Etsy Treasuries

I’ve had a shop on Etsy since January, when I have to admit I was so demoralised by the number of things no longer working on Folksy since the changes in November, some of which are still not put right, and I’ve done ok on there. Lots more views of items, many many more favourites, therefore a better interest and two good sales of my bead embroidered cuffs, something for which there was very little interest on Folksy.

Promotion tools are far better too, with many options by which you can put yourself ‘out there’, within the site, and use to promote outside the site too. Take treasuries for instance.

I love making treasuries. These are basically a selection of up to 16 items usually within a theme, which could be colour, material, styles or whatever you want.  This treasury then appears in the activity feed of all in your circle, they in turn favourite it and it appears then in the feed of all in their circles, and so on.

Combine this with any teams you may be in and you’ve got a wonderful cross-promoting system going. I’m in the Etsy Craftyfolk team, and each week they have a little treasury competition, where the treasuries made in a given week have to feature the winner of the previous week.  There could be 20-25 treasuries at least in this competition, some of which may feature one of your items if they fit a theme, along with an item from the featured shop. Everybody favourites each other’s treasuries, and it effectively goes viral pretty quickly, alongside Facebook and Twitter promotions to bring in more views.

It’s even better when someone else has made a treasury and featured one of my items. My stats will tell me that one particular item has had a lot of views that day, and on checking further I find it’s in a new treasury. It brings visitors to the shop, creates interest, and on a good day…SALES!!

I don’t know if my sales on Etsy are directly as a result of appearances in treasuries or not, but as a promotion tool they really do work. Of course, you need a big circle to get the full benefit, and I have only 172 in my circle to date, but some of those have many more, so it spreads anyway.

Here’s my latest, featuring another member of the Craftyfolk team, MoreStashPlease, the winner of last weeks treasury competition, and this time every item in it is from a member of the team, and not just items across Etsy.