Inspiration Bags freebi gifts!

I have 20 cool inspiration goody bags to give away to anyone who buy anything from my shop, each bag contains a lovely unique notebook, a mini set of inspiration cards (5-6 cards) and a hand painted book mark. Also lucky number 13 will receive an awesome surprise prize that's handmade by me and priced at about 30$.

This great goody bag can be yours with any purchase from my shop - just type in the code InspireMe in the "massage to seller" box when you place your order.

This coupon is available while supply lasts. there are 20 bags so be quick about it!

My store is: http://louchelab.etsy.com

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...

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!

Good night!

Sales today: 3
Items posted: 3
packages send out: 1
Main source of inspiration: A fabric shopping spree at PurlSoho made me think about colors.
Best thing to eat: jambon de bayon Sandwich at Blackbird Parlor and Baklava for dessert.
Listening to: The deathgate cycle audio book.

We were sick all week, however, during the night I feel better and then - I work! and so tonight, Ned took photos of a cups Tarot deck I finished last night. And I manage to make another 2. It was a very good night.

The cool thing was this - I listed the deck, then, I posted a photo in flickr, then I opened the new Exel work file I downloaded from the Etsy site to try and keep better track on thing and, well tried to figure it out since I've never worked with it before (I'm still not sure it's working...) and then I went back to my etsy page to check the view - and the deck was gone! it was already sold!

It's the best feeling in the world.