Product Photography Opportunity

Do you want your shop or website to get more views? Great photos are the best thing you can do for your shop.

My sweet friend Beth (who owns a very successful etsy shop and is a photographer) is teaching a class on product photography... See the flyer for more details.

Has your shop been solicited for promotions?

I got the following question from a reader and thought I would address it here in case any of you were wondering the same thing.

"I get a lot of offers for different things...countless offers from photographers offering to trade services (I send them clothes that they keep, in exchange for photos of the clothes to use in my shop).  Or mom-blogs offering to review an item and keep it in exchange for featuring it on a review post.  Have you ever found things like this to be beneficial? Have you seen any success with things like this?"

My answer is simply, that it depends. Let me explain.

First of all, when you are thinking of having your shop written up in a blog review you need to remember one thing. You will most likely not see an increase in shop sales right away. It is rare that you are featured somewhere and that a reader sees the article on the exact day that they are looking for an item you happen to sell.

What is more likely is that you will see an increase in your sites traffic (which you can track through google analytics) and also an increase in your shops hearts. Sales come later. The point of these articles is to get your name out there and in peoples minds for the future. When they are ready to buy a baby shower gift you want them to remember that cute shop they read about a few weeks ago on so-and-so's blog. Insert your sales increase here.

Okay, back to answering the question...personally I think the product/review trade off is not a good idea. If someone offers to write a giveaway or feature your shop for free, that is one thing. Never pass on free press.

However, when someone wants to review and keep your item in return for an article written up...I can't help but think that the reviewer just wants free stuff. Now, there are certainly exceptions to this. If the blog has an enormous following (say more than 1,000 followers) then I would consider it. Blogs of this size have a huge following for a reason. If you have a chance to get your name out to that many people then I would not pass it up.

Another exception to this rule would be a customer who purchased your product for themselves and they just happen to want to feature your shop on their blog. In that case, absolutely go for it!

Yet another situation that I would consider is when the reviewer wants to see your product in person but then does not keep it but gives it away to one of their readers. That also seems like a good situation and that you would be able to trust them as someone who is not just out for free stuff.

Photography offers are an entirely different situation. It is common for shop owners to encounter photographers wanting free stuff in return for professional pictures of said free stuff to use in your shop and on your website. Whether this situation is worth it for you or not depends on several things.

First of all, are you a decent photographer or do you need help? If you are completely helpless behind the camera then this is probably a great option for you. As I have mentioned many times before, the pictures that you use to list items in your shop are what get customers to look around. If your pictures are bad, then you are not getting customers and therefore not reaching your shops potential.

Secondly, how much time does it take to make your items? If you are flooded with offers and it takes you several hours to make one item than you should absolutely not accept all the offers. You don't want your free stuff to take away from your paying customers. In this situation ask to look at the photographers portfolio and pick the one you like best.

Overall, whether these offers are good ideas or not is really relative to your specific situation. These situations can certainly benefit your business when done with the right people. If you have any other questions that you think I might be able to help with, feel free to shoot me an email.

And just because...look at this precious face! My adorable son Ashton at 4.5 months.

Tips for Etsy Success: Tax Preparation

Taxes stink. Period. They are easily the worst part of running any small business. Unfortunately taxes are a necessary evil. If you want a successful business then you have to act like a successful business and file your taxes responsibly.

Let me make something very clear, I am not a tax professional. I know nothing about accounting. I am just going to share some things that I do when it is tax time for Noodles & Milk.

During the year I make sure that all my sales are listed in etsy. Meaning, when a friend asks me to make a gift for them to give at a baby shower I set up a custom listing and make them purchase through the etsy site as anyone else would do. Why do I do this? Because I can run one sales report and know that all my sales are included. It streamlines bookkeeping.

Similar to keeping all my sales in etsy, I make sure that all my purchases are through paypal. How do I do this? I have a paypal debit card and I highly recommend you get one too. Again, it really streamlines my record keeping. I make all my business purchases (whether online or at a store- whether postage or fabric or new business cards) using my paypal card.

If you don't have a paypal debit card or you do not want to open one, then you need to keep track of all your expenses the old fashion way. Any business related purchase that is made and does not withdrawl from your paypal account, you need to keep track of. You can either save your receipts and tuck them into an envelope or keep a spreadsheet or keep credit card statements.

For reporting, I use the paypal downloadable history report. This report is super helpful because you can set it to run for whatever dates you want. I run it quarterly to pay my state sales taxes. At year end I run it for the entire year and use the data for my income taxes. The report will open in excel which is helpful so that you can sort and add calculations in.

When your paypal report downloads, it will be in date order. This is not ideal for calculating your tax information. Without giving you a lesson in excel (you can google it if you need help), the best thing to do is sort the report so that all the like transactions are together...meaning all your purchases are together and all your sales are together. Taking it a step further, you can sort your purchases so that you can separate what you spent on shipping and etsy fees or anything else you want to break out.

1040 Schedule C - This is the form that you will fill out and include in your personal taxes. If you file with Turbo tax or some other program that you do on your own there is a place where you will indicate you own a business and it will prompt you to fill in the 1040SC. It is easy.

Instuctions for the Schedule C

This article has good information that is all linked to the IRS so it is legit.

Another great place to check for information is in the etsy forums. Just search "taxes" under forum titles.

Good Luck!

And just because posts are better with pictures...here is a picture of my 4 month old baby boy from last week. He loves to chew on his hands right now. Oh, and I think he's pretty cute:)

 

Tips for Etsy Success: Relisting and Renewing

I thought that I was done writing the etsy success series but I had a reader ask as great question, so I will do my best to answer it. Ashley, from Monkey Style Boutique, asked me for some advice on renewing items- mainly when the best time to do it is.

This is a great question. Etsy shop owners know that renewing and relisting is what keeps your items at the top of the search listings. Keeping your items at the top of the search results is one of the things that betters your odds of making a sale. Basically, renewing and relisting is super important.

For starters there is a difference between relisting and renewing. Relisting is taking an item that has sold and re-listing it into your shop. In my experience it is best to re-list an item as quickly as possible after it sells, if not immediately. If there is one person online shopping for your products at that moment in time it is likely that there are others looking for the same items at the same moment. There have been many times that I have sold an item and re-listed it within seconds of it selling only to sell the same item again instantly.

Renewing is basically refreshing an item listed in your shop that has not sold. Renewing is what this article will focus on. The simple answer to how often an item should be renewed to bring sales is that it really varies based on your product type.

I can speak for boutique childrens and baby items. When I was selling custom gifts I found that if I renewed 2-3 different items every morning (first thing- between 7am and 9am) and then again at 1pm-ish in addition to re-listing all day as items sold then I would do pretty good. I did this Monday through Friday and on Saturdays. I skipped Sundays because sales were always slow on Sunday no matter what I tried. This being said, once you start this routine you should notice a trend in what time of day most of your sales are. For example, if you notice that between 3pm and 5pm you get the most sales then focus more on renewing at that time in the future.

THE most important thing to remember when using the renewing technique is not to renew your entire shop each time. This is a waste of money and it is super annoying to other etsy sellers. You don't want to anger the etsy community. That would be like biting the hand that is feeding you; not a good idea. Instead of renewing your entire shop, just pick a couple of different items at a time.
 
Do you have any other etsy questions? Do you have a new or struggling shop that you would like help getting off the ground? If so, let me know and I would be happy to try and give you my best advice.

PS: Don't forget to check out the other articles in the business success series.

Tips for Etsy Success- Activity Feed

Hey fellow shop owners. Have you checked out etsy's new feature, the activity feed? It is so cool!

After you login to etsy, on the top there is a link titled "activity feed". Click on it and you will see this:

This feature lets you know what happens to your shop everyday- what purchases are made, who hearts an item and who adds you to their favorites. Isn't that awesome?!

I think this feature will be super helpful for your business because it lets you see what items are getting the most hits. You can then take this information and run with it- have a special promo for those items, make more of them in similar colors/fabrics, etc.

Another great thing you can do with this information is build relationships, kind of like with social networking. If a customer or shop adds you to their favorites, check out their stuff too and you might just find a new favorite.

Enjoy!

Creating your own web ad- A guest tutorial from CM Crafts

Carolyn from CM Crafts is our guest author today and she has written a super easy tutorial for creating your own web ad. I am thrilled to be able to share this with you because it is something that I have wanted to learn myself! I hope this is helpful to you all...

So here is how I created my first web ad, for right here on Noodles & Milk! I did this in Photoshop Elements, the simpler version of Photoshop. And let me tell you, I barely know anything when it comes to graphic design and photo editing. This is a very basic ad, but still represents my shop and does the job. So let's get to it!

When you open Elements, go to the File tab, click on "New," then "Blank File"

A little window will pop up that lets you choose the size/dimensions of your file. 1. Name your file at the top. 2. Beside the height and width boxes, choose "pixels" from the drop-down menu. A common size ad is 160x160 pixels. So just fill in those numbers for each box, and click ok.

Now your blank file will appear as a little white square.

I used a product picture for my ad. If you want to do the same, go to the photo on your computer and drag it into the project bin in Elements. This step looks almost the same as the last, but you can see the bunting picture has been added in the bottom left corner.

Now drag the product photo from the project bin to the white square above. It will look teeny tiny in there. Also make sure the move tool is selected for the next step. This is the top tool in the tool bar on the left.

Now you're going to resize the photo to fit in the square. I made mine bigger than it needed to be and placed the photo where I wanted it, so the entire image isn't seen. You can see the outline of the photo outside the square.

If you want to add text, select the text tool and pick out your font, size, and color at the top. Double-click where you want your text to appear and start typing. You can move it around as needed. (If everything looks great so far, skip the next 2 steps. But if you can't actually see the text you just typed, then you have a layering issue. This happens to me often, and I'm guessing it's the order in which I do things, but I have no idea. I just know how to fix it! So continue if you have the same problem)

Sometimes your text will get hidden behind the photo layer, and you'll just see the line where it should be. If so, go over to the bottom right corner and make sure the text layer is selected. It will say whatever you just typed, so mine says "cm crafts" here.

Go up to the "Layer" tab, click on "Arrange," then "Bring to Front." That should fix it!

Now it's time to save your file. Go to the File tab, and "Save As." Select "JPEG" from the drop-down menu in the middle.

Another window pops up. I always save it in "Maximum" size.


And there you have it! Not too bad, huh? Hopefully this will help some of the graphic-design-challenged people like myself who don't have all the fancy programs to create things with. Thanks for having me on Noodles & Milk!
~ Carolyn

PS: Stay tuned for a giveaway from CM Crafts later this month!

Have you heard?

 

 

Have you heard of Craftopolis? You haven't! Well, let me shine a little light on this gem of a business tool.

 

Craftopolis is a site whose entire purpose is to make etsy even easier for shop owners. Etsy is already super user friendly so it is pretty impressive that Craftopolis has come up with several tools to simplify it even more.

 

Visit Craftopolis and login with your etsy user name. This site runs all kinds of cool reports that can give you insight into your busines and customers. We all know that running a successful shop depends on understanding our customers and Craftopolis definitely helps with that.

 

"Shop Lovers"- The information within this tab tells you your sales, hearts and page views by day and month. You can also view your activity by day and see specifically which items are getting the most page views.

"Edit Express"- This is a SUPER way to do mass edits at once. You can edit price, description, title and quantity of every item in your shop all at the same time. This is a fantastic way to have a sale in your shop and adjust all the prices before hand. Or to add the word “sale” to all your listings quickly and easily.

"Tag Report"- In this tab, you sign in with your google analytics username and it will tell you what words people are using to search when they find your products. This is really helpful in making sure that your items are tagged correctly.

"Treasure Tracks"-Again, using your google analytics login, this tab will tell you which treasuries that you have been featured in.

 

Now, go check out Craftopolis and see how cool it is!

 

PS- If you do not know what google analytics is or have it set up for your shop, go here and do that asap! It is so helpful to your business.

Tips for Etsy Success: Creating a Schedule

Every standard 40 hour a week job has a schedule; a routine, a daily list of goals and a pace that your day is set to. A successful etsy business should have the same. To run a successful business from home it is important to set a schedule just as you would in an office. If you have an etsy shop in addition to a full-time job, it is even more important to make sure that you have your day organized.

First of all, set a daily schedule. Allow a certain time of day for all of your business activities: responding to convos, creating products, shipping, blogging, etc. If you know that every morning you respond to convos, then pack and ship products and then craft for 2 hours, you will get so much more accomplished then if the tasks are scattered. Not much gets done when you are back and forth between emails and packaging all day.

When you create your daily and weekly schedule, make sure to leave some holes in it. Life happens and things get delayed or new priorities come up. Having holes in your schedule allows you to tackle these things without your entire day or week getting pushed back.

If the items in your shop are all custom orders, make sure to set a reasonable lead time for them. My shop used to be all custom work. I thought that I had to have a short lead time in order to make customers happy and get a lot of orders. Well, the orders were pouring in and I could not physically handle the work. I hesitantly changed my lead time to 2 weeks and that did not stop the orders at all. Orders kept piling up so I changed it again to 3 weeks. What I found was that as long as you are up front with customers on your lead time and you offer them the option to rush an order (for a charge of course) then they are happy. I was shocked at how many orders I was still getting with a 3 week lead time. It was nice because my business kept growing and I kept my sanity.

Working from home can be tricky since you feel like you are always at the office. Your crafts are surrounding you and it can feel like there is always something pressing to do. It is really important to allow yourself time off. Make sure to schedule down time and vacations. The great thing about etsy is that you can simply “close shop” or you can put a note in your shop announcements that informs shoppers when you will be closed. Whether it is a certain day of the week, certain hours in the day or a week every quarter, it is imperative that you allow yourself some vacation time.

Don’t forget to schedule your paycheck. Accepting payments in paypal can be tricky and many times the funds get washed away when purchasing new supplies and postage. It is really important that you make sure to pay yourself so that you can feel the benefit of your business. For my shop, I give myself a paycheck every Sunday.

Along with setting a daily schedule, it is important to set monthly and annual priorities and goals for your business. This will ensure that you are working to grow your business or try new ideas. The most successful etsy shops are those that are continually trying new things and modifying their products. Think about where you want your business to take you and what financial goals you have for it.

Don’t forget to plan ahead for craft fairs and holidays. It is inevitable. You know they are coming, you can see them on the calendar. Don’t put off getting ready for the big days. Personally, I have found that Christmas orders start coming right after Halloween. This means that you need to start preparing in August (at the latest). If your shop sells pre-made items, start making extras in January. Make a few extras each week and set them aside so that you are stocked come holiday season. If your shop is all custom work, as mine was, purchase extra supplies early and make sure to set a cutoff date for orders. It seems crazy, but I always set the first week of December as my cutoff order date. This allowed me to sew like crazy until the week before Christmas. The week before Christmas I shipped out the last of the orders and was able to enjoy the holidays with my family.

Don’t forget to read up on the past etsy success posts below:

Tip No 1- Branding
Tip No 2- Photography
Tip No 3- Getting your first sale
Tip No 4- Pricing
Tip No 5- Tagging
Tip No 6- Customer Service
Tip No 7- Advertising
Tip No. 8- Etsy wants to help 

 

Tips for Etsy Success: Etsy wants to help!

Etsy is full of great stuff to get your business moving. If you thought that setting up your shop and keeping up with convo’s was all that you needed etsy for, then you are wrong. I highly encourage you to spend some time browsing through all the helpful goodies that etsy has to offer.

First, if you have not signed up for the etsy newsletter, then do so immediately. They send something a couple times a week and it is generally super helpful information and articles. I almost always find something useful in their emails. It is definitely worth your time.

Here is a quick list of helpful things that you can find when browsing around etsy. This first group of things can be found under "your etsy" after you have logged in.

• Etsy Mini- this is where you can create an “ad” of your shop for free to post on your blog or as an ad on someone else’s blog. (See the images from my shop on the top right side of this page? That is an etsy mini!)
• Seller Handbook- if you have not read this, you need to. Asap. It is stuffed with helpful information.
• Badges & Buttons- here you can grab some free buttons to place on blogs and in emails.

• Banners & Avatars- free banners and avatars that are available to all. These are helpful to new shop owners who might not have had their custom designs finished yet.
• Seller Deals- Special offers from outside retailers that can help your business. Think shipping, book keeping, etc.
• Featured Apps- This link is full of all sorts of featured applications that will help your business run smoother. If you have not checked this section out, this is a must. Plan to spend several hours browsing through this section and taking notes but it will be worth it!

For the next group of helpful things, look at the top of the main etsy page under the “community” listing.

• Updates- lists the latest in helpful and fun articles.
• Forums- you can find your answer to almost anything here. Just search your question and someone else has likely already asked it and received a helpful answer. If no one has your question, you can also start your own discussion here. This forum is primarily for etsy sellers although administration chimes in occasionally with answers to tougher questions.
• Virtual Labs- These are virtual classrooms set up with posted meeting times and dates. The topics completely vary but often include tips for newbies, critiquing a shop design, etc. There are also private meetings that can be set up by etsy teams or groups.
• The Storque Blog- This is the etsy blog. It has all kinds of fun articles and tutorials that you can find. It features shop spotlights, how- to’s, business tips, local happenings in your area, etc.

See what you have been missing! Now, get out there and use all that etsy has to offer to grow your business even more!

Don't forget to look back at the past etsy success posts.
Tip No 1- Branding
Tip No 2- Photography
Tip No 3- Getting your first sale
Tip No 4- Pricing
Tip No 5- Tagging
Tip No 6- Customer Service
Tip No 7- Advertising

Tips for Etsy Success: Advertising

Advertising your etsy shop is so important but can also seem like a daunting task because advertising costs money, right? Well, not really. In today’s world of social media there are tons of free or super cheap ways to get your shop name out there to new customers. Let's take a closer look at free (or dirt cheap) ways to get your shop name out there.

Tip No. 7: Advertising

1. Venture into Blogland:

•  Start your own blog for your shop. Crafty people love to read about other crafty people. Your friends and family will love to read about your business progress. Plain and simple, people love blogs. Personally, I follow 50+ blogs a week (kinda ridiculous, I know). Starting a blog is free and relatively simple even for those of us with no web design experience. There are a few keys to making your blog a must-read for people which include: frequent posting, good photography, an appealing site and most importantly you have to be yourself.

• Seek out blogs that feature etsy shops. There are TONS of blogs out there that are dedicated to featuring etsy shops and handmade businesses. Search Google and look around the web and jot down site names. Then contact each site and ask how you can get involved with a feature article or giveaway promotion. When you contact these bloggers, you need to be prepared and have your shop in tip-top shape. They will review your shop and make sure it is something suitable for their readers. A word of caution, some of these sites want you to pay for a giveaway or feature article. In my opinion, that is ludicrous. Unless you are buying ad space on their site in addition to the giveaway or feature, don’t pay for this service. There are plenty of other sites that will do it for free. (The only exception for this is when the site is an extremely high traffic site- think 100,000 hits and above per month. The higher the traffic, the more likely they will ask for a small fee for their article). 

• When you create your blog, make sure to include a free sitemeter. It is a handy little tracking device that can help you to learn who your readers are and where they are coming from.

2. Facebook & Twitter:

• Start a Facebook fan page for your shop. This is also a really simple task that is free and can make a big impression. Facebook is a great place to advertise your shop and your shops blog. You can post coupons and sales for facebook fans only. You can post pictures of new designs, ask for opinions or advice and meet lots of other etsians.

• Like Facebook, Twitter is another way that you can stay in touch with your customers and family. You can do all the things that you can do on Facebook and you can frequently “tweet” about your businesses daily happenings. (Note: I don’t actually use Twitter but it may be in my future. The blog and FB and shop keep me busy enough right now!)

• The catch with Facebook and Twitter is similar to creating a blog. It needs to be maintained and used on a daily basis or it will be ignored.

3. Ad Spaces:

• Remember the crafty blogs that we discussed earlier? Well, many of those do offer paid ad spaces for really cheap. Create a list of sites that you would like to advertise on and contact all of them about their rates and availability. Expect the larger sites to have larger advertising fees and make sure that you are only contacting sites that your potential customers would frequent. If you are willing to spend a little money on advertising, you need to make sure you are getting your money's worth. The key to this is to watch to see if it is working for you. You can do this by using your Google Analytics (mentioned below) reports to see what sites your shop is getting the most hits from. If you shelled out $20 for ad space and after a month you only got 5 hits to your etsy shop then you might want to re-think where you are spending your advertising dollars. In general, there are plenty of blogs that you can spend less than $10 a month on advertising (including here at N&M!). 

• Once you have found a blog (or blogs) that you want to advertise on, then you need to have a web ad designed. If you can do a professional looking job yourself, then you can save a few bucks. If you are helpless with these things (like I am) then you can find someone on etsy to design one for you. This is a really inexpensive thing. You should not pay more than $5-$10 for a web ad design. Make sure the design includes your shop name and a great picture of your product. It is also important that the look of the ad be seamless with the design of your shop.

• A free alternative to having a web ad created is creating an etsy mini from your shop. Many blogs will let you do this instead of submitting an ad. For the simple instructions to create an etsy mini, look here.

4. Newsletter:

• Setting up a newsletter is another great way to stay in touch with your customers and potentially gain new customers. Shop newsletters often include special discount codes and sales that are just for readers. Designing one can be a little daunting, but there are sites like constant contact and mail chimp that can help with that. Most of these newsletter sites are free as long as you have under a certain amount of recipients.

• The catch with setting up a newsletter is that you need email addresses to do so. Etsy does not allow you to use all the email addresses from your past orders for a newsletter without permission from customers. So, if you have plans to create an email address list, you need to contact your previous customers and ask them if they would like to be included in your newsletter email list.

5. Join an etsy team:

• Do you know what an etsy team is? Etsy teams are groups of people that are established because of a common thread. There are teams set up by location, craft type, religion, etc. More information on etsy teams can be found here. Check out the list and see how many teams you would fit into then contact them and ask about membership. Most of them are free to join and have a lot to offer. Most ask that you be an active participant in their chats, blogs, fb groups, etc. The great thing about etsy teams is that they promote each other and offer one big support group. Once you join a team, you can add that team name to your items tags- this is great because many team members would rather support other team members above other shops on etsy. The regional teams often set up craft shows and opportunities to promote your shop in your own community.

6. Word of Mouth:

• Word of mouth is the absolute best advertising. Use great customer service and your past customers will promote you to their friends and family. Word of mouth also includes you talking about your shop. Don’t be shy! Did someone at the grocery store compliment your earrings (that you made)? Tell them about your shop and give them a business card. Did you give a gift at a baby shower that everyone loved? Tell them about your shop and give them a business card. See the trend? Be proud of your shop and promote it!

7. Advertise your advertising:

• Now that you have gone through the effort to create a blog, facebook page and newsletter, makes sure that your customers know where to find you! There are several ways that you can do this: 
• Create a unique convo signature to use for every purchase and sale. I typed up a convo signature in Word that includes all my "sites" and I copy and paste it into every convo that I have on etsy. It is surprising how many new followers I get from these convos.
• Set your email address(es) up to automatically include the same information.
• Include your “sites” in your etsy listings and in the message on your etsy homepage too!

There is a link to helpful etsy advertising tips here.

Etsy also provides a ton of applications designed to help grow your business. Check them out here.

I hope this article has inspired you with some new advertising ideas for your business. If you have any other suggestions, feel free to comment!

Tips for Etsy Success: The golden rule

We all know the golden rule: Treat others as you want to be treated. Simple, right? Then why do we not always do this?

Tip No. 6: Customer Service

When it comes to business advice, whether for an etsy shop or any business, customer service is hands down the most important thing that needs to be addressed. Customer service is something that I am extremely passionate about. I not only pride myself in it with my etsy shop, but I am constantly critiquing other businesses that I interact with. There is absolutely no excuse not have exceptional customer service. If you do not offer great customer service or have a record of bad or mediocre service, then you should not be in business. Period.

The good news is that good customer service is completely free. It costs nothing to treat your customers with the utmost respect and honesty. When you run an online business, customer service is a little more difficult than if you have a brick and mortar shop simply because there is little to no face-to-face contact. Everything is online and therefore you need to make what little interactions you have with your customers count.

First, let’s take a look at what good customer service is not.

Receiving an order, making it and shipping it out on time is not providing good customer service. Yes, you fulfilled your business order, but nothing above and beyond was done. The bare minimum is not good customer service and does not make a customer feel special.

So, what are some examples of how good customer service can be carried out on etsy?

1. Acknowledge receipt of a new order. When you receive a new order, send the customer a convo or email message telling them that you received the order and what they can expect from you.

2. When you ship the order, include a personalized, hand written thank you note. If you email a product instead of mailing it, send a thank you convo or email.

3. When something goes wrong, and it will, fess up immediately and do whatever it takes to make it right. I truly believe that when something goes wrong, that is your best opportunity to offer exceptional customer service and gain a repeat customer. Everyone makes mistakes and most people are aware of that. Admit your mistake immediately, even if it is before the customer is aware of it, and do whatever it takes to make it right.

4. When a customer sends you an etsy convo or email, respond as soon as you can. No one likes to feel like they are being ignored. If you are on vacation, taking some time off or do not work on weekends, be upfront about this on your shops homepage so that customers know what to expect.

5. Use courteous and kind words when messaging with customers. Remember that the customer cannot see your face or hear your voice so be cautious when choosing your language. If you are prone to sarcasm (as I am), it is best to avoid that in online chat because it can read like unfriendly language to those who do not know you personally.

6. If a customer requests rush shipping, give them the courtesy of sending the tracking number when the item ships.

7. Think about things that other businesses have done to you that you loved. When possible try to recreate those things for your customers.

8. If someone attacks you with a complaint, do not attack them back. Take a moment, gather your thoughts and empathize with where the customer is coming from before you respond. If you were in their shoes, what would you want done to make it right.

When you offer great customer service, you are not only creating repeat customers but you are almost guaranteeing that you will get new customers via word of mouth. Customer service is free and easy but takes practice and effort. The extra time is well worth it and makes the difference between a mediocre shop and a successful shop.

Here is an etsy article that is a great resource: Top 10 Customer Service Strategies