Sales pathetically low, what am I doing wrong?

aab1 said:

I was getting 0-4 views per day, I don't know if it updated already or is a coincidence, but I already added tags and today I had 10 views, an all time record.

I only added about 8-10 tags for most items as I couldn't think of other terms, do you have any suggestions?

So does Etsy searches not work based on words in the item title like eBay does? Or does it use a combination of the title and tags?

Thanks

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Relevancy is a combination of title and tags. But you won't show at all unless you have tags. If you check your stats, you'll see where the views are coming from. It usually takes a couple days to update, so I'm betting the views are coming from this forum since you posted the link here. Your tags already look tons better though!

I'm anxious to see if it finally gets me sales through Etsy, so far the only soaps I sold are in person, through my website and on eBay.

I also listed them on Amazon recently but still no sales from there. Are there any other sites that would be good to sell soaps on?

Thanks

hellogorgeous - Thank you for the information on Etsy tags! I'm not selling on there yet, but now I know to pay attention to filling them in once I start.

Jencat said:

hellogorgeous - Thank you for the information on Etsy tags! I'm not selling on there yet, but now I know to pay attention to filling them in once I start.

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No problem! Etsy is my main selling venue - I have 4 shops (invites, soaps, graphic design, and jewelry). I'm always happy to help when it comes to Etsy. They're sneaky! Always changing the way things are found or how the site operates. Gotta stay on top of it!

aab1 said:

The reason I made the smaller bars is that because in Canada shipping an item that is under 20 mm thick literally costs about ten times less than an item of the same weight that is over 20mm thick. I also have larger bars on the website, but the small ones allow me to offer shipping that is nearly 10 times cheaper.

Thank you

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I didn't know that and I certainly didn't mean to imply that YOUR soaps are cheap. I'm just chiming in with my perceptions.

hellogorgeous said:

No problem! Etsy is my main selling venue - I have 4 shops (invites, soaps, graphic design, and jewelry). I'm always happy to help when it comes to Etsy. They're sneaky! Always changing the way things are found or how the site operates. Gotta stay on top of it!

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Wow, I didn't know all that either! Gonna update my store tomorrow, thank you so much!

I use all 13 tags on my Etsy store. I get on average 20 views per day. I signed up for advertizing because I thought it would bring me sales. After a month and $30+, I had 4 views from Etsy advertizing. I stopped that quick before I lost anymore money because clearly my tags were bringing in way more views than paying Etsy to advertize for me!

I for one love your sand background idea. If you can get the white sand it would work great with the right light. You can also change the design for each photo for each soap easy. I also think you are OK in specializing in salt soap as it is not that easy for many to make. Regular soaps are a dime a dozen but salt soap is not. I would put more educational information without getting in too trouble about the salt salt like maybe a history or links to benefits while putting disclaimer that you are not claiming anything but soap. But people can do the search and make up their own mind.

As far as naming the soap go with spa and ocean, seaside themes. I would use your name in the company unless you have a farm or another company that you work from to incorporate. We had one poster here list some really great choices. You might want to brainstorm it some and then do a poll here to see what we all think.

Look at it this way you have sales right now with everything you are doing. You will get alot more with a few simple changes of lighting and name. After you do those two things I would wait for a few more months and see if things do improve before changing inventory too much. You might add one or two regular bars but I would not do more. I would add more salt bars in other colors and maybe more sizes too. Good luck and do not sweat it much. We are all here for support.