Magickal Realism

As the readers who hang out here know, I’m a co-leader of the Green and Clean Guild on Etsy. While we’re leaning more towards a guidlship than a Street Team, as we’re classified on Etsy, this post from the handmade network certainly brought up the biggest key point of them all: if you want to get something out of a street team then you, personally, have to participate. There just isn’t a way around that.

“Tip #1 – be an active contributor of the network. This means posting comments and adding meaningful comments to a discussion. I have seen so many times in the Etsy forums that people post simply “giving you a bump”. While this is good for the person who posted, it really does nothing for you! Even if you are just giving someone a bump, find something you like or just admire in their shop and post the link to it. You may not information to add, but you took the time to look at their shop. Most times people will reciprocate the action.”

Handmade Network: How to make a Team or Network work for you

Today Magickal Realism goodies were included in two treasuries. You can check out the treasuries by clicking on the pics:

One If by Land

SUSPIRIA

So what’s being featured? My Water and Hecate’s Pale Tomb fragrances.

I’ve been on Etsy since October of 2006.  With a memory that predates Internet time perception, under ordinary circumstances I’d likely still refer to myself as a newbie. But the way Etsy is set up, I’m a veteran there. The only thing preventing me from wearing the old-timer label is that the date on my shop opening says 2005 and not 2006. And while I admit it took a little legwork to understand the entire concept of Etsy, I pretty much got it - it was a place to sell the stuff I make myself. It was not the place to sell the weird stuff I found on thrift shop runs that I knew some other nut would want.

You know, the entire handmade thing.

This is why I cringe whenever I see someone write about Etsy saying “It’s like eBay for handmade stuff.” Etsy bears no resemblance to eBay. The only thing these sites have in common is that you can buy stuff at each of them. Beyond that, there is no more similarity between Etsy and eBay than there is between JCPenney and Etsy.

Handmade items are a niche, oft forgotten and neglected since the days of the Industrial Revolution. It’s not that we don’t still benefit daily from handmade items - most of us completely forget that while machines produce our textiles, the majority still need someone physically at a sewing machine, stitching the clothes shapes into wearable clothing. Way back in the day - back, in this case being less than 10 years ago - eBay was actually a decent place for handmade artists to sell. I was off eBay long before it priced cottage industries right off of its pages so I wasn’t around for the sad downfall, but from what I hear, it was ugly.

The people that designed Etsy weren’t old enough to legally have an eBay account when that all happened.  Sure, they all know what eBay is, but they aren’t looking at it as the shining commerce example to emulate that other businesses do - while Etsy as a company may be guilty of reinventing the wheel at times,  all that wheel rolling is a good sign that they’re not looking to eBay as an example.

They’re certainly not inviting eBay philosophy over to their site.

Where eBay’s principle is “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” Etsy’s philosophy is “bring your treasures to those who would treasure them.” Etsy, when used in the correct spirit, is about finding genuinely unique items made with care that are made with care and treated as though valued.
Etsy is a place for treasure hunters, not bargain hunters.

So when exploring Etsy, here is the mindset to have in mind:

• Is this something that fits with my household, lifestyle or aesthetic?
• What can I genuinely afford?
• Who will I be supporting?
• Who do I want to support?
• Is this a skill I respect?

Etsy removes both mass marketing and a good chunk of anonymity in a transaction. It’s not about consumption. It’s definitely not about trying to get off as cheaply as possible.

It’s about treasure - by inviting buyers to put their money on exactly what they truly value.

I’ve written this a few times and other places, but I feel like I’ve got using the USPS down pretty well. I personally think it’s a good system, as long as I can avoid some of the personalities within it (a lot of postal regulations seem to be at the whim of the postal representative, a system I’m not wild about.)

The USPS actually does make an effort to get some tips out to you to ensure a speedy delivery and all that good stuff. One thing I will say that is unpopular with a lot of people: DON’T USE THE LABELS PAYPAL PROVIDES. I say this because every time someone sends to me using one of those damn labels, I never EVER get it, and it leaves me supremely annoyed as I tell these sellers beforehand not to use the damn things, which they’d know if they bothered to check the “notes to seller” field. They’re not a foolproof system for many, many reasons, not least of which is that in larger cities, the bar codes don’t always read correctly. I’m not the only person this happens to, but I’m one of the few that’s figured out the problem.

Besides, taking a few extra steps to make sure you’ve done everything YOU can to get the package to your buyer is due diligence and just plain good business. There’s a difference between being efficient, and just taking a shortcut.

So, those comments made, here is my recommended procedure when sending materials by the US mail:

1. Verify your customer’s address, step 1. Usually, the correct address to send to is the one issued from Etsy. It makes sense, since the person fills out and checks that address at the time of purchase. If it doesn’t match the PayPal address, don’t be surprised, and of course, check - and 99% of the time it will be the email given at the point of sale, which is the one that Etsy has.

2. Verify your customer’s address, step 2. Run the address through the USPS search. This does two things: it makes sure you were given the correct address, no typos, and it gets you the 4 digit zip code extension. I have had around 5 customers to date make typos in their addresses; if I hadn’t run the check, I wouldn’t have known and we’d have had a horrible merry-go-round of trying to get the package from point A to point B.

The 4 digit extension will also do one significant thing: it will get the package to its destination faster. The better the details on your shipping label, the higher the priority the USPS gives it.

3. Print the address electronically AND in caps. The USPS has a priority ranking system on regular mail, and even within special mail (cetified, priority, global, etc.) If it is printed electronically, in caps, and has the 4 digit zip code extension, it gets sorted first. If it doesn’t have the 4 digit extension but all else applies, it goes next. And so on. By marking the package with the four digit extension and making sure the label is printed electronically and in caps, you move your package to the front of the line.

4. Follow all the other rules.
You know them: don’t reuse priority mail boxes. If you reuse other boxes, black out all previous markings with a permanent marker. Pack WELL - use bubble wrap, tape, tissue paper, whatever. Follow the basic laws that apply to shipping interstate and international.

Above all, be humble before the mail gods. If something bad hasn’t happened while you’ve used any mailing system, it’s just because it hasn’t happened yet.

While I don’t say much about it while in Etsy Forums, I do see a complaint reiterated about the promo forum ad nauseum. While the person differs, the complaint is always the same, “I posted there but it was buried in a minute!”

Sorry to sound unsympathetic, but yeah, that’s the way it happens, so if you want to succeed, you’d better adjust to it - all the whining isn’t going to force the promos forums to adjust to you. I view the requests to disassemble promos very annoying because to me, it reads as a tacit demand that Etsy do something to make marketing “easier” for the complainer, when the fact of the matter is that dicing up promos will only result in the rest of Etsy forums getting spammy.

Look at it this way: There’s around 60,000 sellers on Etsy.  Even if only 10% of them are on the forums at any given time, that’s around 6,000 people. Of that sample, 60-100 are trying to make a living at their craft, and another 20% just don’t have anything better to do at that moment in time. You are just one person in that flood.

It’s a marketing gaffe I see in a lot of newbies: they expect !RESULTS! from one single action, like making a single post in forums, or by simply listing an item and then sitting back and waiting. While sure, results are possible from the list-and-wait, post-once-and-boom corner of the universe, they’re unlikely. Very unlikely. So unlikely, that it’s safest to assume these magical things don’t actually happen. All marketing is cumulative - it takes repetition, heavy visual connection, and the establishment of a solid reputation in order to succeed.

So here’s how you make promos work for you: jump in. Leverage the other posts that are already established. Pick one or two items to promote at a given time. You can either spread wildly through several pages, or you can make use of your “topics I posted in” button to track responses and bump the already established threads. If you do a lone posting, don’t bump it more than once or twice, and do NOT complain about lack of response. If there’s a lack of response, there’s a lack of response; complaining just turns buyers off to you.

So the key is simple: use established long-running threads. Be magnanimous; it’s almost impossible NOT to post and run in promotions, so let that behavior go (it’s when you see that in other sections of forums that the behavior is unacceptable). When someone posts to your threads, continue to be generous - there is no such thing as a thread hijack in promos. What gets you bumped gets you back to the front, and that’s a good thing.