eleen.com » etsy sellers

Big ole box o’ labels

eleen — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 06:22:16 +0000

I couldn’t believe a few weeks ago when I noticed that my supply of labels was running low, since that would mean that I’d run through over 300 product labels! I was like, “WHAAAT?!” I am a MACHINE, boys and girls! Eh heh heh heh…

So it was time to order up some more labels. But rather than reorder more of the same, I decided to switch things up a little bit since as a microbiz you kind of just have the flexibility to do that! I played with my colors a bit and added an image of sprouting leaves that I think is in keeping with the bright-sunshiny-day design of my site and shop banner, as well as my business card. And, I think it represents the budding nature of my business and hopefully the new growth ahead. So voila! My new label. :]

I’d had a decent experience with my previous label supplier from Etsy but the turnaround had been a bit slow, so back I went to see what new suppliers might have cropped up since then. I found Worldwide Label, did some price comparisons, read their customer reviews and ordered up a pack of 600!

My first interaction with them was uhhhhh, not so good. I sent them this:

And this is what they sent back to me as a proof to approve:

ACK! I had a few moments of speechlessness but quickly wrote them back to basically say that the proof was not going to work out for me unfortunately and that I would much prefer that it look a little bit more like the design I submitted.

Thankfully, the story quickly takes a turn for the better! They wrote me back the next morning saying that they’d take care of it and not to worry. And they did! Not sure what happened there but they arrived 21 days later, and I am lovin’ me my new labels!

I can’t wait to try them out. Here’s to my next 600 products — cheers!Similar Posts:

All your (Google) Base are belong to us, Part 1

eleen — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:59:20 +0000

First, a tribute to the web phenomenon that inspired the title of this post:

Admittedly, I’m a late adopter of Google Base and have only recently uploaded my Etsy shop products to the free service. Part of my excuse is that I didn’t think it’d be THAT quick and easy. (The other part was just procrastination/laziness/would-rather-be-doing-other-things-edness.)

But…I’ve finally done it! This post celebrates that accomplishment by giving you a few visuals of what your Etsy products can look like with Google Base and sharing the online tutorials I found helpful for showing how to set up Google Base for your Etsy shop. I’ll do a follow-up post on steps for taking your Google Base efforts to the next level.

What is Google Base, and what does it have to do with my Etsy shop?
Google Base is a free service that enables Etsy sellers to publish their shop’s products to the web, thereby making them searchable through Google’s shopping engine (Google Product Search) and/or their main web search. If you use it, you’re basically opening another channel through which potential customers can find your products online.

A picture’s worth a thousand words, so here’s what it looks like!

From the Google Product Search page
After uploading my Etsy data to Google Base, I went to google.com/products and searched for “spring chickens pouch”. Voila! There’s my zipper pouch, complete with photo, direct link to the Etsy product page, short description (that I need to work on), price and shop name. Because I did such a specific search, both of my Spring Chickens products came up on the first page of results alongside, of course, a slew of other products not belonging to me.

From the main Google search page
It’s true that your products may show up in Google search results without loading them to Google Base, but using Google Base means that a bunch of other key data associated with your Etsy product listings — product photo, title, description and price for example — will also be displayed in the results. And on Google Product Search, the search results are formatted in a very shopper-friendly way.

Here’s what a search result for “spring chickens pouch” looks like from Google’s main web search page:

Then I wondered if any of my products could possibly show up on the first page of search results if I searched for something more generic. So this time I searched on “long zipper pouch”, and here’s what I got.

Google web search for “long zipper pouch”
I was really happy to see that one of my products shows up in the top three Shopping Results section at the top of the page:

Google product search for “long zipper pouch”
And if I clicked on the Shopping link this time to search “long zipper pouch” on Google Product Search, two of my products come up on the first page of results (in the 3rd and 13th positions).

I want that. How do I set up Google Base for my Etsy shop?
I followed one of the many fine tutorials out there on the web. I ended up setting up the automatically scheduled RSS update AND doing a one-time only manual upload of my XML file.

Sign up for a Google account to access Google Base
Follow one of these step-by-step tutorials.
I used the first one for its easy-to-follow instructions with accompanying screenshots and its coverage of both methods for loading your products into Google Base (i.e. scheduled and manual).

Beginner’s Guide to Let’s Ets & Google Base by TheJuneBride

Feed Enhancements, Google Base and More from The Storque on Etsy

Etsy RSS and Google Base by Go To Great Panes

I’m loaded, now what? Taking Google Base to the next level.
When the initial excitement of seeing your products in Google Product Search has worn off a little, you’ll probably ask yourself the same question.

I’ve been making a to-do list for myself to not only improve my product’s rankings in Google but also to increase my page ranks overall using some basic SEO (search engine optimization) tactics. If you’re interested, you can subscribe to my RSS feed for Part 2 of this post.

In the meantime, these are some of the sources I’ll be using for Part 2:

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Your furry friend, felted and fuzzy all over

eleen — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:44:37 +0000

photo from KaysK9s

Oh man, I could hardly stand it when I saw this wonderfully adorable, painstakingly crafted product in this morning’s Etsy Finds email. Just look at the detail on that little guy, right down to the collar/dog tag and everything! I’ve no dog or cat of my own and budget-wise would probably only be able to handle the custom needle-felted brooches, but those I must say are almost equally cute. Eek!

These fine pieces are made by KaysK9s, who will use your photograph of your dog, cat or…bunny and create things like sculptures, magnets, keychains, brooches, bookmarks and more! Better yet, she donates a portion of all her proceeds to the Ontario SPCA and/or local animal rescue organizations so when you make a purchase from her store, you’re not only getting a lasting likeness of your furry friend but are also helping to support animals in need. Now how’s THAT for warm and fuzzy?!

I wonder if she’d make a needle felted version of Jimmy…Similar Posts: