Juicy Sales Gossip PART 2!

I Do Premade Scrapbook Page 

As promised, here is the next announcement regarding the Black Friday Weekend Sale at PinkyCrafts (in case you missed it, yesterday I announced that all in-stock drink glass tags and wine glass charms will be $5):

**********All in-stock premade scrapbooks and premade scrapbook pages will be marked down by 15%***********

If you have somebody on your list that you're having trouble buying for, this may be your answer.  Scrapbook pages look so elegant and special when they're framed - I'll bet you didn't realize you could do that!  Frames are under $10, and can be found on sale for less at most major craft stores (Jo Ann, Michaels, etc).  Add your photos, insert into frame, and you're done.  You can even swap it out regularly, making it a gift-giving traditon each year.  

Ho Ho Ho Mini Paper Album 



Premade scrapbook albums - either full-size or the economical mini versions - are gifts that can be passed down to generations.  Every single time I've given one as a gift, their jaw drops, and I usually see tears.  These gifts are so thoughtful and personalized!

Just a reminder, the sale starts on Thanksgiving, and runs all the way through Cyber Monday.  To find other participating shops, just search "black friday etsy" or "cyber monday etsy" at http://www.etsy.com/, or check out SassyBelle's Spotlight to find a list of DTeam shops that are participating.  This list will be updated as new sales are announced! 

The third and final announcement about the PinkyCrafts sale will be announced tomorrow (and its a good one!).  Stay tuned!

Pssssst.......juicy sales gossip! Pass it on!



Black Friday Sale!  All in-stock drink tags will be $5!

Although it may look like there has been little activity over at PinkyCrafts (as evidenced by my lack of posting!), that is definitely not the case. I've been working on a little surprise for my customers: a Black Friday sale!  I'll be taking part in this fun holiday tradition, along with several other members of the Etsy community, including my friends on the DTeam.

Ok, technically, it's a 5 day sale - but that's just even better news for you. It begins Thanksgiving Day, and runs until the end of Cyber Monday.  I'll be releasing tiny bits of information about the sale up until Thanksgiving, and maybe even posting extra special VIP coupons throughout the sale.  The only way you'll find out the details of this fabulous sale is to stay tuned to this blog or my Facebook fan site (http://www.facebook.com/pinkycrafts).

Now, without further ado, here is the first announcement about the sale:

*************All in-stock drink glass tags and wine glass charms will be $5*****************

Like all juicy news - make sure to pass this information on!  More details tomorrow!

New, New, New!

Junior Scrapbook Album for Baby

I've just added a new line of "Junior" scrapbook albums to the shop as an affordable alternative to full-length albums.  Its important to me to have products available at different price points, because everybody deserves to celebrate life regardless of their financial situation, and traditional scrapbooks aren't exactly affordable.  I do make paper scrapbook albums, which are much more affordable, but they're also not true scrapbooks.  The Junior Scrapbook is the answer - an actual scrapbook album containing 10 fully embellished pages! With half the pages of a traditional scrapbook, they also cost half as much. Most of the cost of a handmade scrapbook album comes from the time it takes to create one. I wish I could offer albums at an even lower cost, but then I'd have to compromise quality, and I just can't do that! I'm really excited to bring this new product to my customers in time for the holidays, as they'd make great gifts for aunts, uncles or Grandparents. 

As of this writing, I've only listed the premade album pictured above, but I'm working on more. I can also create a custom Junior Scrapbook album for any celebration or event!  I hope this affordable alternative means more people can bring the joy of scrapbooking into their lives (wow, that was cheesy!).

Featured Artist Giveaway!

I am blessed to be the Saturday Artisan featured at Adore By Nat! This is my first major feature, and I'm so excited to be among such great artists that have been featured already.

Tomorrow, there will be a giveaway for a $15 gift certificate to my shop that will be good for any in-stock item OR good towards any custom order. There are a million ways to enter, but you have to go to the Adore by Nat blog to do so.

Head on over to read my interview, and go back tomorrow to enter the giveaway!

Its Christmas in July at Etsy!

While most of us are still basking in the glow of the summer sun, Etsy sellers around the world are hoping that you come inside for a bit and visit our Christmas in July sale!

Every seller is offering their own unique promotion. I'm offering free worldwide shipping on every order, plus 20% off when you spend $100 or more. I've added several new items already, and will be listing something new every day this week. The official sale dates are July 15 through July 25. Search Etsy for "christmasinjuly" or "cij" to see all the great items being offered at great promotional prices! Click here to go to my shop!

Here are some of my lovely D-Team buddies that are offering Christmas in July deals - click their names to visit their sites! I'll keep updating as I discover more:

DoBatsEatCats: Handmade Gothic, Victorian, and Chainmaille Jewelry

SweetPeaBoutique: Felt Play Food and Creative Fun

Melindotty: All things handmade and indie

DeborahJulian: Cat Note Cards, Fine Art Photos, and Giclee Prints

SassyBelleWares: handmade fashion jewelry and gifts with a touch of sass

FantasyBijoux: One of a Kind and Limited Series Eclectic Jewelry

LeslieGallery: Handmade Photo Boxes

UrbanHandiwork: Style and Functionality for the City

NerdJerk: Inspiring Smiles One Geek At A Time

It can all be yours....if the Price is Right!

Today I attended one of the Summit of Awesome seminars via the Etsy Virtual Labs on pricing your work and branding your image. Of all the sessions I've attended, this was by far the most thought-provoking and useful for me, especially the discussion on pricing. This section was presented by Marlo from Creative Arts Consulting. As soon as the PowerPoint slide came up that stated raising your prices = increased time and decreased stress, I was hooked! I've often felt that I might be underpricing my work, but I'm fearful of turning away buyers who are shopping for rock-bottom prices. Judging from the responses in the Lab, many other sellers are having the same struggle.

Within the Etsy Virtual Lab chat, we got into a discussion about how much each artisan was charging for their work. Several of us (myself included) were charging around $10/hour. The rest of the forum was shocked - including an Etsy admin! It seems the average rate is somewhere around $20/hour - twice what I was charging! Marlo had said "there is nothing wrong with selling your products at your worth", so my gears started turning.......am I under-valuing my work? Am I under-valuing my work by that much? Perhaps I am.

Marlo shared a formula with us to determin the cost of any item you list for sale. The formula takes the following costs into account:

-Labor Cost (how much your time is worth for how long it takes you to make it: the aforementioned cost/hour debate)
-Direct Cost (materials cost, packaging; all costs associated with creating your product)
-Overhead Cost (your shop's rent, utilities - monthly fixed costs related to your business

Initially, I tuned out the parts about Overhead Costs, as I work from home and felt I had no overhead; everything I use for my shop (computer, internet access, a space to craft, etc) is something we'd have in our home regarless of my crafting-for-pay status. However, attendees in the Lab suggested later that a portion of housing costs be considered your overhead in this situation - brilliant idea! Others suggested that we factor in education costs, non-product supplies like camera batteries, gas to pick up the supplies, etc. Unfortunately, I had already missed some of her slides relating to this, but I got a good chunk. She discussed figuring out how many items you need to make per month to break even, etc, but I'm not ready to go there yet. In this post, I'm only concerned with basic item pricing.

Marlo's formula for calculating your item prices looks like this:

Labor Cost + Direct Cost x 3 = Wholesale Pricing, and then
Wholesale Pricing x 2 = Retail Pricing

After the seminar, I went into my shop and looked at calculating the true value of my items; the thought of earning more was too exciting to put off until later. I debated on whether or not to give numbers here in this post, but suffice to say that when I calculated the cost of some of my pricier items using Marlo's formula (pricier items defined as items that were listed in the $75 - $85 range), I gasped at the suggested $250+ price tag - and this was just for wholesale! Even after I reminded myself that my work has a value, that I am doing this as my career and need to be paid as such, and that many of my items take 4+ hours to create, I still could not enter a $250 price for any of my shop items. I did work out a forumla I was comfortable with, using a per-hour fee that I feel is justified for my work, and my shop prices now reflect this.

Even though I didn't use her exact formula, I still feel that my shop grew by leaps and bounds today. Marlo said something else at the beginning of the seminar that really hits home now: raising your prices will help you feel confident as an artist (this was one statement that I didn't actually write word-for-word, so sorry Marlo if I was a little off!). And you know what, she's right. Deep down, I knew my work was grossly underpriced, but I was too afraid to do anything about it. I knew I wasn't pricing my work at a value that reflected the time spent. Now that I put a fair price on my items, even though that meant raising some prices substantially, I felt this surge of confidence! Several sellers admitted that they often saw an increase in sales after a price increase, and I'm curious to see if I have the same experience. Here's hoping!

I'm curious to hear the stories of other sellers; please feel free to post your comments below!

A Must-Read!

I found this wonderful blog this morning, and wanted to share. Its full of tips for online businesses, and I plan to read every post with a fine-tooth comb throughout the day :)

The blog is here: http://www.ataglancegraphics.com/

This one of my favorite posts so far about getting back to marketing basics (a very cute, yet very useful article!): http://www.ataglancegraphics.com/2010/05/back-to-basics.html

Free Shipping on Your Entire Order!

**Now that the promo had ended, the book used was Twlight!**

I really love shooting my item on printed pages, like books. I’ve always been drawn to those pictures and recently started doing it myself. I think its fun to try and see if I can figure out which book the artist used.

Now its your turn: I'll give you free shipping within the U.S.A. on your entire order (half-off shipping for international orders) if you can tell me the book used in my new Sizzling Summer Gingham Gift Tags:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/47709009/handmade-gingham-gift-tagsembellishments

Before you decide this is too hard, I’ll give you three clues; be sure to look at each of the pictures in the listing and click on each to enlarge, as different shots show different part of the pages. Here are your three clues:

1. This is a very mainstream book has been on the NY Times Bestseller List.
2. It is the first book in a series; each subsequent book has also been a Bestseller.
3. While the book has been read by men and women, the majority of readers are women.

If you think you know the answer, send me an email at mishelle.mccall@gmail.com. If you are correct, I’ll send you a coupon code! There can be an unlimited number of winners! After your order is completed, I’ll refund your shipping charges immediately through PayPal. Your free shipping code has no expiration date, but can only be redeemed once. Free shipping is valid for addresses within the US; all international orders will receive a code for half-off shipping costs. Contest ends at Midnight PST on May 31.

Your free shipping is only good in my shop; start building your wishlist: http://www.pinkycrafts.etsy.com/

Good luck! I hope you have as much fun with this puzzle as I do!

One week of independence later...

Let me just tell you: its strange to be in a hotel and not be on vacation! Even though our place definitely appears more like a condo or small apartment, my brain still knows its in a hotel, albiet an extended stay hotel filled with other relocaters. I feel like the loser vacation girl who stays in her room! But this is not vacation, its real life.

In shop news, I started working on new Party Packs: coordinating cupcake toppers and hor devours picks packaged together. I always appreciate parties with attention to detail, and I'm hoping my buyers do too! I also listed a Gift Certificate for the first time, after reading up on Oregon laws, that is. Who knew giving a Gift Certificate could be so complicated!

In personal news, DH's new job is on the brink of not working out. He's still in the training process, going out with other sales reps on their appointments to learn the ropes. Unfortunately, the company is trying a test market in a totally different area of the state, and DH has been required to travel down there. One negative is that because he's just sitting in, he's only eligible for a teeeeeny commission if a sale gets made - but there haven't been any sales all week. He's driving 5 hours round trip every day. We're not sure if he's even making enough to cover the gas costs. They've been scheduling him for the max number of appointments each day, so he leaves at 7:15am and often doesn't get home until midnight. *sigh*

We've agreed that he'll stick it out for awhile longer; this test market business won't last forever. It won't be as bad when he goes out on his own as he'll get all the comission if a sale gets made. I've encouraged him to talk to his boss about keeping him closer to home during training; I can't believe that a manager would be OK with a new employee spending money to work there! If I were a manager, I'd rather keep an employee than drive him out. Perhaps this wasn't meant to be, which is really disapointing. It's also scary to think that this amazing source of income will go away and we'll be back to living on savings. We'll wait and see.

Anyway, I've had three sales this week and I'm trying to stay positive! I even put out some applications of my own this. I'm a big believer in bringing positive energy into your life and trying to push out the negative energy, so that's what I'm doing. I'd appreciate any extra positive thoughts that my readers may have!

Drama in the Treasury East...

Anybody who has logged into Etsy this week knows of the drama that is Treasury East. Aside from the logistical concerns that most of us have now that Treasury Main and West have been eliminated (the hotness ratings, the fact that new treasuries don't get listed first, treasuries no longer expire, etc), we now have an entirely new beast to fight with the mature content issue.

The bloggers over at Etsy Bitch have articulated a wonderful article on this, and I encourage you to read it, no matter which side of this debate you are on. Some very important points are raised, points that I didn't even consider.

This debate will go on, I'm sure!

Link to the article: http://etsybitch.blogspot.com/2010/05/pricks-pussies-and-periods-oh-my.html.

Custom Wedding Favor Tags

Truth: I've always thought about being a wedding planner. Until that day happens, I'll just have to settle for creating new wedding stuff for my shop! I listed these today, they can be customized in your wedding color scheme with the bride and groom's names and their wedding date!

I used really similar ones for our wedding, and they were a big hit. These are meant to be tied to a little favor bag of Hershey Hugs and Hershey Kisses (I know, cuteness overload, right?). Can't wait to start customizing them for somebody!

New item news

Whew! I just spent all weekend in Arizona, cramming a week of seeing friends and family into 48 hours. I'm exhausted. I did hand out a lot of business cards, so that was a positive for the shop. I also used the plane rides to draw up plans for my new line of party supplies, which I am very excited about. I'm trying to think of a better generalization than "party favors" or "party supplies", since I think of noisemakers and themed paper plates when I think of that term, but I nothing has struck me yet. Maybe "paper party goods"? Hmm....I'll have to do more extensive researching with Google's keywords tool.

I will be developing party favor tags, cupcake toppers, and other fun party goodies to go along with my already-offered gift tags and such.

If you haven't stopped by the shop lately, please take a moment to check it out: http://www.pinkycrafts.etsy.com.

Evolution

I'm jealous of my Etsy scrapbooking buyers. Why? Because their scrapbooks will look so much better than my original works! I recently made several wedding-themed pages, like this one, and I found myself thinking back to my own wedding scrapbook. It was the first scrapbook I had ever made - big mistake. I wouldn't recommend choosing your wedding as your very first scrapbook subject. Most of my scrapbook friends were scared to do their wedding books even after they'd had years of experience! Not me; I couldn't wait to get started. Only now can I appreciate the style that comes with practice and experience. My wedding album is a hillarious mish-mash of random pages that didn't go together, is over-stuffed with very cheesy wedding stickers that aren't even my style, and has no journaling or personal sentiments.

Clearly, my style has evolved. There's nothing wrong with my wedding scrapbook, but some pages do make me wince. I've often thought about doing it over again, about taking one of my Etsy pages for myself, but I know I'll never do it. That was my style at the time, and it can always be useful as a "before" example! I'll leave the elegant wedding scrapbooking to my customers, and hope they post pictures of their finished works for me to drool over.

Attention Crafters!

I'm looking for other craft bloggers to network with - trade badges, blog about each other's shops, retweet each other's deals on Twitter, etc. We need to stick together! If you're interested in any type of networking, please send me an email at mishelle.mccall@gmail.com.

I Heart Google Analytics!

I have something new in my life, I hope my husband doesn't mind. It's called Google Analytics, and it's absolutely amazing (but then most of what Google does is amazing). This site has the ability to track how many visitors your page has had, where they're coming from - down to the city, how long they stayed on your site, how many were brand new visitors, which site (if any) they were referred by.....the sheer volume of useful information is mindblowing! If you're interested in which internet brower your customers are using, Google Analytics will tell you that too.

If you have a website, even if you only have an Etsy site, you must sign up! Its under "web analytics" on the left side of your "My Etsy" page. If you're not an Etsy user, but have a webpage, sign up here: http://www.google.com/analytics/

I've told you what it can do, let me tell you what it did for me. For example, I know that yesterday I had 89 unique visitors to my site, up from 67 the day before. I know that the majority of my visitors were from the US, followed by Canada, for a total of 17 countries. I could even see that the leading city my visitors were coming from is Corvallis, which is close to where I live. This tells me that either my mom has handed out my business cards like she said she would, or that marketing myself at the Jamba Juice (as blogged about below) has actually worked. I don't think that those people were just random visitors.

Perhaps one of the most useful stats is knowing how these shoppers found my site. About half of my traffic is direct, meaning they found Etsy on their own, without clicking a link or searchig. I am getting 25-35% of my traffic from Google, which I found interesting. It will even tell you what search terms the shoppers used that ended up clicking on your site. When I enter that information, I don't find myself, at least not in the first several pages. I've spent a TON of time on Search Engine Optimization in the last week, but its too soon for Google to reflect those changes. At least I know I'm still getting some search engine traffic. I can also see when my craigslist.org ads are working - I had four clicks from the ad I posted yesterday. Despite my Twitter addiction, I only had two shoppers that came from Twitter yesterday.

All in all, this information is extremely helpful. I can target my marketing towards certain demographics, I can see which tactics are working. I'm an information-loving gal, so I'm totally in love with Google Analytics. Sign up and you will soon be in love with it too.

Go On Girl - Get Out There!

Working from home, I really enjoy that I don't have to leave the house every single day. Some people might find this strange, but there's something so freeing about waking up and staying in your PJs all day, without having to put makeup on or do your hair. I don't do this everyday, but I do enjoy that I can do it some days.

Today was not one of those days; I was on a mission. I wanted to see if I could find the second book in the "86 Bloomberg Place" series at a local used bookstore, I wanted to see what deals I could score with my 20% off Total Purchase coupon at Michaels, and I wanted to take my first stab at promoting my business off-line. I struck out at the bookstore, which was a bummer. Michaels was also somewhat of a bummer. Nothing was already on sale, making 20% off Total Purchase coupon pretty useless. I did find some new die cuts templates on clearance (not elligible for the coupon) so all was not lost, but my outing was pretty disapointing.

Then the husband and I decided to stop by Jamba Juice, where I noticed a community bulletin board. They had a couple ads for local plays and businesses - I could totally post a business card there! A little disclaimer told me I needed management approval to post anything, so I mustered up my courage and asked to speak to the manager. He came out, I explained who I was and what I sold, and he gave me permission to leave a business card on the board! I was psyched, my first off-line advertising venue. I intend to carry my cards with me now at all times, just waiting to come across another wonderful bulletin board like the one at Jamba Juice.

Re-Shoot Number 1,000,000!

I love these gift tags. They're inspired by the fun spring colors in Oregon this time of year. I especially love this photo :) I've shot the set of gift tags this is advertised in about a million times, but today, I was finally satisfied. My favorite use for my gift tags (other than the traditional stick-on-a-gift-box approach) is to write the "to/from" and then tie one on a bottle of wine. I've given that combo as a thank-you or hostess gift in the past, and the recipient is always very pleased! I usually get more compliments from the tag than the fact that I just gave them free wine!

Here I am...my new Etsy shop!

I always said I wouldn't start blogging again, but here I am! I guess I just can't stay away :)

PinkyCrafts on Etsy (http://www.pinkycrafts.etsy.com/) has been live for nearly a month. Its been a huge learning experience for me. Its a good thing that I'm unemployed (or is it..hmm...) because it's nearly been a full-time job for me. Between making new products, photographing and re-photographing my items, and promoting the heck out of them - whew! I will say that it has been fun! I didn't have huge expectations for this shop, I just wanted to finally do something I loved and try to make a little spending cash out of it. I reason with myself that I can spend so much time doing this right now so that when I'm fully employed again, I won't have to spend my life doing it since I will have done such a good job getting it started.

The sales fairy hasn't visiting me often this month, but at least she has visited, and that's something to be thankful for. All in all, I'm really glad that the products I make, the products that I've already been making and gifting for years, can bring joy to somebody else. I love it!