10 tips to increase webshop traffic part - 1

One of the most frequently asked questions on webstores of handmade items seems to be how to increase of-site traffic. I don't pretend to be an expert on those matters, but I have got some tips that work, so decided to put them in an few articles to share with the world.

1) Keep in touch with your old customers, maybe they will do a repeat buy or recommend you to others

I think this is perhaps the single most imporant rule. In Marketing / Sales, there is an old saying: "Gaining a new customer costs you 10x more than keeping an existing one. Provided that your customers were satisfied with whatever they purchased from you, one thing is sure: they either liked what you make, or they bought a present for someone that likes what you make. Either way, they are potential customers to come back and do some more shopping! Key question of course is how to get them to do it.
Here are some idea's to do just that:

• Offer coupon codes with an incentive to do a repeat buy. You'll be surprised how much it is valued by customers to get a small price reduction on their next purchase.
• Add some freebees to your shipped item, such as a fridge magnet or a pagemarker, that way you keep on top of your customers mind.
• Add your customers to a mailing list, or ask them to sign up. Which one you choose depends a bit on your relationship and communication with your customer. New anti-spam regulations demand you to be very careful in just sending unwanted mail to your customers, so make sure you don't get a spam-tag to your name. If you send mail to your customers, you can either ask them if it is ok to add them on your mailing list, or alternatively, to be on the safer side of things, ask them to sign up themselves and send a mail with the link to the subscribe page.
• After a few weeks, send an e-mail to your customer requesting if they are still satisfied with your product. This is a great time to immediately ask them to fill out feedback if by then they still did not give it

2) Link your page to FB and regulary post items there

Distribution of Amount of FB friends

Its surprising to see how much time and effort some people put into maintaining their Facebook page. And the good thing about that is that it gives a great chanche of you not only bringing your items under the attention of your FB Friends, but also the friends of your friends! Why is that important? Studies have shown that the average amount of friends a FB user has is over 100. So the potential amount of people that with one click could see your items or store is 10.000! (100x100). 

In order to put this to effect of course, you need to interact with your friends. Make sure they appreciate your postings (so don't overdo it!) and try t get them to like it or share it with their friends. Remember, everytime they like your post, all THEIR friends get to see it too!

3) Set up a twitter account for communication about what you are in to.

Twitter is a great little tool to interact with a growing customer base. Here too, make sure you don't just SEND, don't just swamp people with links to your store or items, but try to add some value. How? Tweet link to interesting blogs, news articles or other items your customer base might find interesting. Consider to set up a seperate twitter account for your stores activities. You might not want to mix private updates like, "Oh My God, my Daughter just won the annual Spelling Bee Competition!" with your potential customer base, although it is a good thing of course to make sure in your tweets now and then to show you are a person, it greatly helps with building a favourable relationship with your followers.

With Twitter, don't just send. Do a search now and then on interesting Hashtags (#) like #Fashion, #Jewelry or #Vintage. It will point out interesting  tweets to which you can respond or show you new interesting people to follow. If you're on Esty and do Jewelry for instance, add in tweets about your jewelry #JewelryOnEtsy, they might retweet your tweet, potentially hugely increasing the visibility of that item.

And last but not least: Link your Twitter account with Facebook so tweets will show in your timeline.

4) Start your own blog. 

Start your Blog!

Why? Well, you're reading THIS blog right? And thats exactly why: It creates interaction with your potential customer base. If you use the right Tags, Words and Titles in your blog postings, more and more people searching for related terms on the Internet will find your Blog, click on it, maybe read it but at least it creates interest. 
So when you have them on your page, then you need to "Lure" them into your store. How to do that?

• Put Etsy Mini in the side panel.  Its non intrusive, but highlights some of your items and are an easy and effective way to get them to click on your store.
• Hook the blog up with FB and Twitter to promote it. People interested in you on one platform are most likely to start following you on another.
• Blog about your own items. Don't do it all the time, but now and then talking about the creation of a new item, something that gave you inspiration, or how your items reflect a certain trend is definately worthwhile!
• Blog about other stores. Probably your first reaction will be: "Why do I need to put my competitors in MY blog?" Well, easy. If you choose the right stores, the store might also feature you. And their customerbase is potentially also yur future customerbase. Maybe not the wisest move would be to feature a store that is in directly the same field that you are, especially not if they are cheaper! ;)

But a word of caution: A blog is not for everyone. Some people just don't have writing skills and / or the time or stamina to write blogs. And there is nothing more depressing that a blog with the last post dating back a year or so.
It costs time but its a great way to get the messages across. 

5) Link your store's url on Linkedin if you have a profile there.

I assume you have an account on LinkedIn. If not, my first advise would be to set one up. LinkedIn is a great way to keep in touch with business-relevant people such as suppliers, prospective customers and maybe even editors who can feature you!
Now, Linkedin has an interesting feature: you can actualy list up to three websites to your account. So use one for your webshop, and one for your Blog if you have it. But when you do that, do it in a smart way. If you go to the Profile Tab, and click on "Edit Profile", you can add or change the websites by clicking add or edit. by default it will say: "Personal Websites", Company Website or Blog. After that you have a window to enter the URL in. Now, most people just enter the URL there. That is, for SEO purposes, not the best way. If you choose "Other", another field will open where you can put the websites Name or description. If you put your webstore's name there, it will greatly enhance the findability of your webstore's name. The URL you put in the field after that.
If you also link your Twitter account to the one on LinkedIn, your updates will also show there. You can set settings for "all tweets" or just tweets containing the #LI hashtag.


In order tot to make this post too long, the remaining tips will be posted in a few days. So stay tuned for part 2!

6 things to increase international sales

Okay, so here I went, posting a discussion on the Etsy forum: little did I know it would generate so many replies: 119 as I am typing this blog, but surely more by the time you read it.
Since in my last blog I raised a few questions, and the reaction on my post gave insight on what some people felt about the possible answers (at least from their opinion), let me share the results with everyone.
After all, crowdsourcing is in.

By the time I analized this, 40 US individuals had given their opinion on the issues I raised. Here are the results.
Of the 40, 35 said they did not have any real problems with buying from international stores, located outside of the USA. Thats a good score. The remaining five however, did have fundamental issues preventing them doing International orders. Of those 5, 1 reason was sort of patriotic, wanting to support US economy, one was due to the fact that international stores often only accept Paypal as a payment option, a service the customer did not want do signup with. The other reasons quoted for not wanting to shop international were of a more practical reason: costs. Either the cost of International shipping, or the costs of the goods themselves, due to the weaker dollar.

So, 5 out of 40 (12,5%) seems a good number. But we have to put this in perspective.
Don't forget that 62% of all 10 million Etsy users are US Based, according to this report, accounting for around 6,2 million customers, still amounts to three quarter of a million users that DON'T want to buy international. A sizable amount indeed.

But thats not all. In fact, only 17 (around 50% of potential international buyers) say there is no reason why they would not buy international. The other 50% list a number of apprehensions on buying from a non-US store. The graph  here shows what are the quoted reasons. 
The vast majority say the shipping cost and the shipping time are huge barriers when it comes to ordering from an international seller. Obviously, we want it, and we want it NOW is the key here, and adding another 10$ for postage is not a very enticing idea. The next big one is the cost of the goods, basically due to the low dollar exchange rate compared to the UK pound or Euro I guess. Well, the financial markets have recently partially done their best to reduce that difference ;-). 


So what can international sellers do about this?
I guess the following 6 pieces of advise can be distilled:


1) Make sure you have a clear shop policy, stating what international buyers can expect in terms of delivery times. Don't make promisses you cant keep, the shipment process is out of your hands, but a positively surprised customer is a better ambassador than a disappointed one. And be sure to put in your policies that any surplus on the actual shipping price will be reïmbursed, and adhere to it!


2) Minimize the transit times by clearly filling out custom forms, not including shipping costs in the declared value and (for US adresses) follow this link to the USPS zip locator for a correct addressing which seems to shorten the transit time (Thanks to Helen from Frenchsoul for this tip!)


3) Maybe, include part of the shipping rate into your item price. Now this is up for debate. Some will in no way want to do that, even if it is not to deter local buyers. On the other hand, since 62% of all potential buyers are US based (and international of course a lot more!), this might be a good strategy. After all, a lot of buyers will see a relative high shipping price upon checkout, and decide to cancel at that point.


4) Since most buyers can be found in the USA, make it a point to get good feedback from your international buyers, and maybe also ask them, in their feedback, to put something on the real shippping time. After all, uncertainty on it seems a large deterrant for many, even though some national US shipments also take some time.


5) Be sure to have a unique product. After all, if a US prospect buyer can choose between simmilar items, one international with potential shipping delays and high shipment costs, and one that doesn't, you can't blame them for choosing the latter.


6) Maybe most importantly: respond fast and clearly to all questions or remarks, gaining potential buyers' trust and, above all, get them to become repeating customers. 


Good luck selling!