fold? Even if Etsy completely ate the cost of these discounts, I have a feeling it would pay off in buyer retention and the lifetime value of customers.

I'm not the only one who thinks that Etsy needs to do more to attract and retain buyers. Loyal Etsy shoppers are the site's biggest asset, but it doesn't do much to woo them or keep them interested.

As for coupons that are good sitewide: consumers love gift certificates – period. And they don’t always have the time or the desire to shop for the perfect item. Sitewide gift certificates would be immensely popular among the spouses and friends of handmade aficionados, and would help build up Etsy as the #1 online venue for handmade. It would help establish Etsy as a cohesive marketplace for handmade merchants.

b. Offer sellers Etsy-branded goods and services, such as packing materials printed with the Etsy logo

All sellers need padded envelopes, gift boxes, packing tape, and the like, especially when they are first setting up a shop. Etsy can make a profit - and increase the strength of their brand - by selling these materials (Etsy-branded) to sellers. They could also offer some materials gratis to new sellers when they sign up – that would increase sellers' loyalty to Etsy (they aren't the only handmade venue, after all) and help new shops run smoothly in those crucial first weeks and months – which helps Etsy retain shoppers.

3. Allow sellers to gather information

Access to information is addictive. Etsy should do more to promote education among sellers:

a. Promote access to analytics data

Etsy rolled out Google Analytics, but it was badly botched and it's giving sellers useless information. It's insane, really.

If Etsy needs an impetus to fix analytics, here it is: Access to accurate analytics will allow sellers to optimize their shops, leading to more sales and – wait for it – more money in Etsy's pocket, via fee collection.

b. Allow sellers to incorporate surveys into the buying process

This is especially important since sellers don't have access to meaningful stats. Allow sellers to ask their buyers a few short questions after they've completed a transaction. Entice buyers to fill out the survey through contests and the chance to win coupons (valid sitewide) or other cool stuff.

4. Streamline and improve the checkout process (for buyers) and listing process (for sellers)

I shop on Etsy all the time and the checkout process still trips me up. Streamline the checkout process and buyers will come back more than they do now.

If buyers had access to Etsy's shopping cart abandonment stats, they would be shocked. For e-commerce sites, shopping cart abandonment rates of 20-30% aren't uncommon – and that's with a smooth, one-step payment system. Buying stuff at Etsy takes two steps. It's confusing and disjointing and I have no doubt it puts off lots of buyers – not to mention the myriad buyers who don't have a PayPal account or aren't shopping in U.S. dollars.

Similarly, the process of listing an item is needlessly complicated. Making listing a one-page process.

5. Remarket to buyers - elegantly

When I first began shopping on Etsy, I found it kind of amazing how little Etsy itself seemed to care about the process. After learning of Etsy through blogs, I found shops I liked (with no help from Etsy's search), picked out some fine art prints I liked, paid, and then…nothing. After receiving the confirmation emails from PayPal and Etsy, I didn’t know what to expect, really. The prints came in the mail a little while later, and that was it.

Etsy misses opportunities to connect and re-connect with shoppers at several points. For example:

a. Right after shoppers order something, many sellers take it upon themselves to convo them to confirm receipt of the order and to tell them when they’ll ship the item. Others convo buyers as they ship the item. Why can’t Etsy automate this process? Sellers have a dashboard where they can mark items as “shipped” – why not have that action trigger a convo or email to the buyer telling them their item has shipped? Nearly all other online retailers send out Shipping Confirmation emails. Why doesn’t Etsy? Why put the onus on sellers to do it manually?

b. At the conclusion of the payment process, guide shoppers back to Etsy so they can fill out the seller’s survey, sign up for the seller’s newsletter (if they have one), or shop more items from their Favorites. Better yet, do what Amazon does – show shoppers “related items” based on color, type, cost, etc. Even a simple algorithm based on item tags can put appealing items in front of shoppers’ eyes in the moments after they’re purchased something. (To Etsy's credit, they did add a little screen with "items from your favorites" after you purchase something, but that's horribly simplistic for this day and age.)

c. Give sellers tools for sending out email newsletters or writing blog posts right on the etsy.com domain. Both keep users coming back to Etsy – adding value to individual shops and Etsy as a whole. (I know this will never happen because Etsy is has kindergarten-esque community standards, but hey, a girl can dream, right?)

d. A week to ten days after a user submits an order, send them an automatic email asking them to leave feedback for the seller. Also, present them with other items they may like.

Those ideas were all Remarketing 101, basically. Some would be construed as spam by buyers. Obviously, Etsy would need to sort out opt-in processes and such. And they would need to listen, very very carefully, to customer feedback.

6. Fix search and employ filters

First, Etsy should fix the site’s horribly rudimentary and dysfunctional search. The search needs to encourage shoppers to search early and often, because it’s the #1 way they’re going to find stuff to buy.

Additionally, Etsy should work on behavioral targeting, so search results are customized based on users’ earlier queries and whenever they buy an item, they are presented with others they may like (a la Amazon’s insanely successful “you may also like….” feature). If done well, this feature could have the feel of an excellent salesperson at an upscale boutique – the kind that suggests a beautiful matching belt when you’re buying a pair of pants. (Similarly, it would be amazing if the front page was populated with items that the algorithm predicts a user may like based on their Favorites and past purchases.)

As for filters – searchers today, especially on e-commerce sites, are used to being able to sort and filter items in many ways. Any set of search results should be easily sorted by color, price, date added, and so on.

Clothing e-retailers like Bluefly have really put filters into action. I’m an especially big fan of their clickable color swatches, since clicking around on colors is a lot more fun than having to search something like “gray sweater.” (Etsy has already taken a stab at this, in this bizarre Colors thing, but it's a toy rather than a useful tool that acts on sophisticated user input.)

7. Listen to your community

I don't have time to read the forums or poke around in the other community features much, but I do peek at Closed Threads. I'm not in the least amazed by the crazies and jerks that come out in the Etsy forums, because every online community has them. But I am amazed by how much contempt Etsy's staff has for the Etsy community, how determined they are to ignore user feedback, and how eager they are to censor legitimate community discourse.

This article by Muhammad Salim – How to Survive a Social Media Revolt - says it much better than I can. Etsy staffers would do well to print this out, highlight it, underline the best bits, and read it every day as a refresher on how communities really should be run. His very first lesson – Communicate Even if You Have Nothing to Say – is especially applicable to Etsy.

So there you have it - my seven wishes for Etsy in the new year. They represent a complete 180 from the way Etsy currently approaches its operations and community, which just goes to show that Etsy is ignoring many marketing, website usability, and online community best practices.

Experimenting with light

My lighting setup has now been enhanced with two small battery-powered lamps (thanks, Mom!). They emit a bluish light.

For comparison's sake, here are my Primrose Earrings photographed using the old setup (one halogen desk lamp and a lamp with a plain old incandescent bulb):


And here are the same earrings photographed with the two new lamps arranged on each side of the photo box:

So, which do you like better? The biggest quibble I have with the new lamps is that they seem to wash out the delicate golden colors of the earrings a bit. In real life, the earrings have lots of rich golden tones, which is what I need to convey in the photo.

This picture uses the new lamps, and it's a bit more true to life:


However, you can still see all the blue cast onto the photo.

Of course, the real magic happens when I let my trusty blue paper to make the earrings pop:

In this photo, the lamps add more light to the photo without distorting the colors too much.

So, which setup do I use? Do I aim for ultimate truth in advertising, or add some pizzazz to my photos with interesting blue reflections?

I still need to test the lamps on blue-toned pieces. It's likely they will really enhance the colors. Also, I have some bright orange paper to test out!