Turning Doldrums to Planning Time
Buying has slowed in all areas of the jewelry arts. Instead of falling victim to the January blues, use this time for planning. I cannot recommend highly enough the two books The Marketing Gurus by Chris Murphy and Million Dollar Website by Lori Culwell. Both books came from the library–if your library does not have these books, go to reference desk and tell them you want to get them via an inter-library loan. They get very few requests for these, so just be firm–and it is a free service.
I have visited websites everywhere. One thing I have found among successful sellers, large and small. They use a very minimalistic approach. They may only one sentence to describe an item. This is a new foreign concept to designer who usually think the better we describe an item, the better it will sell. This is not true.
When you are out shopping for clothes (universal need–that is why I use it for examples)–you look at the item. If you like, you look at price. The last step, which not everyone does, look at what it is made of and washing instructions.
Using that example, we are giving out too much information and possibly hurting our sales. With words, wonderfully descriptive words that we have labored over to get the just right tone and feel to represent our jewelry/supplies.
For example, suppose we have a necklace, single strand, of silver and mixed gemstones. How would we represent this item in a clean and uncluttered fashion? Pic–then descripion–18 inch necklace with 2 inch sterling extender and grade A gemstones . That is it. I know; it looks so naked. Do this as experiment for a few months. Use minimal words on 5 items–and keep the rest the way they are currently. See which does better for you.
A fact that is important to remember: your customers are busy people also, trying to juggle a number of things. Their time is limited–especially time to read descriptions.
Positive quote: “Positive anything is better than negative nothing.”–Elbert Hubbard
Kate Thorn
http://beadzonline.etsy.com
“There is no such thing as an ugly bead,
just a lack of imagination.”
