The tough get going: dealing with the economic climate

The post-holiday sales slump is getting a lot of Etsy sellers doing whatever they can to entice customers. Myself included. (Hey, this is my living.) Of course, that doesn't mean I'm going to turn into a spam queen or anything. I'm just focusing on improving Heidi & Seek.

So I've had some time for thinking and planning and I've made some changes. First of all, I won't be posting every new listing on this blog anymore, because they're too frequent. I'll post ones that I particularly like or have something to say about, but for everything else, please check my shop regularly. You can subscribe to my shop in your reader if you like, just click the RSS this shop at the bottom of the right column, here. This will mean that I'll be posting more hearty content, instead of just new listings all the time.

I've made over my Etsy shop. I was inspired to improve it by one Etsy shop in particular that I found, Allen Company Inc. It just looks so pretty and clean and interesting, and I felt like mine resembled a garbage dump in comparison.

I'm very tempted to re-shoot photographs for every single item, but Tim accidentally took the camera to work today. My technique in the past has been to close my eyes, set the timer and hope it all turns out okay. Mm, clever. I found some resources on taking good photos, here and here and here. Man, Etsy is helpful. I'm itching to try some of those techniques out. I actually kind of understand white balance and how to utilise it now. Go me! I'd love to try an interesting background, maybe hang up some lace or something.

I've made some cute little banner ads and have started advertising on Project Wonderful, Craftster and Modamuse. I'm most excited about Modamuse because it's such a great site. They support independent modern Australian and NewZealand designers, artisans and crafters and there's always pretty things to look at there. This is the square banner.

Feel free to take it and spread it far and wide. E-far and e-wide, I mean. Oh, and there's a sneak peek: that black dress on the first slide will be very limited edition, made to order, and available very soon!

One other (not very exciting) thing is that I've closed my 2threads shop. I'm going to be concentrating uber hard on making my Etsy shop perfect and well-stocked, and might give my Made It shop some occasional love, too.

Oh yay, I just made a sale. My work must be paying off..