Spruce Up Your Shop Challenge: Catch Up!

Today is all about playing catch up. Did you miss a week? Go do it. Catch up with the rest of us.

If you are up to date, take this lull to spend some time with your family and friends today for the holiday. Your shop will wait a day or so.

Next week we will be back on track with tips on how to write a good listing.

HOST Spruce Up Your Store Challenge: Categories & Location

(Okay, I know I said we would be covering tags today, however, I need to postpone that for a bit due to personal reasons. I'll try to get back on track next week)

Today's challenge is short and sweet: I want you to take a good look at your Categories (or what Etsy calls Sections) and your location information.

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HOST Spruce Up Your Shop Challenge: Announcement Page

Welcome to Week 3 of the Spruce Up Your Shop Challenge!

Task 1 - share your Google Analytics for the past week below. Has your traffic changed any? Up? Down? Let us know.
Task 2 (Optional): Update your Google Analytics with this nice feature! http://www.etsy.com/storque/etsy-news/tech-update-etsy-web-analytics-enhancements-3350/


This week we are going to work on your shop's Announcement Page and organization

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SPRUCE UP YOUR STORE CHALLENGE: Week 2

Okay, so if you added Google Analytics to your shop last week - go check it. See if people are visiting your shop and when. Rewatch the second video from last week and write a little summary below to tell us how you are doing.

Once you do that, we are ready to move on to today's challenge:

Store Settings #1: Profiles and Policies.

Etsy is a great place to buy items with a personal, handmade touch. There is a great sence of community here. Your customers want to know about you - and you about your customers. Two of the most overlooked pages of your Etsy account are the Profile page and the Policy Page. So we will start there.

The Profile page is where you get to introduce yourself to your customers. They want to know a little about you - how you got started in your craft or hobby and what you draw your inspiration from. Tell them! Also, tell them where else they can find you: other Etsy shops, your blog, twitter, etc. Check Etsy policies about posting any off Etsy webstores though.

Read this for more information on how to use your Profile pages:
http://www.etsy.com/storque/how-to/shop-makeover-series-crafting-a-profile-page-1056/

Policy pages are next. These are the guidelines that tell people how you do business.
Here is an article with great tips on writing up your policy page:
http://www.etsy.com/storque/how-to/service-tips-for-sellers-creating-policies-that-work-2095/


Pay special attention to the Stay Positive aspect. You do not want negativity on any of your pages. It leaves your customers with a bad taste. Stay professional.

Your Challenge this week is to write (or rewrite) your profile and policies pages. Come back here and share your before and afters - and ask for comments. Share your tips if you have any. We are all here to help!

Have a great week!

HOST Challenge: Spruce Up Your Store - Baseline Information

Just to get this out of the way, I'm not much of a writer. So, you can expect a lot of videos and point forms being used to explain aspects of this Challenge. Why reinvent the wheel when more qualified people have already done the explaining? I'm a relative newbie to Etsy myself - and some of the tasks this Challenge will cover I haven't done yet - so I am going to be joining you every step of the way. I hope we will learn new things and have fun together during this process.

Okay - now we can begin -

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HOST's: Spruce Up Your Shop Challenge!

Whether you are an Etsy Newbie, or a seasoned seller, there comes a time when it is advantageous to do some Spring Cleaning on your shop. Come join us for the HOST Spruce Up Your Shop Challenge! Starting in March, every Saturday morning a new challenge will be posted here on the blog. Come join us and share your progress on the challenges. Feel free to ask questions and share your own advice with others just starting out. Each Challenge will include an article to read and include either one or a few small tasks. Time required to accomplish the tasks will vary. We will focus on things like the look and feel of your shop, writing descriptions, choosing tags, creating a profile, among other things. When we finish we will be well on our way to getting more notice from customers for our shops! To get email notification of our blog posts - including the Spruce Up Your Shop Challenges, please put your email address in the Feedburner box on the right hand side of our blog - or you can join our blog by using the handy Join button! Hope to see you all there!