Experiment 02 day 2

I'm on the second day of the experiment of renewing 10 items a day. The first conclusion that I got is that it's not easy... if I want to renew something every hour it means sitting in front of the computer all day. I sort of do that anyway, but since I get up pretty late, and somehow renewing after 11:00 seem to generate a lot less views, it's really challenging to remeber doing this every hour, maybe I should set an alarm!

Since I didn't update this yesterday - there's a lot of items in the list...

Items renewed
Tuesday
3:30 The Key to your Heart - Art kit - 35$ - views 26
5:00 The Great Gatsby - Reader Kit - 27$ - views 21
5:30 Summer Birds ACO - 10$ - views 20
6:40 Greek Portrait - Original Painting - 40$ - views 17
9:15 Fly away Business card case - 20$ - views 27
11:10 Sewing Machine card holder - 20$ - views 41
12:00 O solitude - Original painting - 45$ - views 33 (it was also in a treasury!)
2:00 Rocky Raccoon - 22$ - views 27

Wednesday

2:00 Summer apple Art Kit - 35$ - views 14
3:30 Opossum sewing kit - 20$ - views 20
6:00 Heart - Original Art - 40$ - views 27
7:30 Little squirrle Notebook - 17$ - views 10
8:30 Spider Mum leather bound sketchbook - 25$ - views 14
9:15 Black Lilly - Minor Arcana Tarot deck - The Swords - 40$ - views 9
10:00 Spring Tricycle Glasses case - 28$ - views 8
10:30 Lone wolf notebook - 27$ - views 5
11:00 Art Nouveau Journal - 3o$ views 6

Item listed
Black Lilly inspiration cards - pocket size - 37$ - views 25
Saint Larissa - original art - 18$ - views 2
Sadness - original art - 18$ views 10
Larissa and birds - original art - 18$ views 7
Black Lilly inspiration cards - 80$

Hearts 1113 (how cool is that!)

Sales
So far none! which is a little disheartening, it feels strange spending so much time on etsy and nothing sell. Usually the last week of the month is slower for me, maybe this wasn't the best time for this experiment...

Money spend
Renewing 3.40$
Listing 1$
earned 0

I do hope it picks up soon!

I did however had a cool promotional idea after coming across this cool site, and I'm excited about working on it tomorrow!

Project Renewal - day 14 (the end?!)

When I started the renewal project (renewing 5 listing a day for 2 weeks) I didn't have a result in mind, I did however wanted to make some sales after my store reached a total stand still, and I also wanted to try and get a sense of the best time to renew and whether it works best to renew in different times over the day. Also, I guess I wanted to be excited about my etsy store again, which was just making me frustrated because nothing sold for a while.

I think this experiment achieved all of the above. I made 8 sales in whole (not the best 2 weeks I ever had, but definitely, pretty good) 5 of those were on the first week and 3 on the second week, I don't know if this is a definitive answer about whether batch or spread is the way to go, but I think that spread is better, out of the 3 sales I had in the second week, non of the itemes were recently renewed.

Also, in the first weekend I had very little views or sales, so I decided to skip renewing on the second weekend, I don't know if that was a fact, maybe I was just getting discouraged toward the second weekend, but I do think people tend to shop more on the week days. As for what hours are the best - I really couldn't tell, it seem that every item had about the same ammount of views whether it was renewed in a batch or on it's own, or in the morning or in the evening. There's really no way of telling so far.

Documenting this experiment in the blog, did made me get excited again about the store, I crafted a lot and made a bunch of new drawing, and created a new item all together (the new inspiration cards, which took quite some time!)

Here are the over all numbers from the 2 weeks of experimenting:

Items sold:
Strange summer - Original art - 15$
Summer Birds ACO - 10$
Black Lilly inspiration cards - pocket size - 37$
The Black Lilly Deck of Tarot - 60$
Your Money or Your life journal - 30$
Love in the Time of Cholera - Reader Kit - 27$
Oliver the Fox - 45$
Past-Present-Future - a triptich - 40$

Money earned in those 2 weeks - 254$

Items listed
Red fox notebook - 17$
Mac the Moose - 22$
Black Lilly inspiration cards - 80$
Maps and Legends - Reader Kit - 27$
100 years of Solitude - Reader Kit - 27$
Son of a Gun Journal - 30$
Stand and Deliver Journal - 30$
The Black Lilly Deck of Tarot - 60$
Black Lilly - Minor Arcana Tarot deck - The Swords - 40$
Black Lilly - Minor Arcana Tarot deck - The Cups - 40$
Lone wolf notebook - 27$
Little squirrle Notebook - 17$
Rocky Raccoon - 22$
The Great Gatsby - Reader Kit - 27$
Punchline - Original Art - 35$

Hearts - 1095 (the day I started I had 1042, so that's 53 more, which is very nice indeed...)


Money spend:
money spend on listing: 2.80$
Money spend on renewing: 12$
Total: 14.80$

Basically I spend 15$ on renewing and listing, and made a little over 250$, which I think is pretty cool.

I'm going to keep up the experiment for another 2 weeks in which I'm going to play double or nothing, and spend 2$ a day on renewing 10 items. We'll see how it goes...

Experiement day 10

Yesterday, I thought it would be a good idea to renew the 5 items I've been renewing each day at around noon and see if I get more views. In the evening I checked, a book that had 26 views suddenly had 250! I thought I just cracked the secret to the whole renewing thing, but then noticed that an art kit with 67 views, has 51 all of a sudden, and then, scrolling down, it seem that nothing had the amount of views it was supposed to...

A search in Etsy forum showed that there was some big system update and now, the whole thing is supposed to be working better. However, as far as recording views, this was not a good day... So today I repeated the experiment and renewed 5 items at around noon.

So far, in the 3 days of batch renewing I had no sales, I'm disappointed, I wonder if it's because my presence is less noticeable or maybe because renewing every hour or so, made me also comment in the forum, change the featured item in my shop and be more active in Etsy in general. Also, it might be because I haven't listed any new thing in the past couple of days, a small project turned into a huge project somehow, I hope to finish it by the end of the weekend.

So, here is the numbers for today!

Item renewed (Noon)
Birds lover ornaments - 8$ - views 12
Pelvic - Original Painting - 40$ - views 13
Stand and Deliver Journal - 30$ - views 11
Pink Squirrel - Art Kit - 35$ - views 13
Pocket knife Card Case - 20$ - views 12

The interesting fact is this - renewing at 8:00 PM and renewing at noon had just about the same result - even though the listing at noon had 8 more hours to go, I think that it means that overall renewing in the evening is better then during the morning, cause there are more people on Etsy looking for them. As before, renewing 5 items at once didn't cause the items in the back of the list to get less attention then the one in the front.

Item listed - Non, still working on a big project, pretty happy with the way it's going, I illustrated 32 different things in 2 days! that's a lot!

Sales - none...

Hearts - 1081 - 10 hearts in 2 days!

So, numbers so far:
money spend on listing: 2.40$
Money spend on renewing: 10$
Money earned: 204$

I think I might have to publish some teasers for the new project tomorrow, I'm too excited about it not to...

Experiment Day 8

This is the first day of the second phase of the experiment I started a week ago. In the first week I renewed 5 items each day in different hours. In this week I'm going to renew 5 items again, but this time I'm going to renew everything it a batch. Today I did exactly that at 8:00 PM. So far there was no selling tonight, but hopefully, I'll have some surprises in the morning...

Here are today's numbers:

Items renewed (8:00 PM)
Duck Mini Art Kit - 22$ - views 14
White teeth - Reader Kit - 28$ - views 12
Deer Glasses case - 28$ - views 11
Art Nouveau journal - 30$ - views 11
Lucky in Love Business card case - 20$ - views 11

Item listed
5:30 Mac the Moose - 22$ - views 36
6:00 Red fox notebook - 17$ - views 16
7:00 Lone wolf notebook - 27$ - views 9

Item sold - sadly, non...

Hearts 171

The interesting thing is that out of the 5 items renewed, they all got about the same amount of views, somehow I thought that it might be a lot for the top one and non for everything else, it means that most viewers to my store get to it through searches, front page, time machine and so on and not go straight to my shop.

So, numbers so far:
money spend on listing: 2.40$
Money spend on renewing: 8$
Money earned: 204$

Experiment day 7

This is the last day of stage one of the renewal project. It went pretty well so far. The bad news is that the 2 item sale from yesterday got canceled. It was a funny story of birthday present, 2 confused people, one of which trying to surprised the other, and other misunderstanding. So sadly, I'm a little behind. However, the good news is that a deck of tarot card got bought this morning, just out of the blue, I didn't renew that one or anything - but I'm sure the renewing did help.

So here are the numbers for today:

Item renewed
10:00 - Maps and Legends - Reader Kit - 28$ - views 33
11:00 - O solitude - Original painting - 45$ - views: 16
12:30 - Morning - Original painting - 25$ - views: 15
2:00 - Rocky Raccoon - 22$ - views: 13
4:00 - Summer apple Art Kit - 35$ - views: 4
8:00 - Heart - Original Art - 40$ - views: 20

Item listed
Lilly squirrle Notebook - 17$

Item sold
The Black Lilly Deck of Tarot - 60$

Hearts 1067 (weepee)

So, result so far:
money spend on listing: 1.80$
Money spend on renewing: 7$
Money earned: 194$

Tomorrow I'm going to try the second phase of the experimen, and renew all 5 items in a batch!

Strange weekend (experiment is on day 6)

Very odd weekend, it was very very hot and very very strange! The first cool thing that happened this weekend was the Reneged craft show. In which me and Ned spend a lot of hours on both Saturday and Sunday, we had an amazing time, a lot of chance meeting with friends from cyberspace, wonderful art and craft and just plain fun.

Toward the end of the first day, it started to rain, we were hungry, so we run into Urban rustic to get some food and shelter. The food was great, but when we got back to the apartment, it turned out we left all the windows open and everything was wet, the computer, projector, phone, everything...

After a while it turned out that the only serious damage was to the modem and that we can't connect to the internet. Almost all my communication with people is done online and though I could renew a few items through the laptop with the cellular modem, I couldn't really scan anything or do much otherwise, we spend most of the evening trying to figure out where we can get a new modem and maybe a new phone for Ned as soon as possible.

Eventually we found that the only time warner cable store that was open was in a huge mall in queens and in the morning we took the bike there and got a new modem, it was crowded and strange to see all those people and chain stores I usually don't see in NY.

Back in Brooklyn, we spend the rest of the day in the craft fair again, meeting an awesome person I've known online for about 2 years and never met in person and enjoying ourselves. And later on, going out to dinner with Ned's parents for Father's day.



So back to the experiments, for both yesterday and today:

Item Renewed
12:00 Fly away Business card case - 20$ - views 17
3:40 Cup of tea Tissue Cozy - 20$ - views 8
8:10 O solitude - Original painting - 45$ (was bought before I could check the views!)
11:40 Soft Core Pornography ACEO - 10$ - views 22
Sunday
12:40 Black Lilly - Minor Arcana Tarot deck - The Swords - 40$ - views 15
6:30 Jimmy The Wolf cub - 28$ - views 15
10:00 Greek Portrait - Original Painting - 40$ - views 8
12:00 Samuel The Slow Green Turtle - 22$ - views 11
1:00 Sewing Machine card holder - 20$ - views 5

Item listed
Punchline - Original Art - 35$ - views 26

Sales
2 (maybe) I mean, there are 2 new items sold in the list, that were not paid for yet, I got an e-mail explaining they want something else, i think it might get solved and I'll get the money...
Those are the items that were sold:

Maps and Ledgends - Reader Kit - 28$
O solitude - Original painting - 45$

A couple of conclusions - listing or renewing in the evening (about 7:00 till 10:00) get views up faster then in the morning - though somehow the things that got renewed in the morning sold better. Also, the weekend does seem slower then the weekdays.

Hearts 1060 (the same as it was on Thursday)

So, result so far:
money spend on listing: 1.60$
Money spend on renewing: 5.80$
Money earned: 206$

Project Renewal - Day 4

It was such an amazingly beautiful day in NY today. And I was out through most of it, that's why I haven't listed anything new yet, it's after midnight and I had a couple of glasses of Preseco, and I might or might not get to make anything new tonight. It was a pretty good day though, Ned and I had a meeting at Elite Modeling agency and we'll start using some of their girls for shoots, which is really nice, also, we found a good option for some frame for an upcoming art show, which is also a good thing.


On a sadder note, nothing got sold today... I was really hopeful after the great 3 sales the day before, but nothing happened. I did renew 5 items and got some views, but it's all still there
(how frustrating...)

Item Renewed
12:00 Henzel the Fox - 45$ - views:20
2:00 Summer Crab Tissue Cozy - 20$ - views:9
3:00 The Black Lilly Deck of Tarot - 60$ - views:9
6:00 Lizard in the sun - Glasses Case - 28$ - views:8
7:30 Spider Mum leather bound sketchbook - 25$ views:12

Strange numbers - right?!

Items listed none

Sales none

Hearts 1060 96 more then yesterday, isn't that cool?)

So, result so far:
money spend on listing: 1.40$
Money spend on renewing: 4$
Money earned: 143$

When I posted about the experiment in the etsy forum, a lot of people said that this in inspiring and that they would like to try this at some point as well. I haven't tried it for a while, even though I knew it was a good way to get things to pick up. I'm not sure what held me in reserve, but I was scared to invest a pretty small amount of money in a way that would probably benefit me. I urge everyone to skip their next cup of fluffy starbucks drink and a unhealthy pastry
and spend those 3-7$ on renewing. Really, it works! even if I don't sell anything else through this experiment, I intended to spend 16$ on it and already earned 143$ - it's worth it!

Project Renewal - Day 3 - Great Success!

So this is day 3 of the 1$ renewing and listing experiment! And after one successful day of making a sale of a painting and one day with nice amount of views but no sales, this day was the best of all!

When I got up in the morning, I had the first sale waiting for me, and then, while hmmm... me and Ned were having sex, in the afternoon, there was another one, that person bought 2 items! so 3 sales in one day, that's not half bad!

I tried listing in later hours today and so there are less views now, they accumulated much faster, especially the ones renewed at 9:00 and 10:00 PM.

Another really cool that's been happening in the past 2 days, is that this project is
getting me motivated to make things. Yesterday I made 3 books and today I finished 3 reader's kits, after the last one in stock sold today.

And here are the numbers...

Item Renewed
2:00 Pink Squirrel - Art Kit - 35$ - views: 25
4:00 Wide - Original art - 25$ - views: 18
9:15 Spring Tricycle Glasses case - 28$ - views: 12
10:00 Pocket knife Card Case - 20$ - views: 11
11:00 The Key to your Heart - Art kit - 35$ - views: 8

Items listed
Maps and Ledgends - Reader Kit - 28$
100 years of Solitude - Reader Kit - 28$
The Great Gatsby - Reader Kit - 28$

Sells
Oliver the Fox - 45$
Your Money or Your life journal - 30$
Love in the Time of Cholera - Reader Kit - 28$

Hearts
1054

So, result so far:
money spend on listing: 1.40$
Money spend on renewing: 3$
Money earned: 143$

So I'm really excited and happy and just hope this will go on the way it's been!

Project Renewal

I was reading some tread on the etsy forum today where people recommended different things to jump start sells and told what they did to make their store work better. One of the things many people mentioned how renewing and listing often helps a lot! I usually list something every day or two, but I'm going to try and do better now.

I've decided to check this theory by spending a 1$ each day on renewing and listing, meaning, about 5 items either new or renewed per day. I'm going to try two things. In the first week of the experiment, I'm going to list or renew 5 items in different hours of the day, while at the second week of renewing, I'm going to renew all of them at once.

I'm going to put in some numbers in my blog everyday to see if this works in any way to make my sells get a little better.

So here's today's numbers:

Items renewed:
past present future - a set of 3 drawings for 40$
opossum sewing kit - 20$
a cups set of tarot cards - 40$
a fox - 25$

New items:
a painting called strange summer, which I did today at a coffee shop while ned was at the gym escaping the heat of the apartment - 15$

Number of hearts - 1042