Thursday, February 5, 2009

Etsy Superstitions

When going on a dolphin survey, there is a well known rule which says "nobody takes their camera out before we see the first dolphin". Everybody at IMMRAC know that when a newbie gets their camera out too soon, we will be getting back ashore 5 hours later with zero dolphin observations.

Much like this, I have developed my own superstitions when it comes to my Etsy shop. The most obvious two are the following.

There will be no new sales till all old ones are shipped
Every now and again I get a back load of custom orders, or a couple of days with many sales. Until I go to the post office and am then able to check all of my "shipped" boxes, there will be no incoming sales.

No items are ever sold while on sale
From time to time I get discouraged of selling something and opt to have a sale. No matter if it is a buy one get one 50% sale, free shipping (never ever offer free shipping, that is the worst decision an online seller can make) , discount, whatever - no one never buys anything on sale. I even had a few incidents when people bought an item that was on sale the day after the sale ended.

One big happy naked family
My recent large custom order. Nothing sold since I had them made.
Thank God I finally shipped them the other day, hopefully I will get some sales now.


Do you have any Etsy superstitions? Please share them here if you do.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Basically a watched pot never boils...or in Etsy terms if you are always watching your Etsy store you won't have any sales

Sharona R - שרונה ראובני said...

Good point - if you sit and stare at the Majaba view counter, there will be no change in views.

Distressing Delilah a.k.a. jenn said...

Not really raisin, sometimes I just tell myself to walk away. When I come back, sometimes I have a suprise sale..well all of them are suprised I guess.

Sharona R - שרונה ראובני said...

They sort of are aren't they?

Each time I tell myself the "no sales" thing is silly, but it never fails. Now that I am complaining - it's like God likes my shop and wants me to make a better profit :o)

Barbra said...

You are so right about free shipping but I so want to lose some things in my shop. One more week and I'm pulling them out.

Sharona R - שרונה ראובני said...

I once lost so much on free shipping, without even realizing what I was doing till it was way too late. It is much better to simply have a discount on specific items you want to clear out.

Heather Leavers said...

LOL I have a good one. It's no good moaning about things not selling if they're not actually listed. I was getting really tetchy about my knitted dragons still sitting on the shelf - but I'd forgotten to list them.

Sharona R - שרונה ראובני said...

No crying over unsold non listed items, check!

ROFL