Listing Photos, New Email Provider, & An Honest Chat | Etsy Shop Vlog Ep. 7 | Type Nine Studio

howdy friends welcome back for another vlog my name is abby and this is type 9 studio where i help you start and grow your etsy shop into a small business i've been a full-time seller on etsy for over a year and a half my voice is a little raspy today i don't know why i think my eyes have been itchy so maybe it's allergies i really don't know today is wednesday it's actually the 20th so just a couple updates and then some vlog style stuff i'm going to show you how i take my listing photos somebody requested that so i finally remembered to do it today i was rushing i actually didn't have any orders to ship out today for etsy but i had some on mercari because i sold like some personal things on rakari and i needed to take them to the post office well i accidentally picked ups instead of usps for some of them so i had to go out of my way like it's not too far but the time that i went was like rush hour so it took forever and then i had to go to the pharmacy and there was a long line there so i like by the time i got back it was late afternoon early evening and the sun was not great and i was like i need to get these listing photos taken because i looked at the forecast for the rest of the week and there is no sunshine anywhere the rest of the week so i'm like this has to get done that's why i needed to hurry up and do them in the first place because it hasn't been sunny much at all and i finally actually well it might have been sunny but it was really my fault because my sleep schedule has been backwards since for months like over a year i think so i believe i may have gotten very close to fixing my sleep schedule finally so what i've been doing for the past couple hours i took all the listing photos most of the ones that i needed just i got enough to get me started to get back onto the one listing or one or two listings a day thing and then i'll do some more the next time it's light out but i just have enough for now to get me by because i did not have time to do all of the ones that i needed to let's get on to how i take my listing photos so i have this desk this is where my computer usually sits and i will just adjust the blinds to point down or up or however it makes the lighting look the best then i always try to batch create the photos because the lighting will be the same if i do a bunch at the same time i don't have to make too many edits i just do all that with my phone it is plenty for what i'm doing when i take the photos i try to do like one style all at the same time so if i have multiple product shots that i want to get but multiple different like prints like for these straw pouches for example i'll do like the same shot for all the prints instead of doing like the same print in each shot so for this one i already had some photos taken before but for this one i did them side by side with the straws and then just switched out the pouch each time so that way the straws were in the same place and they would be kind of consistent and then to take the listing videos i have this tripod it's not only a tripod it's like a phone holder that i can put around my neck and have it hands-free because it's really hard to do an overhead shot on like a little desk like this there's nowhere for me to clamp a tripod because there is no like lip edge on this desk it just works for me to have that phone holder around my neck and show it it's kind of hard though because like when you breathe it moves it a little bit so i have to like hold my breath for 15 seconds while i film the listening video here is the holder by the way it's like a really bendy wire and you put the phone in there then i take it like this and then you can adjust it to however you want it i guess if i do it like this i can breathe i'm not really i was i had it like with these closer together here so when i would breathe it would move it was kind of annoying but and this you can also flip it around to do horizontal i got this on amazon if i can find it i'll link it below and i'll select all the photos that i took and upload them to google drive and then put them on to canva i guess i could i completely forgot about that i could just upload them directly to canva because canva has an app so maybe that would save me a step next time i just realized that i'll make a document in canva with the correct dimensions of the listing photos so i for the actual listing i do 2000 by 1600 pixels and then for the other photos i do 2000 by 2000 because etsy like if you try to upload something less than 2000 pixels it will tell you that it's not going to look good and you don't want a square or vertical photo for the main photo like the one that's going to show up in the search because it's going to get cropped somewhere but by making them all in one document in canva you can view like the grid of all the photos at once you can get an idea of how they look and if one maybe the lighting is a little bit off you can make adjustments to the brightness and contrast and all that and then it's really easy in canva to put like a watermark on them you can just do a text with your shop name or you can insert your logo i have my logo with a clear background or transparent background and i just copy and paste that onto each photo and kind of hide it in the product somewhere i think that's about it for now i'm going to get back to making those listings i'm just taking a break for a second so i guess we'll be back maybe tomorrow or sometime later so i really did not remember where i left off today is thursday the 28th right yeah thursday october 28th i just need to take a break for a second because the past two days straight i have been pre-creating and scheduling my social media posts for my shop for november because i'm doing the etsy sale event thing for the entirety of november so i'm trying to get my posts as many of them as i can scheduled ahead like my instagram especially i can't draft reels like it never ever saves them i can't draft posts or anything so and then like the facebook business suite thing that you're supposed to be able to schedule instagram posts on does not work for me i have no clue why so i schedule posts on hootsuite and then if i have like reels that i want to do i'll make them on tik tok and post them there and then just download them and post them to reels i also switched my email service from my shop to aweber i was on mailchimp for that and i use convertkit for type 9 studio but i wanted to try aweber to see what it was like and i switched over and i made a big boo boo so i did not really like mailchimp at all like i think it was kind of outdated like i had used it for a couple years and it didn't really seem like they had updated it just kind of was clunky and hard to navigate and i switched aweber and aweber is not as easy as convertkit but i don't know i'm still kind of like in the middle of trying it out you know so when i converted my audience from mailchimp to aweber i accident like i thought that i was clicking so if you don't have like an email provider thing or you don't know how that works basically to prevent spam and stuff you have to like have people do it what's called a double opt-in where you would like if you're signing up you would put your email in and then it would say okay go check your email then you have to go check your email confirm your email address to start receiving the emails and i turned that on because i was like yeah that's good so it prevents spam and people don't just like spam my email list or whatever and i thought that i was clicking to turn that on for like future signups but i turned that on for the people that i migrated from mailchimp so everyone that was on my list like and i can't change this they won't let me change it everyone that was already on my list now has to double opt in and only like not even half like maybe a third of the people have doubled and done the like opt-in thing and i even sent an email from mailchimp to my audience like hey um that was me could you please click but i think people maybe just didn't see it or ignored it or just don't want to get my emails anymore so it is what it is i'll just keep building and kind of start over but i do like aweber you can schedule emails so you could not do that on the free plan with mailchimp which was kind of annoying so i could like create one and save it as a draft but then i would have to go back in and manually click send but with aweber even on the free plan i can schedule it for a certain time you can on convertkit as well i do that with type 9 studio which i need to make an email for this week so all of today i've been scheduling the instagram posts and i think i have like about four posts a week pre-scheduled which is pretty good i've got like i'm posting some screenshots of reviews from etsy and i'm doing some um my sale posts like once or twice a week i'll post about the sale next month and then i'm saving room to do like a few carousels and then two reels a week i have noticed um the times when i post regularly on social media i make more sales so which you i kind of go back and forth like you don't have to use social media to grow your etsy shop but i am interested in moving like expanding onto shopify again later on if you haven't followed my story i had a shopify a while back and i had to shut it down for personal reasons but i want to do that again um so like building up my social media and building my email list is going to help me do that because shopify you can't just post stuff on shopify and then expect people to come by like you have to advertise it or have a following that's going to go look you know if you only want to do etsy then you're fine without social media but if you want to expand later on it's a good idea to start right away with social media so oh why i even sat down in the first place so with all that email stuff aside i've been really frazzled the past week or so i'm glad i think i mentioned earlier in this video but i did fix my sleep schedule which is great i am on like a semi-normal person schedule now like today i got up at noon but just because i was so tired yesterday from typing and staring at the computer all day but i have one month to get ready for my fiance to come home and well i'm excited i'm like nervous about what's gonna happen and i know i'm going to like be this happens every time i'm in a similar situation like i'll freak out about everything that i need to do but then when the time comes i just forget about it and like just focus on what you know what i'm supposed to be doing like when he comes home or whatever but i've been worried about that and i'm trying to get my shop ready for november because i am going to have to make my order cut off for christmas like december 1st um usps is saying that the cutoff is december 15th i think for first class which i don't trust like even some postal workers i've heard like through the grapevine they're saying the first just to make sure because last year the cutoff was not accurate so i'm trying to get like as many sales as i can in november number one to get have enough money to last through december and into january but also to get the christmas orders ready and then be able to take off december most of december at least because he'll be home and then we're going to go on our honeymoon and we haven't been able to plan that because it's still up in the air about like exactly when he's coming home he's trying to fight to get plane tickets it's a mess but uh such is the life of the military like they want you to hurry up and do stuff but when you need them to do something they're like nah and i haven't even like i usually do stuff for halloween like i have my makeup youtube and blog and instagram and stuff and i haven't done anything like this is probably like this end what i did the other day i posted a few tech talks with it but like that's been the extent of all my halloween stuff so it just kind of feels like it's not really that time of year yet even though it's cold outside it's been like in the 50s outside so fahrenheit if you're not in the us 50 celsius would be like dying i'm pretty sure is it really though no i'm getting losing focus oh yeah yeah if it was 50 degrees celsius outside we would be dead so anyways that aside uh my curiosity is satisfied what i wanted to talk about today um like toward the end of this video i think this will be the last thing i put in here i'm not even sure how to frame this or how to explain so i'm just going to kind of roll with it it may make sense it may not but i have filmed a similar video to this i know i'm like i'm spinning because i'm trying to think but i filmed a video like this for tick tock at least three maybe four or five times and deleted it because i just don't know how to say it without number one seeming ungrateful and number two like seeming rude which is really hard for me to not seem rude as an autistic person because i can't control my tone of voice so know that like what i'm saying this i'm not trying to be rude i promise and i'm afraid that if i post this on tick tock that's going to be one of my videos that goes viral i've had some and like the hundreds of thousands of views and this probably is gonna be one of them and i don't want that many people to see it i guess i'll start off with how i've been feeling lately and kind of tie that back around to like the point so i have been kind of anxious about my shop and kind of like imposter syndrome because i feel like i am not necessarily failing but not doing well right now this month has been absolutely terrible like this has been my worst month on etsy in over a year but i'm like dang here i am you know people are paying me now to help them with their etsy shops and i'm not having a great time with mine right now so i do have a few reasons why that would explain and so number one i there's definitely like economic things going on i understand that you know my my products in my shop are not essentials necessarily actually no they kind of are some things are if you follow me and you know what i sell then you're probably like yeah but some things are not and also another thing that i am worried about but i don't think is the problem is that i have been updating my pricing i actually have finally figured out a good pricing model and i have made myself a pricing spreadsheet which i should have done from day one i know but i actually shared that on tick tock and it helped people so i'm trying to figure out how to share that like the actual spreadsheet but i figured out how to price like before i was doing it all by hand and now this spreadsheet is making it even easier i can just type in the cost and then you know extrapolate and it'll tell me like what the price should be so i wanted to have that set up to where i would have i try to get my profit margins in like the 40 to 50 range for etsy and i do some wholesale as well but i my margins were a little bit lower so i would wholesale at 60 40 instead of 50 50 and i wanted to get to 50 50 because i feel like that's the standard and i want to get on to like um what's that website called fair and they do 50 50. i think you can do 64 if you want but i think it's like like retailers like it if you do 50 50 better but i kind of figured out a way to make my margins on etsy 40 to 50 sometimes a little bit over 50 which is good and also be able to wholesale at 50 50 and still make a profit like a 30 to 40 percent profit margin which is good um but that has caused some of my prices to double and i am afraid that but this is also irrational because i tell you guys like i've told you on tick tock and on here to raise your prices and not feel bad but now i'm like oh like once i actually do it i'm like i've literally doubled like i had some items in my shop that were nine dollars that are 18 now and some sometimes i would like raise prices gradually but i feel like that's kind of the same situation like people are really aren't going to notice unless they've bought from you before and they come back to buy and they're like whoa i was trying to get as many of them fixed as i could before the sale started like i did at least my um my most popular things that i think would sell for the holidays and then i'm going to do the rest like maybe later and that also i think might i might be okay because i bump some of them over 35 and i have the free shipping guarantee but even with the shipping for that my margin would still be okay so but i feel like that was kind of like normally i wouldn't feel bad about that but now just with everything else i'm going to talk about i'm like then i guess is this number two number three maybe but my suspicion is that people aren't buying right now because they know that etsy is gonna do a sale maybe or they're just waiting for black friday at this point which is understandable like there's some things that i'm wanting to buy for myself that i'm waiting for black friday or you know the retailers if they have a early sale then i'll do that but so i've gotten a lot of favorites and like if i look at my shop i have more x number of people have this in their cart or something than usual so i'm hoping that that's what's going to happen people are waiting for a sale also kind of unrelated but i had a weird spike in views this month on october 1st like at 8 00 am i got like 180 views out of nowhere and they were all at the same time because if you you can break down like by hour like what your views were and they were all at the same time but i didn't get any sales and they were all from like the same source so i have no idea what that was about i don't know if etsy did something like they were reviewing me for the star cellar thing and because they were all at the same time if it was like from you know if i had like a viral post on tick tock or whatever then it would have been like gradual throughout the day maybe over a few hours not just one hour so i really don't know what's going on there but even removing that like if i just subtract those views and pretend they don't count from my total view count for the month my conversion rate is still significantly lower than it usually is and again that could be because of other factors and also the main point that i'm trying to get to and i want to make this an entirely separate video and post on tech talk like i said earlier but um if i am going to do this at least want to like get some watch time out of it so that's why i'm putting at the end of this video um just completely to be transparent um like youtuber life you know trying to get watch time but also i am like really close to being monetized so i'm trying to get that watch time so if you want to help like let some of my videos play in the background maybe so what is happening is um so i used to wonder this myself before i started making content like this like etsy tips for you know type 9 studio tick tock youtube and i was like people that are because i've i've read blogs and stuff before and watched youtube videos from like etsy coaches and i was like why don't they like show their shop and like how they do things and give examples of like from their shop or use their shop for screenshots or you know give out their links so people can buy from them and and some of you probably know where i'm going with this so um i learned that they answered that question the hard way so i kind of like i knew this i knew going into it that is why my shop on etsy is not type 9 studio i purposefully separated them so if you go search type 9 studio on etsy there's nothing there i may own that shop name but i honestly can't remember so i started type 9 studio a while back as like a printable shop and i didn't post on etsy i started on shopify but then i was really busy with other stuff so i didn't do it's long story so i think i opened an etsy under type 9 studio but there's nothing on it so maybe it's taking you to a blank shop i really can't remember i should figure that out before i post this but anyways and this ties into one of my previous videos i think the second to last one i posted about the small business tick tock trap or i called it like how tick tock is ruining small businesses or something like that this is why like this is a prime example of why i said not to mix the two like if you're giving etsy tips don't give it on the same account that you're giving uh you know trying to promote your business on because that's two completely separate audiences but since that is so common on tick tock especially for people to do both on the same account people assume that type 9 studio is my etsy shop name and they're going there seeing that there's no shop and you're like are you lying you know basically that's what this i think that's what they're thinking and then i've gotten dozens of comments about why don't you link us to your etsy shop i think that would help you know it would help if you link us or you know what how do i find your shop and i get i completely understand that people may want to look and help and support buy something which is great but that is actually not helping me because it is making my conversion rate absolutely tank because people are going to look at my shop the very very few times i've mentioned it i stopped linking it anywhere but they are going to look and either they will favorite bomb or whatever you want to call it where they'll go and like favor all my listings to try to like help you know um so that actually doesn't help but because like people who watch me on type 9 studio are not always the target audience for my shop which i explained in that last video or the second to last video that since the audiences have such a small a teeny tiny overlap i have gotten two maybe one maybe two sales that i know of from that and thousands of views i'm not even kidding i think in my first few youtube videos i mentioned it by name at the beginning of the video like how in my normal videos now i will say like my name is abby this is type 9 studio blah blah blah i would then after that i would say my spiel about my shop which was a mistake and i'm going to go back and see if i can edit that out and i used to have my shop tick tock account tagged in my bio on type 9 studio but i removed that recently because people were finding it and going to my shop from there but some people didn't even look at that like they would be like what's your link and they didn't even look where it says my shop dash at my handle for my business tick tock so i don't know i'm just i'm done i'm not going to mention it anymore i know several people who do what i do like etsy code etsy coaching or do just like vlogs of running their shop my phone's going off and they have had to stop disclosing their shop name and i even know a few people who have had to vacation mode their shop because it was getting so bad and like i try to teach this in my videos and like i made that series about how to get more views and sales and your conversion rate and all that but having a low conversion rate is a snowball effect because if you have an influx of people who are looking and not buying that's sending a signal to etsy that your products are not good and they're going to stop pushing them or stop ranking them as highly in the search so that is what is happening i think like about 75 of the problem is that versus you know the economy or like people not buying gifts right now whatever i like i said i get that people are trying to help and a lot of people aren't um they're just wanting to look at my shop number one see if i'm telling the truth i actually do have a shop and i have as many sales as i say i do or if it's even plausible that i do it full time and number two they're looking to try to maybe copy my seo strategy or my photos but the thing is you have to stop copying because i'm not just saying that for my sake but like you can copy somebody's seo all day but you can't copy their quality score so my shop has been around for a few years and if you have a brand new shop you're not going to have the same quality score so that's not going to work so anyways getting back on track um this is the part where like i mentioned a second ago it's gonna sound rude i promise i'm not trying to be rude i'm trying to be like direct if you're trying to go look for my etsy shop to help it doesn't help so please don't like if you've done it before it's fine but please don't like keep keep looking at it or you know try to keep like liking my stuff because like favorites don't really help that much because all that's doing if you're favoriting and then just not buying is lowering my conversion rate because you're giving me views but not any sales just unfortunately that's the way etsy works it is actively hurting my shop by you doing that and this is why i was talking about earlier how i want to move on to shopify so i can mitigate that and draw more of my own traffic i was just so bad at social media and advertising and stuff before now i'm trying to like get better at it keeping up with it i should say just the way that i'm feeling now with that is like i started type 9 studio about six months ago maybe and it is like one of my passions to help other people with their etsy shops and their business and i just started it because i wanted to help i never imagined that typical youtuber i never imagined that i would get this far as fast as i did like i thought it would take me years to get to this point so i'm just kind of doing it as like a side thing along with my shop but it has taken off like i'm i'm just amazed but i've worked for i only started making money from it like earlier this month when i started doing shop reviews so i did all that work for free helping people for free you know you guys were saying that you couldn't believe that i was like giving this kind of information for free and i know i'm working on like monetizing it because it's grown a lot faster than i thought so i'm like oh i need to like hurry up but it's like kind of a kick in the butt like or slap in the face however you wanna yeah i'm not good euphemisms either but it's like a slap in the face because i do all this for free and i'm really wanting to help but it's actually actively hurting my shop to do so because people are finding my etsy shop whether i tell them or not somehow they're like going back through my old videos to find it and i now i'm going to block it from like on youtube and tick tock i think you can do it on tik tok i know for sure you can do it on youtube you can block certain words from comments so i'm gonna do that um i'm gonna try to go back through old videos and take the name out but yeah that is why um your etsy coaches and people who smartly make content for other etsy sellers don't do it under the same name or link to their etsy shop because this is what happens your conversion rate gets cut in half and you have the worst month you've had in a year so that's great and like that is my full-time income like i'm not kidding when i say i'm a full-time etsy seller that's my full-time income i did not make any other money besides etsy except for that brief stint last year where it had the shopify and now i've started doing shop reviews which i'm really thankful for and i love that i can help you guys that way um side note i'm actually going to change those up a little bit pretty soon like they're how they have the three options i'm going to change them a little bit maybe make it just one option so if you were wanting my shop link to maybe i should sell my shop link no that would be dumb i don't know because that wouldn't help the problem even if you pay for it anyways so if you want to support me and what i'm doing here you can do that through my kofi page where you can buy me a coffee or if you want me to review your shop i can do that as well i'm not just saying that so you go give me money on co-fire whatever i'm just saying like if you truly want to help by you know looking at my etsy shop and favoriting or even buying something or whatever um it's more helpful for me if you don't and maybe buy me a coffee on kofi instead and some of you have done that so thank you um i just this is kind of a tough situation and i don't want to make the situation worse by talking about it but i feel like that was exactly what i would do if i posted about this on tick tock so maybe i'll just kind of mention this video if somebody asks but i think most people who would look at my etsy shop it's not to help me it's to look and see how i do things and you know just be nosy and snoop around which i can't say that i haven't done because i was not aware of the problem and now i definitely will not do that um because now i know so i know like and you may be like i'm just one person what could it hurt i have as i'm filming this like combined followers on tick tock instagram and youtube about 12 000 maybe a little more at this point uh followers combined that are all new and like actively engaged um with my content like they haven't been around for a while and have stopped interacting like i still get really good interaction on my videos so if i talk about this then all those people not every single one obviously but i don't know i just feel like i'm expanding myself kind of into a hole but that is where i'm at with that situation so i'm not gonna be mentioning or talking about my shop name anymore and if you know it and you see somebody ask please don't tell them or maybe like if you see i haven't responded to the comment just be like hey she doesn't give it out that would be appreciated because the thing is i want to keep doing this for you guys and helping and you know growing type 9 studio and having that be like a second thing because i like i eventually want to hire out people to help me with with my shop and also hire people to do like some stuff with high-end studio i'm not quite there yet though but i want to keep it going i don't want to have to quit because you know it's not making me as much money as my etsy shop so i want to keep doing it and i want to be as helpful as i can but then at the same time i don't want to basically i just don't want to drive myself out of business because of etsy thinking that my products are terrible or like you know whatever because people are looking and not buying but i know most of you guys are nice and you're not going to do like you're not trying to be malicious or whatever um by you know going to try to look at my shop and snoop around like it's naturally that's easy to be like curious about stuff you know but it's just you got to stop and think because like i said i've done it before and now i know i won't do that anymore and i try to be conscious of that when i do your guys's shop reviews so if i'm doing a review i won't click around i will open like two to three well if you do the review see i have to open at least three listings that's only three visits or three there's three views in one visit i'm pretty sure that's how yeah so if i look at three listings that is one visit and four views because i looked at your shop page and the three listings so i'm trying to not like click around on too many things so that's why i will like note if you get a shop review like i didn't click all the listings but blah blah blah because i don't want to like inflate your views but other than that um some unrelated news i got the community tab on youtube so i can share posts on there without having to make a video which is nice i'm gonna still do my wednesday saturday videos and i am going to be pre-filming some at some point for december when i'm gone and i at least want to keep up with youtube because like youtube has more potential to actually make money from posting videos like i feel like tick tock will be okay for a little while and i really don't want to be posting while i'm gone you know supposed to be enjoying my time on my honeymoon so i just need to get into my work for type 9 studio today because it is thursday and i usually do timeline studio on thursdays and tuesdays but i've been trying to get that stuff done for my shop for the social media posts and emails and i am about frazzled with that so it's time to move on so sorry if the last part of this video was a downer hopefully it was helpful hopefully the first part of it was helpful for something if you have watched this whole thing somehow you're still here and you haven't subscribed and hit the like button yet you might as well i do new videos every wednesday and saturday and for more easy tips you can follow me on instagram and tech talk at type 9 studio you can also follow me and buy a coffee and get a shop review and or get a shop review on kofi type 9 studio as well that is it for this video i will see you in the next one and in the comments goodbye [Music]

Channel: Type Nine Studio

Views: 349

Keywords: etsy shop vlog, etsy vlog, full time etsy seller, full time etsy business, etsy studio vlog, etsy shop owner, type nine studio, etsy listing photos

Id: 5y1NS5oSPBw

Length: 34min 58sec (2098 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 30 2021