tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25309232146222315792024-03-13T10:27:43.316-07:00craftmetricTips, tricks, solutions, ideas and general ramblings about selling and promoting crafts online at Folksy, Etsy, and other interesting places.Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-51335011164541349542013-08-14T12:44:00.003-07:002013-08-14T12:46:35.884-07:00Folksy Summer SchoolI thought I'd share with you the fantastic weekend I've just had at the Folksy Summer School in Sheffield. When Folksy first revealed they were planning a weekend of workshops and speakers for designer-makers I knew immediately I wanted to go. There were a nailbiting few weeks while they decided on dates - it would either take place on a weekend when I was going down to Cornwall for a friend's wedding, or the 10th of August, when I was free. Thankfully they picked the 10th and so I bought an earlybird weekend ticket the first day they went on sale! A few weeks later I booked my train ticket from London to Sheffield, and two nights at a Premier inn (£29 a night, bargain!). I was all set! Just had to wait until the big day now...<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4YnYE27lQJXDdvKMbRxao5dsTBF5NcJxQO92AMe1fWRn7v7xkkujMJFv-EBKYWlw68Yu4K_XBb8FjGCd2eRlS5L6KNCiEoapUBk1hOP2MuFoQs0ZzB-7Q2bcXI4q7-24-H7QchCr-xgk/s1600/IMG_5340.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4YnYE27lQJXDdvKMbRxao5dsTBF5NcJxQO92AMe1fWRn7v7xkkujMJFv-EBKYWlw68Yu4K_XBb8FjGCd2eRlS5L6KNCiEoapUBk1hOP2MuFoQs0ZzB-7Q2bcXI4q7-24-H7QchCr-xgk/s320/IMG_5340.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The only photo I took during the weekend...</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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So finally, last weekend, the day came. I got the train up on the Friday night after work, having spent much of the day refreshing my twitter feed to see what was being shared under the hashtag #folksyschool. Straight to my hotel bed once I got there, to make sure I had a good night's sleep. After getting up early for a nice buffet breakfast I made an almost disastrous error: assuming that buses in Sheffield run at the same frequency as those in London... Whoops; luckily the hourly bus was running late so I made it in time to register before the first talk at 10:30.<br />
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The location Folksy had chosen to hold the weekend in was lovely - a woodland centre set in the beautiful Ecclesall woods, about a 15 minute bus ride south of the city. It was much more 'us' than a boring corporate hotel or conference centre; the slightly rickety marquee, white plastic chairs and picnic tables seemed very right for such a unique, creative bunch.<br />
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The main talks took place in the marquee and were a great mix of different styles - teaching, sharing experiences, and just telling us interesting stuff. Highlights for me included:<br />
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<li>Patricia van den Akker from <a href="http://www.thedesigntrust.co.uk/" target="_blank">The Design Trust</a> who had so much enthusiasm for helping small creative businesses, and so much sensible straightforward advice about how to expand and grow - including the breakthough idea that it's OK if you want to just grow your business to the limits of what YOU can do, and don't want to start outsourcing, licensing designs, or employing others</li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/nickhand" target="_blank">Nick Hand</a> who made amazing films of craftspeople around Britain while cycling its coast (watch them <a href="http://slowcoast.co.uk/" target="_blank">here</a>)</li>
<li>Chloe from <a href="http://www.hatastic.co.uk/" target="_blank">Hatastic</a> whose story of going from her first headpiece which she made for herself, to selling on Folksy, to being regularly featured in Vogue and stocked in Fenwicks</li>
<li>The guys from <a href="http://www.minimoderns.com/" target="_blank">Mini Moderns</a> who shared their branding and how they tell their story through their advertising and packaging</li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/willsh" target="_blank">John Willshire</a> AKA <a href="http://smithery.co/" target="_blank">Smithery</a> who really got us all thinking about marketing, and challenged the usual mantra of having one tagline for your business which you repeat over and over</li>
<li><a href="http://www.schoolforstartups.co.uk/about-doug-richard/" target="_blank">Doug Richards</a> who fired us all up at the very end of the weekend and reminded us that just charging for materials and your time - however well you pay yourself - does NOT make a business! Don't forget the profit!</li>
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All the experts who spoke, and many others as well, gave their time over the weekend for 10-20 minute 'one-to-ones' with attendees, sharing their wisdom and helping solve individual problems. I must admit I never got around to having a one-to-one - I just couldn't decide what I wanted to ask about (apart from, how the heck do you fit everything in to the 24 hours in the day!).<br />
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I did go to one of the photography workshops run by <a href="http://www.lyndsey-james.co.uk/" target="_blank">Lyndsey James</a> and am now hoping to make it to one of her more in-depth workshops to learn even more about using my camera. She had some really good ideas about staging and styling your shots, and I've started thinking about ditching my usual plain white backgrounds for something a bit more exciting (though again, where I'm going to find the time to reshoot my whole range, I don't know!).<br />
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Apart from the workshops and talks there was a chance to try out a few crafts - I gave lino printing a go with <a href="http://folksy.com/shops/jamesgreenprintworks" target="_blank">James Green</a> (a Folksy seller from Sheffield) and I was very pleased with the result. It was so nice to have the luxury of a bit of time to do a craft that wasn't sewing cat collars! There was crochet, screen printing, letterpress, book binding and sewing projects to try out too.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrRjB1tH1IQ-AfWxgjNDMltg73Rs3ZIuHxDXKhPzhkQt62tqQV1wxfkAad-MKL9Q35pulxohKrfTAyeslsQJ8eAa-KW8-v9GKAUo0KLfkUDJM8XCR1SzOffzjHQTxq7TD6oEZ5dS57syQ/s1600/IMG_5343.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrRjB1tH1IQ-AfWxgjNDMltg73Rs3ZIuHxDXKhPzhkQt62tqQV1wxfkAad-MKL9Q35pulxohKrfTAyeslsQJ8eAa-KW8-v9GKAUo0KLfkUDJM8XCR1SzOffzjHQTxq7TD6oEZ5dS57syQ/s320/IMG_5343.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wait- I did take one more photo! Lino printed my logo!</td></tr>
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There was of course plenty of time to talk to other attendees too. I was a bit nervous, going to the weekend on my own - as was everyone else, I think! But it was so easy to just get chatting in between sessions, because you knew you have something in common: a love of making and a desire to turn this love into more than just a hobby. We shared our frustrations and failures, the difficulties of working alone so much, of squaring your craft activities with a full or part time job, and how to be seen as professional when you make pretty hairclips in your spare time. We brainstormed names for new shops together, shared our favourite places to buy fabric and other supplies, and told each other our shortcuts and tips for selling online. It was wonderful to feel part of a vibrant growing community, and be valued by everyone there, whatever you did.<br />
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Surprisingly, the majority of people there didn't sell on Folksy. Some were planning to, some sold in other outlets. I think Folksy had done a lot of local advertising as a lot of people hadn't had too far to come. It was nice as a seasoned seller to be able to share tips with 'newbies' on setting up your shop, and answer their questions about Folksy, Etsy and having your own website. Their enthusiasm was catching - I found myself looking at what I did through fresh eyes.<br />
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Other aspects that were great - the whole place was decorated beautifully by bunting that had been sent in by talented Folksy sellers, and the food available was just perfect. Some was free (coffee, tea, biscuits, fruit, icecreams, lots of sweets!) and some was to buy (a tuck shop run by <a href="http://www.cocoawonderland.co.uk/" target="_blank">Cocoa Wonderland</a>, sandwiches each day from <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sharrow-Marrow/143205579025246" target="_blank">Sharrow Marrow</a>, and a great roast pork BBQ on the first evening which meant I didn't have to eat alone!). There was a fab goodie bag for us upon arrival, including a lovely notebook, more sweets, pens and pencils, a little pack of quilting fabric squares, and a plethora of useful resources. If you ever had a question about what was going on it was always easy to find either a Folksy staff member or one of the helpful volunteers.<br />
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Talking of the lovely Folksy staffers, the weekend for me was topped off by the journey home. I'd just sat down on the train when who should come sit opposite me but Frankie from Folksy who I'd spoken to just before leaving the site (to say well done - he'd been standing up at the front of the marquee for the entirety of both days, attending to the sound levels and sorting out mikes and slideshows!). We had a great chat about everything to do with selling craft online, he asked me how I thought Folksy could be improved, and told me some of the challenges the small Folksy team face when deciding which changes to implement next. Then when I mentioned Mog's Togs, he said 'Oh, you're Mog's Togs? I know your shop!'. My head nearly exploded!<br />
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So in conclusion... I think you can tell, I really enjoyed myself! For the first time in a while my brain is whirling with ideas for Mog's Togs. For about the past year, since I really reached the limit of what I could do with the business in my spare time, I have had so little time to try anything new that I've actually suppressed new ideas, which is kind of sad and has made things less fun and more mundane. It's frustrating that I've just started a new job, so need to put the hours in there and can't implement everything at once; but I'm now wondering about writing myself an exit plan from full time employment... exciting times! (Don't tell my brand new boss...). If Folksy run the Summer School again next year - and I really hope they do - I strongly recommend you think about going. It's great for getting the creative juices flowing and giving you loads of inspiration to keep your business growing and changing. I'll be going again next year, and bringing Mum too!<br />
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(I feel bad that I only took two photos to show you! There's a <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/folksyschool2013" target="_blank">Flickr group</a> with photos of the weekend, if you want to see some more.)Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-1909132710190712292013-03-15T05:15:00.001-07:002013-03-15T05:28:17.477-07:00How to (try and) combine a shop with a full time job!<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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On the Etsy forums this week, a newish seller was asking for
tips on how to run a shop around a full time job. Having done this for the past
two and a half years I thought I’d give a few suggestions that have worked for
me, and thought I’d flesh them out a bit in a blog post.<br />
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<b>Make the whole making and selling process as streamlined and
efficient as possible. </b>For me that means batch making; ordering supplies in
bulk; using helpful webapps and programs to make accounting and stocktaking as
quick and easy as possible. I use WaveAccounting for my accounts (it’s free)
because it automatically imports all your PayPal transactions, which covers 95%
of my total income and outgoings. I’ve also recently started using Craftybase
(various monthly packages) to keep track of my supplies and unsold stock and to
help provide me with stock value estimates for my tax return.<br />
<br />
<b>Be honest with yourself when you have a fantastic new idea. </b>Are you REALLY
going to be able to fit it in to your life as it is now? If not, add them to a
list to do when you have more time. I have reached the point now where I am
spending most of my free time on Mog’s Togs, so at the moment, I can’t add new
product lines without ditching something else. My “ideas” list is very long!<br />
<br />
<b>Keep lists.</b> I have lists of supplies to buy, emails to reply to, and above all
I enter every new order into a todo list so I can see at a glance what I need
to do over the next few evenings and never forget an order.</div>
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<b>If you have a commute on public transport, see if you can
use this time productively. </b>If you knit or crochet small items, can you take
them with you to work on during a train journey? I can’t bring a sewing machine
with me, but I often use my hour on the train each day glued to my iPhone or
iPad – I mark items as dispatched, catch up on emails, read blogs, and relist
or renew items. Now I can upload photos from my iThings, I can even list new
items for sale on Etsy and Folksy.<br />
<br />
<b>Whether you hold your stock already made, or make it to order, add a processing
/ lead time to your items and make it a day or two more than you need. </b>It’ll
give you a breather, a bit of space to work around any unexpected life problems
that crop up, and most importantly could push orders made in the latter half of
the week to an expected dispatch date in the following week, giving you the
precious weekend to catch up. Also, if you exceed customer’s expectations and
usually get your orders out more quickly than you say in your shop policies,
it’ll give them the warm fuzzies. Remember – under-promise and over-deliver!<br />
<br />
<b>Keep a close eye on your diary </b>- a few weekends on the trot where you're out of
the house or have guests over can push everything completely out of whack. I am
going through this at the moment, we only have a few weekends at home over the
whole of January, February and March. It is having an impact on my shop and I
am having to work hard in the evenings to keep everything ticking over.<br />
<br />
<b>Consider getting into wholesale. </b>I find bulk orders with a realistic lead time
less stressful than the many single orders that come through my shops. They
help to even out the demand on your time and best of all you know you are
getting paid for the items you’re making; they aren’t going to sit on sale in
your shop for who knows how long.<br />
<br />
<b>Streamline your home life as much as you can. </b>Plan the week's meals in advance
and foodshop at the weekends or online (it’s quicker than numerous small trips
to the supermarket during the week because you ran out of pasta / milk
etcetera). If you are making enough income from your business, consider
"outsourcing" chores if it's more profitable for you to be creating.
We now have a cleaner come once a week, which is a couple of hours more I get
to spend making, or doing something with my husband, or other things that
usually get put off indefinitely ... I just wish I could outsource going to the
gym...<br />
<br />
<b>I realise there isn’t necessarily anything you can do about this (you either
have it or you don’t), but if you have a partner, them being understanding and
supportive is a big help.</b> This means someone who doesn't see your shops as
“just a hobby” and understands that when you are particularly busy with it,
they need to step up and do a bit more, just like they would if you were having
a particularly stressful period at work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>However I do think we have to earn this a little – if you are
undervaluing your work by selling your time-consuming-to-create items for just the
price of the materials and not giving yourself a proper wage, why would your
partner value your enterprise?</div>
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<b>If you have a designated work area, every time you go into
it to start work, spend a few minutes tidying it up a bit.</b> There’s nothing more
annoying than having to spend half of Saturday doing a massive tidy because
you’ve got to the point where you can’t find anything, when you could have used
that time to create.<br />
<br />
Finally my biggest tip: <b>When you come into the house from work, DON'T sit down
on the sofa, even for "just a minute". </b>Go straight to wherever you
create (maybe pick up a cup of coffee on the way) and sit down there. Look at
your lists and work out what you're going to do that evening. Then do it!<br />
<br />
<b>Do you have any more tips? Not just for working your shops around a job, but working your shops around studying, a busy family, volunteering, or other responsibilities - how do you get it all done?</b><br />
<br />
<i>I wrote this weeks ago! That busy life got in the way and I only just got round to tidying it up and pressing "publish". Perhaps my last tip would be "Don't start a blog" - it always ends up at the bottom of the pile!!</i> </div>
Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-7706637843798794802013-01-15T09:08:00.004-08:002013-01-15T09:10:12.957-08:00Bad online experiences - in real lifeMy brother pointed me to these great videos from Google Analytics just before Christmas. They were designed to make webshop owners think about some of the barriers between your customers arriving at your site and actually completing a transaction. Instead of a boring lecture, they've turned some common online shopping frustrations into real life comedy scenarios which take place in a poorly planned supermarket with some rather annoying staff. <br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
My favourite is this one on having to sign in to a website before completing your purchase:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/3Sk7cOqB9Dk?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
The others (about site search and landing-page optimisation) are embedded in this Mashable post, or you can find them on the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/googleanalytics/videos" target="_blank">Google Analytics YouTube channel</a>. I also noticed that they have lots of helpful-looking videos about how to do various tasks. I've added some to my "to watch" queue, doing more with my analytics is always on my to-do list!Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-75903440989831503602012-11-15T12:33:00.000-08:002012-11-23T01:49:38.425-08:00Famous for five minutes!As you may already have seen if you follow Mog's Togs on Twitter or Facebook, or are visitors to the Folksy or Etsy forums, last week I was included along with some other UK sellers in this article on the BBC website, all about the resurgence in crafts and particularly selling them online.<br />
<br />
You can read it here: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19599168">Etsy, Folksy and the mania for making crafts</a><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9h1PcEHdzbOaPbm0fUmYMaHQ5XGeHfh5S8B6YJi0IYexVTz0O0V9FNPjhS_Z4DsNaLXbL1bD4rWX-pls-sjop5ujeQ4iJ3VwjfabV6wXbVJvfW24yifoGcCGLBmvR_mVR745B1l8SuE0/s1600/bbc.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9h1PcEHdzbOaPbm0fUmYMaHQ5XGeHfh5S8B6YJi0IYexVTz0O0V9FNPjhS_Z4DsNaLXbL1bD4rWX-pls-sjop5ujeQ4iJ3VwjfabV6wXbVJvfW24yifoGcCGLBmvR_mVR745B1l8SuE0/s320/bbc.JPG" width="304" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's my bit!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I was contacted by the journalist in July and did an interview over the phone with her. She was ever so nice! She did ask for links to my shop and items but unfortunately due to the BBC's editorial policies no links could be included in the text, which was a bit of a shame. However lots of people were able to find my shops, both on Folksy and my own website, and I had a bumper weekend of sales. Quite a few of them mentioned that they had found me after seeing the article; and one lady ordered on the Thursday, received her collars on the Saturday, and placed a second order on Monday!<br />
<br />
From the sound of things on the Folksy forums, although most individual sellers only reported a mild increase in visitors (if any at all), interestingly quite a few people mentioned that their Google Analytics showed a much higher % of new visitors than normal. As for Folksy - well they had their busiest day of the year on the Saturday - well done! Unfortunately the site was a little slow on the day the article came out, due to both the influx of new visitors and a server problem, but it sounds like most new visitors stuck with the site or came back to visit another day.<br />
<br />
Many other UK sellers and their items were featured and I've been trying to track down as many as I can. The other interviewed sellers were:<br />
<br />
Shirley Woosey - <a href="http://folksy.com/shops/WhimsyWooDesigns" target="_blank">Whimsy Woo Designs</a><br />
Nikki McWilliams - <a href="http://folksy.com/shops/NikkiMade" target="_blank">NikkiMade</a><br />
Marion McConaghie - <a href="http://www.etsy.com/people/TinkerPrince" target="_blank">Tinker Prince</a> <br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfofUFVnJVZWPM3IXWMZNtLtRkKWNP8cPOETwPFwp7Z8jgqX406GbdZCNZa5bS3ZbR5ZmtJaVB00gr83SduqT1cCELtRqthvuzqZMy-0ia7CIhj3fsLlgaqesNxN6Jfg6VA6TbhQOreoo/s1600/_62457605_vanessa_animalscomposite.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfofUFVnJVZWPM3IXWMZNtLtRkKWNP8cPOETwPFwp7Z8jgqX406GbdZCNZa5bS3ZbR5ZmtJaVB00gr83SduqT1cCELtRqthvuzqZMy-0ia7CIhj3fsLlgaqesNxN6Jfg6VA6TbhQOreoo/s320/_62457605_vanessa_animalscomposite.jpg" width="320" /></a>In these smaller pictures:<br />
<a href="http://folksy.com/items/3448474-Elvis-Meerkat" target="_blank">Elvis Meerkat</a> by <a href="http://folksy.com/shops/NiftyKnits" target="_blank">NiftyKnits</a><br />
<a href="http://folksy.com/items/2750530-Punk-Zebra" target="_blank">Punk Zebra</a> by <a href="http://folksy.com/shops/PimpMySock" target="_blank">Pimp My Sock</a><br />
<a href="http://folksy.com/items/3410526-felted-white-bunny" target="_blank">Felted White Bunny</a> by <a href="http://folksy.com/shops/karend" target="_blank">Karen Dale</a><br />
I wasn't able to track down the Bee or the Bear - does anyone recognise them?<br />
<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieZ1Ws1qcdea_5zKlZwhtLa1hyphenhyphen3lDKFTd_fAM3V_i5mNq6i_JOmMYicyDYX8kqTDCKGTDt8KsuZIr97k2OuNNZda-pGIliGpm7ZfxafpU8MKk6Zqd2qkSs7rWQn3T4pD2mn4x3KGj3AC0/s1600/_62423212_montage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieZ1Ws1qcdea_5zKlZwhtLa1hyphenhyphen3lDKFTd_fAM3V_i5mNq6i_JOmMYicyDYX8kqTDCKGTDt8KsuZIr97k2OuNNZda-pGIliGpm7ZfxafpU8MKk6Zqd2qkSs7rWQn3T4pD2mn4x3KGj3AC0/s320/_62423212_montage.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
I think all these pictures are from <a href="http://folksy.com/shops/tovicorrie" target="_blank">Tovicorrie </a>but only the <a href="http://folksy.com/items/3278090-Leather-keyring-Sugar-Skull" target="_blank">Leather Keyring</a> and <a href="http://folksy.com/items/3123042-Leather-cuff-wallet-wristband-Victorian-roses" target="_blank">Leather Cuff Wallet</a> are still in her shop.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_yZYgwRyUGNP1GlZIS2mpMQ671lqZ_TSQNmmVRrgbKcoYwnGsZ1Lt5I95a5ncwKE31ikwQI1AhTW31C_I8oQbwuuAkG9scpSlV7C4_xyHwgNLgQGKIgD9NEL2_YyDGsWFz4xjbKoY-ws/s1600/_62813502_montage-wedding.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_yZYgwRyUGNP1GlZIS2mpMQ671lqZ_TSQNmmVRrgbKcoYwnGsZ1Lt5I95a5ncwKE31ikwQI1AhTW31C_I8oQbwuuAkG9scpSlV7C4_xyHwgNLgQGKIgD9NEL2_YyDGsWFz4xjbKoY-ws/s320/_62813502_montage-wedding.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />
"Mr & Mrs Taylor" <a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/94467604/mr-mrs-personalised-cake-topper-the" target="_blank">personalised cake topper</a> and <a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/90702313/his-n-hers-wedding-cake-topper" target="_blank">His n Hers cake topper</a> from <a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop/MissSarahCake?ref=seller_info" target="_blank">Miss Cake</a><br />
"Smith" <a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/95620144/mr-and-mrs-wedding-announcement-a4-art?ref=sr_gallery_8&ga_search_query=wedding+poster&ga_order=most_relevant&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_ship_to=GB&ga_locationQuery=2635167&ga_search_type=all&ga_facet=wedding+poster" target="_blank">personalised wedding print</a> from <a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop/ByPoppyWithLove" target="_blank">By Poppy With Love</a><br />
I couldn't find the other three items... any ideas? <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWcvw1ijS1xcUgKe7yo-x9Yxq3eGpFtKlo8MzHmS8LLSlHrwzoBxhTF8BGIZejlYkN1-_yS0jN4vY_2i5PrQuYT3MIDCtbRQVNgdli_rse1k7MbS3pjkvucQU5CPmXrqd5-FPUGdee7tg/s1600/_62391452_main-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWcvw1ijS1xcUgKe7yo-x9Yxq3eGpFtKlo8MzHmS8LLSlHrwzoBxhTF8BGIZejlYkN1-_yS0jN4vY_2i5PrQuYT3MIDCtbRQVNgdli_rse1k7MbS3pjkvucQU5CPmXrqd5-FPUGdee7tg/s320/_62391452_main-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
This cute fellow was at the very top of the article. I am sure I recognise it from a UK seller but I can't find where from!<br />
<i>Edited to add: </i>Found it! The seller had a mouse on the front page of Folksy today (23/11/12) so now I know it's by <a href="http://folksy.com/shops/TheHouseOfMouse" target="_blank">The House of Mouse</a> and this particular little fellow is <a href="http://folksy.com/items/3433458-Musculus-Maximouse-the-Gladiator-Mouse" target="_blank">Musculus Maximouse</a>!! Fabulous!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The article came out at a great time for us all - what better time to raise the profile of UK craft online sellers than just before Christmas. I hope it has a positive impact on everyone!!Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-26269039909369750442012-10-17T05:54:00.000-07:002012-10-17T05:54:12.630-07:00Saving time on packaging orders<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">My sales
are creeping up at the moment (I think Christmas shopping is already beginning!), which is great of course, but I’m increasingly conscious of how much time I spend packaging orders.
Because I work full time everything is done in the evenings and at weekends, so
most nights before I go to bed I package up any orders outstanding, and even 4 or 5 orders seems to take me half
an hour to take through from on the shelf to ready to post. I think this is too long, considering that I don't have particularly fancy packaging. International orders
are the most time consuming, and since most of my increase in sales is happening on
Etsy, the hours spent sticking, writing, printing, are really starting to encroach on
both making time and sleeping time!</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Determined
to do something about it I realised that the two big time-killers are finding
the extra 4 digits for US orders, and printing postage on Royal Mail’s online
site, so I tried to find ways around these.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b>US zip codes</b></span></span></span></h2>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images.folksy.com/aXRlbXMvMjI0NTQvMjAxMjA2MjQvMTcxMjY0NTk3NjQ-Q-N/main" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://images.folksy.com/aXRlbXMvMjI0NTQvMjAxMjA2MjQvMTcxMjY0NTk3NjQ-Q-N/main" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://folksy.com/items/3430542-Zip-flower-brooch" target="_blank">Zip flower brooch</a> by Bertie on Folksy <br />
(ZIP, do you get it?!)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">As
mentioned in my <a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/posting-abroad-keeping-missing-parcels.html" target="_blank">Posting Abroad</a> post, I always add the extra 4 digits to US zip
codes. I’ve read a few things which say it speeds up delivery by a day or two; but
other sources say that although it makes life easier for the US Postal Service,
it doesn’t actually speed up delivery. So I think the jury’s out on whether it
really works; however my mantra is if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it – and since I
very rarely lose orders posted to the US, I don’t want to stop doing it.
However, it is a real pain using the official USPS zip code finder to find
those extra 4 digits. You have to paste the address in one line at a time, and
split off apartment numbers into their own line too. It’s really time consuming
when you have a lot of orders to do, especially if you are using Royal Mail
online postage and have to enter the address line by line again on their
website. So I searched
for an alternative, and found this website:</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://www.unitedstateszipcodes.org/">http://www.unitedstateszipcodes.org/</a></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">On this
site you can copy the whole address from Etsy and paste it into the left hand
box, no need to mess around with pressing Enter or reformatting. It then pops
out the address with full zip code so if you need to you can copy that in its
entirety onto a sticky label for your package. SO much quicker than the
official site! And as an added bonus, you get to learn a bit about American
geography as it pulls up a Google map of the location. You can even have a nosy
on StreetView to see where your package is going! (Too stalkery?!)</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b>Royal Mail online postage</b></span></span></span></h2>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images.folksy.com/aXRlbXMvMTUxOTU3LzIwMTIwNjE5LzIzMjE5MzgxNzUy-N/main" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://images.folksy.com/aXRlbXMvMTUxOTU3LzIwMTIwNjE5LzIzMjE5MzgxNzUy-N/main" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://folksy.com/items/2065413-New-York-airmail-letter-zip-purse" target="_blank">New York Airmail Letter Purse</a> by <br />
Button Boudoir II on Folksy</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Next I tried to find a way to save time with RM online postage. I failed, so I have just stopped using it
completely - it was just too time-consuming. Apart from just having to click
through SO MANY screens to make the label, being able to print only one label per sheet had me
screaming in frustration if I was ordering multiple labels! Rearranging label
sheets in the printer, getting it wrong and printing on the shiny gap where a
label used to be, it was all driving me nuts. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Luckily for
me (and I realise that most sellers don’t have this luxury), all my items cost
the same to post, so I went to the post office to buy a lot of £1.90 stamps,
and grabbed sheets of airmail stickers, and now I print all addresses – international
and domestic - out on a pre-formatted sheet of four labels in Word, which has my return address and a little logo on. Initially this was
taking me almost as long as using the RM website, but after a bit of a google
the following tips have everything flowing smoothly:</span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b>When you
paste the address in (for example from the zipcode website above), set the
default to match destination formatting </b>– this stops the text changing font and
position when you copy it from your browser to Word. To do this, in Office
2010, after you paste something, this little square appears. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl1gaU68zqiegjjBcEDzG6nT2CqWkcS6e5Q9C01LA-OwQyDSfCW_CKaDtO7xOKGEoqAUc6H_3s8zmRueAb0Ri3pi2nBwo32cxSZ_Tt5wYvulkqZ5xHWPiDDzBf4j9iDgRwmnbf-cbiQ00/s1600/pasteicon.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl1gaU68zqiegjjBcEDzG6nT2CqWkcS6e5Q9C01LA-OwQyDSfCW_CKaDtO7xOKGEoqAUc6H_3s8zmRueAb0Ri3pi2nBwo32cxSZ_Tt5wYvulkqZ5xHWPiDDzBf4j9iDgRwmnbf-cbiQ00/s1600/pasteicon.png" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Click it to see
the various options ("keep source formatting" keeps the formatting from the
web page; "match destination formatting" adopts the formatting in
your document); click “Set default paste” to set it to match destination
formatting permanently if that’s useful. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgogzv98DgrI_2RwPFkMycHhglQ-apBz5fYA4MCVuuI2QTxvq7uvXthjFlBtQjW2JDyS32bcb-gecQ4dJN5ginE70z9Xhh-8DdXMrOFRJjbstyrYw8ZzLYbLE87-Gdu7BB2JADMQyKRt7A/s1600/pastemenu.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgogzv98DgrI_2RwPFkMycHhglQ-apBz5fYA4MCVuuI2QTxvq7uvXthjFlBtQjW2JDyS32bcb-gecQ4dJN5ginE70z9Xhh-8DdXMrOFRJjbstyrYw8ZzLYbLE87-Gdu7BB2JADMQyKRt7A/s1600/pastemenu.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b>Make all
the address text UPPER CASE. </b>Again, in Word 2010, just highlight the text you
want to change (remember you can press Ctrl to select bits of text that aren’t
next to each other), and look for this box on the toolbar to change the case (it's just under the font selection boxes). </span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglijywedxvk4rYTb0_-2nyqpB_P2dFGWlCbtjayV5xwH7W411cioMpFFBzi2r7EDKv9Qf-CggycJrd00NCgza4Hj8pH66zYooXsraULr9l3Mivt94UpV-cN4WzsCPs2Jg4dDN60a47Mf8/s1600/uppercase.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglijywedxvk4rYTb0_-2nyqpB_P2dFGWlCbtjayV5xwH7W411cioMpFFBzi2r7EDKv9Qf-CggycJrd00NCgza4Hj8pH66zYooXsraULr9l3Mivt94UpV-cN4WzsCPs2Jg4dDN60a47Mf8/s1600/uppercase.png" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">It seems like a lot of customers are too lazy to stretch to the Shift key and type city
names and postcodes in all lower case – GRRR! – changing all letters to capitals is easier than correcting only the offending letters. Also, some <a href="http://pe.usps.com/businessmail101/addressing/deliveryaddress.htm" target="_blank">useful USPS guidance</a> on
addressing American post suggests that uppercase is best anyway (the lovely NiftyKnits
shared that link on Etsy – thanks!).</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I was a bit
scared of deserting Royal Mail (again, the fear of fixing something that was
working fine), but my printed labels look dead smart, and one of the first
orders I sent this way was sent from London on a Tuesday, and arrived in
California ON SATURDAY! That’s FOUR DAYS!! (Unfortunately, the reason I know it
took 4 days was that I sent the wrong colour collar… oops! Fortunately the
customer was understanding and equally impressed that it arrived so quick – I just
hope the replacement gets there as fast too!). </span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b>Have you got any tips for speeding me up even further?! I'm all about efficiency at the moment! </b></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></span></div>
Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-53412086719094125142012-09-21T14:11:00.000-07:002012-09-21T14:11:47.602-07:00Well that's summer done...Hm, so it seems I haven't blogged since May! I guess I got struck down by blogger's block, and a bit of Olympic and Paralympic fever too, and Mog's Togs has been keeping me pretty busy as well. I've hardly written anything on my cat blog either. Ah well, onwards and upwards!<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
I have done a bit of work "behind the scenes" on past posts - in particular, the Folksy vs Etsy posts which after only 6 months are now hopelessly out of date. Both sites have made plenty of changes since I wrote the posts in early spring, and these are definitely changes for the better.<br />
<br />
Etsy's change to paying listing fees <i>after</i> selling 2nd and later items has revolutionised my listing over there, no longer do I have any qualms about listing multiple quantities and I've been rewarded with an increase in sales, which is fantastic. <br />
<br />
I was asked to help test the Folksy Plus seller account which was exciting - although I was on holiday in a 3G and wifi blackspot during most of the testing period, oops. Again, this change to listing costs has seen my Folksy shop grow from a small shop with at most 10 or so items, to one which mirrors my main website. I now have almost all my products on offer at Folksy, since I don't have to worry about whether an item will sell or not before deciding to list it. As well as this, changes to the Seller Dashboard have made it possible for the first time to temporarily deactivate items, and at last we have got everlasting URLs which was one of my biggest bugbears on Folksy. These changes haven't had such an impact on sales but it is certainly a lot less hassle to maintain my shop and keep it looking nice.<br />
<br />
So! I am going to sign off for now, but I have lots of ideas for new posts so fingers crossed there will not be a gap of three months before my next thrilling missive... back soon!!Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-65012536305346081592012-05-31T12:50:00.000-07:002012-06-01T04:59:08.988-07:00Airmail: Small Packet or Letter?In my article on postage I say that you can send anything internationally as a Letter rather than a Small Packet if it is cheaper. When I first wrote that article, it was only cheaper up to 40g, but now it is cheaper up to 100g, so this issue now applies to more people.<br />
<br />
I had a question on the blog about whether I had any proof that this was true, and also got involved in various threads on the Etsy and Folksy forums about this issue, so I wanted to collect together the facts and myths in one place. Let me warn you, this is a bit of a long post, and there are no pictures to break it up, sorry! <b>Update - I think we've cracked it! Whizz down to the bottom to see!</b><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Firstly, no, there is no definitive page on the Royal Mail website which says that <i>anything </i>can be conveyed as a Letter, even if it is a "packet type" item (ie, not flat and rectangular). However I still stand by my assertion. Here are my efforts to get a proper answer to this question, and what I've found out.<br />
<br />
1. I did try and get a definitive answer. I contacted Royal Mail through their "Contact Us" page. Unfortunately I didn't keep a copy of my question, but you've read enough of my blog to know I am detailed to the point of pedantry and it was definitely clear! This was the response:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Dear Mrs Jinks
<br />
Thank you for contacting Royal Mail and I note your concern.
<br />
You may wish to clock on the following link which takes you to our size guide on the website:
<br /><a href="http://www.royalmail.com/small-medium-business/international-business/using-international-services/what-can-be-sent/size-weight-restrictions" target="_blank">http://www.royalmail.com/<wbr></wbr>small-medium-business/<wbr></wbr>international-business/using-<wbr></wbr>international-services/what-<wbr></wbr>can-be-sent/size-weight-<wbr></wbr>restrictions</a></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
Thank you for contacting me about this matter and if I can be of anymore help please get back in touch.</span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
Regards</span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
Andrew McMahon</span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
Customer Service Advisor</span><br />
<br />
Unfortunately, that link was not helpful. Again, it just displays the <i>maximum</i> size and weight limits for international mail. Although it is helpful in that there are no separate limits for Letter and Small Packets, which is more evidence for the defense, it doesn't actually prove anything. I doubt he even read my message. In fact, I doubt Andrew McMahon is even a real person; I suspect he is a piece of software that scans messages for key words or phrases and churns out related links. Despite Andrew's invitation to "get back in touch" if I needed more help, the footer of the email informed me that replies to this email address were not read. Instead I would have to re-ask the question through their website, inevitably getting a different customer service agent who would just give the same link. So I gave up.<br />
<br />
2. I found <a href="http://www.royalmail.com/delivery/delivery-options-international/airmail/faqs/faqs#1400039" target="_blank">this page</a> on their website. The table lumps Letters and Packets together in one row of the table giving minimum and maximum dimensions. Again, not a definitive answer, but why would they do this if there was a distinction in size between the two classes? This would be the perfect page to describe any differences.<br />
<br />
3. In many larger PO's, there are now automated machines for buying postage, which includes international mail. You place your item on the scale and it weighs it, and then asks if it is a Letter or Small Packet. The only criteria given for Letter is "includes personalised correspondence".. once again, there are no sizing definitions to distinguish the two rates.<br />
<br />
3. Probably the best evidence so far, unearthed by Etsy seller Sandra at <a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop/KraftyKatsUK" target="_blank">KraftyKatsUK</a>, is <a href="http://www.royalmail.com/sites/default/files/OLPS%20300412%20v3.pdf" target="_blank">this document</a> containing Royal Mail's terms and conditions for international mail. I recommend reading all 48 pages if you suffer from insomnia, or if the sight of paint drying sends your blood pressure rocketing with excitement. If not, I'll direct you to the useful parts.<br />
<br />
On page 6, it defines a "letter" thus:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
"letter" includes any communication in the nature of current and personal correspondence, and also includes a packet transmitted at the letter rate of postage and containing goods or articles of merchandise</div>
<br />
So I take this to mean, Small Packets is actually a subset of Letter class. If you have one of those pesky Post Offices who refuse to send your packages as Letters, I think this page is the best thing to print out to show them (maybe bring a copy of the cover page of the document too).<br />
<br />
On page 22 it defines Small Packets. It takes pains to say that Small Packets is not suitable for personal correspondence. There is nowhere (not in this document, nor anywhere else on its website or anything else I have seen) where RM takes equivalent pains to say that Letters is not suitable for sending goods. <br />
<br />
This, I think, is more evidence that Small Packets is a <i>concessionary rate </i>for businesses to send large, heavy items abroad for a LOWER RATE than personal customers get for posting a personal letter or a present. Thus RM is saying (I think!) - "hey, if you're selling and sending heavy goods, you can use this cheaper rate <i>if you want</i>, provided that your package meets all these conditions." So I think this consequently means, that for items <100g, we can equally choose NOT to send our items Small Packets.<br />
<br />
One difficulty with this interpretation is that since the price changes of April 2012, there is now <b>no situation where Small Packets is cheaper than Letter rate</b>... so it isn't really a very good concessionary rate any more, is it? Above 100g, Letter and Small Packet prices are identical at every weight band. So why still have the distinction? It's not clear to me. However despite Small Packets no longer being cheaper, I've still seen nothing that implies that Royal Mail are treating the philosophy of Small Packets - i.e. that it is a concessionary rate - any differently. (I know, who'd have thought I'd get <i>philosophy</i> into a post on posting?! Shows how ridiculously convoluted this system is!)<br />
<br />
So currently that is the sum total of my proof! Here are some red herrings which I came across in my Quest For The Truth. Don't be put off by these if people quote this stuff at you.<br />
<br />
1. "International Letters must be under 5mm" - at first, when the Royal Mail twitter representative told me this, I thought he/she was just getting confused with domestic letter rates. However, for Royal Mail <i>business account holders</i>, international Letters must be under 5mm. DO NOT get confused however - we are personal customers, so <b>this doesn't apply to us. </b>You will know if you have a RM business account (if you do, well done, as you have to be sending at least 20 items a day to access it, I think!) <br />
<br />
2. "It's a package, innit, it can't go Letter rate!" - Post Offices sometimes get confused, and many Etsy and Folksy sellers report their Post Offices
insisting on sending their <100g packages as Small Packets instead
of Letters. If you are one of these unfortunate people, don't see red. Remember the Post Office is essentially a retail shop selling Royal Mail services. They are entirely separate from Royal Mail. It is no wonder they get confused - they are probably going by the same guidance we get! Many other sellers (including myself) report that their PO's do by default send as Letter if it is cheaper.<br />
<br />
What to do if your PO insists on charging Small Packet rate? One idea might be to visit a bigger PO to send some items, and see what they do. If you can go back to your village PO and say, I posted an item like this in [big city/town] PO and they sent it as a Letter, they may realise that it is OK to do this. Otherwise, if they quote SP price at you, ask if you can send it as a Letter, because as far as you understand, there is no size limit for Letter class. Try and turn the burden of proof onto them - "where does it say the size limits for Letter? Because I've looked and haven't found any on the website". You may have to tell them there is a personalised note inside (often this will be true - I always include a thank you note with the customer's name on!). [After reading the above guidance document from RM, I am not convinced that this personalised correspondence is necessary to post as Letter, but I don't want to take on another issue at the moment!]<br />
<br />
Brandishing the above RM document in their face may not be the best initial course of action, but ultimately you may have to give it a try if they refuse to investigate. For most of my items, the Letter / Small Packets debacle makes a difference of £1.40 per package - that is going to work out expensive in the long run.<br />
<br />
If you still cannot persuade them, the last resort is, I am afraid, to start using online postage. Print your postage from the Royal Mail website at Letter rate, then if you require proof of postage, take them to the PO. If you've got a small local PO, they may not be very happy with this. You also may not be, if you are trying to give as much custom to the PO as possible, in order to keep it profitable and open. It's a difficult call.<br />
<br />
I'd love to hear any comments you have, especially if you are someone whose post office insists on charging you small packets. I don't understand how it can be so hard to get an answer to this question!<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>UPDATE!!</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
I tweeted a link to this post to the twitter Royal Mail account, <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/royalmail" target="_blank">@royalmail</a>, and got some useful info. Here's the conversation (copied and pasted from Hootsuite screen shots!)<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj79rN2RZVFaIDbrSsjsWYsc_NpwEmjiIM1FJxoWFVAt2uPTZFQAECVXw1hVGq7LLhxig23_2K7-XvFqJUA0l5fmGlworWLqR0B4FIy1hLPbbg2HV69SQ3zzBuWEKFtaKJKsgn5x_XmEvE/s1600/RM_twitter.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj79rN2RZVFaIDbrSsjsWYsc_NpwEmjiIM1FJxoWFVAt2uPTZFQAECVXw1hVGq7LLhxig23_2K7-XvFqJUA0l5fmGlworWLqR0B4FIy1hLPbbg2HV69SQ3zzBuWEKFtaKJKsgn5x_XmEvE/s1600/RM_twitter.png" /></a></div>
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</div>
<b> </b> <br />
The link tweeted with "Large letter details" is here: <a class="url" href="http://t.co/CcLX36Ly" target="_blank">http://t.co/CcLX36Ly</a> . It doesn't actually make reference to international post there, so I still think that their website could be much clearer, and still we have nothing to print out and wave in Post Office's faces (unless you want to print out the twitter conversation!!). But in our own minds I think we can now be sure of a few important things.<br />
<ol>
<li>Just because you are sending goods, does not mean that you have to post it Small Packet.</li>
<li>Always include a thank you note with the senders name on! This covers the "personal correspondence" clause.</li>
<li>If your item is over 1" thick, or larger than an A4 document, it <i>should </i>be sent as Small Packet. But obviously, if your PO still lets you send it as Letter, I probably wouldn't start arguing that they should get more of your money! Equally, I have never heard of RM sending items back to sender for not having sufficient postage due to being sent as a Letter instead as a Small Packet. So, it's really up to you.</li>
</ol>
Also, it's really encouraging that they said they will feed back the comments to the relevant people to try and get this situation clarified on the website; and hopefully with Post Office staff too. But until then, if you have an inconsistent Post Office, and want to be sure about not
being out of pocket on postage, use the higher (Small Packet) charge.
You can always refund if it goes Letter.<br />
<br />
I'm considering this <b>case closed </b>now!<br />
<br />
PS: Ebay sellers get confused too - Heather from <a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop/niftyknits" target="_blank">NiftyKnits</a> pointed me in the direction of this <a href="http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=3925551&page=2" target="_blank">MSE post</a> - how can RM give out so many conflicting pieces of information! Reassuring that someone was told that even if we get the class wrong, "nearly always" it would still get to its destination.<br />
<br />Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-3577376663200402702012-05-21T06:26:00.000-07:002012-05-23T04:35:05.116-07:00Cheeky Moo!Have you seen <a href="http://uk.moo.com/partner/folksy?utm_source=folksy&utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=trial" target="_blank">this</a> offer from Moo in conjunction with Folksy, for 50 free business cards? I decided to take them up on it last month. I'm a big fan of Moo but don't find it cost-effective to use their lovely business cards for all my needs (I admit it, I'm an even bigger fan of Vistaprint!), so when I saw this offer I couldn't resist. I wanted to have photos of my happy customers on the back; they look cute and make a good talking point. The only caveat to the offer was that the back of your cards had a smart "Folksy" tab added (and you had to pay P&P too). <br />
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<br />
However... I decided to take this gift horse, and I didn't just glance at its mouth, I got right in there with my torch and had a good poke around. I spent an evening making a template to add identical Etsy and mogstogs.com tabs to all the photos I wanted to use on the back. I used GIMP (a free version of photoshop) and it took ages to get exactly right! Next I had to add the template onto all 50 photos I wanted to use. After uploading the photos I clicked the order button and prayed fervently to the god of printing that the cards would come out OK...<br />
<br />
A few days later, they arrived in their smart little Moo box. I opened them up... and they were PERFECT!! I was so pleased!! Of course, unfortunately the problem now is that they are too nice to give away...<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqkuLPUVTIJ_TidYvrJEfI9n7r0I-sf-s0vKVkqpG0w5xhy-r5Jf4bBZW1AOW_V08eEHad6fxVTS7cPWvNSlmcIRwHC_rt_xlQAEvOC-FJ4b3EFmF7Jj9UXGkBCZumm660irMg4T4nBA0/s1600/cheekymoo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqkuLPUVTIJ_TidYvrJEfI9n7r0I-sf-s0vKVkqpG0w5xhy-r5Jf4bBZW1AOW_V08eEHad6fxVTS7cPWvNSlmcIRwHC_rt_xlQAEvOC-FJ4b3EFmF7Jj9UXGkBCZumm660irMg4T4nBA0/s640/cheekymoo.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-56737228122730710162012-04-30T06:24:00.001-07:002012-04-30T06:25:39.864-07:00No paypal, no cheque, no bank account... Another way to pay<div style="font-family: inherit;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">This is just a quick post about a payment issue that came up this
weekend on my website shop, as I thought the way we (the customer and I)
resolved it might be useful to other sellers.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I had an order come through my website, and the
customer chose to “pay by post” which means that they wanted to pay offline rather than using Paypal. My usual methods of offline payment are cheque or direct bank transfer. Unfortunately in this case, the customer was
an American who had just recently moved to the UK, and they were still in the process
of setting up UK bank accounts. Their Paypal account was frozen due changing address and country of residence, and they could not pay by credit card on Paypal either (possibly because their credit card was from an
American bank? I’m not sure). Also due
to the bank accounts problem they didn’t have a £ cheque book yet, and couldn’t
do a direct bank transfer. The customer emailed me to tell me all this
but said she was DESPERATE for her cat to have a new Union Jack cat collar (and
a Stars and Stripes one too, so he wouldn’t forget his heritage!).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I was a bit stumped! She offered to send cash through the
post but obviously that wasn’t a great idea, the next idea was to meet up and
swap cash for collars – she lived in London, so that might have worked, except
London is a big place and who really has time to do that! </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">So I was trying to think of another solution, and while I
was thinking, I visited iTunes to buy some apps for my new iPad, and then on
Amazon bought a camera connector for my new toy, and also
downloaded a few Kindle books. It made me realise how much
money I spend on these two websites, and that’s when the idea hit me - my customer could
buy me Amazon vouchers to pay for her order! They'd be as
good as cash, since I buy things there all the time. Also, as a massive
mainstream, popular website, Amazon.co.uk would certainly be able to take her
American credit card with no problems.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I emailed her my idea with the <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/gc/order-email?ie=UTF8&ref_=gc_lp_eb1_a" target="_blank">link to order vouchers by email</a>, and my preferred email address for her to use, and she did it
straight away (although it took about 10 hours for the voucher to come through). You can enter any amount to
send as a gift voucher, so it didn’t matter that the total of her order wasn’t
a round £ number. As soon as I got the email, I applied the code to my Amazon
account, and emailed her back to say I’d received the payment and would post the
collars out to her. Brilliant! </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Anyway, hopefully I won’t need to use this method very
often, but it is
useful to know it’s there when there’s no other option. I can’t imagine there
are any tricky repercussions for tax or record-keeping either. Essentially, you have swapped your product for something else which
is not cash, but which has a quantifiable cash value. I’m sure that I have read
in some guidance or other that if you exchange your product for some other
goods (say under a bartering scheme), you enter the monetary value of
the goods you received into your accounts as an incoming. Since vouchers
have a very clear monetary value, this should be as straightforward as entering
the cash value. But I would note down what happened so if you
ever got audited you could explain, and of course this is just my thoughts – I
have no tax qualifications – so please don’t take this as gospel! </span></div>Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-59954998625424284132012-04-24T06:44:00.003-07:002012-04-27T03:40:48.975-07:00Royal Mail price increases & thinking outside the box on packagingAs we probably all know by now, in just a few days Royal Mail's pricing for personal customers is changing. Pretty much everything you send now will be more expensive from April 30th. Not only are the price of 1st and 2nd class stamps increasing, but there are some changes to some pricing structures which are important to note. I'll be amending my previous two posts on posting internationally, but here are some of the important points for both domestic and international post and what (if anything) you need to do about them, with a particular focus on thinking creatively about packaging in order to reduce costs. All the new prices can be found <a href="http://c435158.r58.cf3.rackcdn.com/Royal_Mail_Our_Prices.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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<br />
<b>Domestic</b><br />
<br />
<div style="color: #cc0000;">
There is now only one weight band for small packets under 750g. This means if you're sending a bulky but light item you will be paying A LOT more; previously an item weighing up to 100g cost £1.50 to post first class, now it is £2.70. </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj68dasE5jw8yinKhM_54UZmRdAyVsV9xktN4WXF0iYdx9KGTfWlj45lKcTcJs0HRQgT33bjwTE23mwi-xyu7S19g6MOuLK60xGGej-nYYRJaauZCKq3STitjZ5e9tBlWpGqOQE9FMypUE/s1600/balloons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj68dasE5jw8yinKhM_54UZmRdAyVsV9xktN4WXF0iYdx9KGTfWlj45lKcTcJs0HRQgT33bjwTE23mwi-xyu7S19g6MOuLK60xGGej-nYYRJaauZCKq3STitjZ5e9tBlWpGqOQE9FMypUE/s320/balloons.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Definitely deflate before posting...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This is quite a big deal. If your items are only just over the 1" limit for Large Letters, you could save £1.80 if you can package them to fit through that slot (that is for 0-100g items first class; for 101-250g the difference is £1.50; 251-500g £1.10, 501-750g 40p; for second class the difference goes from £1.51-30p). Now's the time to put your creative thinking hat on and put your packaging on a diet! Here are a few ideas to get you started...<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>I have received squishy woollen goods - mittens and gloves - vacuum packed to make them thinner. Of course this won't work with light fabrics that could crease, but for bouncy things like wool, it works well (I suggest a test run though to check results are acceptable). For a cheaper alternative, buy gripseal / ziploc bags and squeeze as much air out as possible before sealing. Again, be sure to do a test though to check how much air seeps back in over a few days.</li>
<li>Can you rearrange soft products to be flatter? Remember Large Letters can have a footprint of 25x35cm. Elaine over at <a href="http://folksy.com/shops/elliestreasures" target="_blank">Ellie's Treasures</a> on Folksy mentioned that she is thinking of sending her <a href="http://folksy.com/items/3224630-Fabric-Wallet-Floral-" target="_blank">fabric wallets</a> packaged open instead of closed, to get under that crucial limit. </li>
<li>If you use jiffy bags, think about whether you really need them. Would a plastic mailing bag do,
perhaps with a wrap of tissue paper around the item? A jiffy bag adds at
least half a cm or so to width, and if your items are not
likely to be damaged by the post process (eg non-delicate fabric items, leather, etc), perhaps they just need
something to keep the dirt and weather out. I use plastic mailing bags for my
collars as they have their own individual packaging, and the collars themselves are very
sturdy - I just can't imagine them getting damaged. Plus, mailing bags
are cheaper and lighter than jiffy bags. </li>
<li>Another option with squishy items is to use "Pricing in Proportion" boxes from a supplier like <a href="http://www.defendapack.co.uk/pricing_in_proportion_boxes.htm" target="_blank">Defendapack</a> to make sure your items stay within the Large Letter limits throughout their journey. Even their most expensive boxes in the smallest quantity are about £1 each - less than the amount you'll save on postage for items up to 500g (but be sure to factor in the weight of the boxes)! You could pretty up these with stickers or stamps.</li>
<li>If you sell items like jewellery, make sure that any decorative boxes
fit within the limits; source new packaging if you need to. Yes people
love pretty boxes, but they probably like nearly £2 in their pocket
more, especially if the item is not that expensive to start with.</li>
<li>If someone's ordered two light items that individually can go as LL, but not together - it may be cheaper to send them in two LLs than one Packet! This should be true as long as the individual items are no more than 250g each. Just be sure to tell the customer what you are doing, in case they arrive at different times!</li>
<li>Finally, remember, Royal Mail says that items must be able to drop through the Large Letter slot <i>without needing to be pushed</i>. You can buy acrylic rulers to check every package goes through - a great investment (I just bought one on ebay for about £5, search for "PIP ruler". <i>Edited to add - the ruler I ordered has arrived, it is brilliant, really good quality and only £2.39+£1.40 p&p! It is <a href="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Royal-Mail-PiP-Letter-Size-Guide-RED-Post-Office-PPi-Postal-Price-Postage-Ruler-/120890219348?pt=UK_BOI_Office_Equipment_Supplies_Office_Equipment_ET&hash=item1c259e5b54" target="_blank">this one</a>, it comes in a few colours and has all the relevant info etched into the acrylic, not printed. They also have a large one too for easier measuring of the whole package size not just the depth. Wouldn't normally pimp out ebay sellers on here but I was really impressed.</i>). </li>
</ul>
If you can't reduce the size of your packages, then look on the
bright size. The increased "flat rate" for packages of up to 750g mean
people can (probably) order multiple items from you with no increase in
postage rate. Make sure you advertise this in your product descriptions.<br />
<br />
You may want to think about sending items 2nd Class by default. Many people say that 2nd Class gets to its destination "pretty much" in the same time frame as 1st (supposedly because 1st rarely gets there next day). I am not sure I subscribe to that point of view but I do seem to be lucky with my posting - most of my 1st class UK deliveries arrive next day - then again, they are all in the post box at Waterloo Station by 9am!<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #cc0000;">
The level of compensation for posted
items is now fixed at £46. Previously it was linked to the cost of a
first class stamp, but this is no longer the case.</div>
Just remember to obtain additional insurance or pay for special delivery if your item is worth over £46.<br />
<br />
<b>International</b><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;">Change of structure: Letters, Small Packets and Printed Papers all now cost the SAME at each weight band, for items over 100g; Letters now cheaper than Small Packets up to 100g.</span><br />
You don't need to worry about this change in structure over 100g, it should just make things a little easier; although obviously note the increased prices. For items under 100g, it is now cheaper to send items by Letter rate (previously, this weight at which Letter was cheaper was up to 40g). I have seen NOTHING that implies there are any changes to what is actually defined as a "Letter" or a "Small packet", and this includes an email to Royal Mail (they weren't that helpful, but directed me to the page for maximum size limits, by which I assumed that no, there are no extra dimensional limits for "Letter" rate). I am sticking to my previous belief that anything can go as Letter rate, so now anything.<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #cc0000;">
The "Rest of World" zone is now split into 2. Zone B is Australia, New Zealand, and other Australasian and Pacific islands; Zone A is everything else. </div>
To be honest, while you need to be aware of this new rule (actually, I believe it's a re-emergence of an old rule), I wouldn't bother having different prices for countries in each zone unless you are sending items near the 2kg limit. There is no difference in prices for Letters and Small Packets; for Packages the difference varies between 4p (for 101-150g) and £1.18 (for 1.9kg-2.0kg).Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-17501320656627761702012-04-17T11:57:00.000-07:002012-04-17T11:57:31.737-07:00My first solo craft fairSorry I've been quiet for so long! I am still here, I promise. I submitted my PhD thesis at the end of March, and since then have been catching up with Mog's Togs. However I should now have a bit more time to spend on this blog, although I might have to use some of that updating / rewriting my international postage posts - thanks for that, Royal Mail!!<br />
<br />
I just thought I'd share some photos from a craft fair I did on Saturday. I don't normally do craft fairs, for various reasons / excuses...<br />
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<ol><li>My collars are so small, it's hard to fill a normal sized stall!</li>
<li>I work full time so my weekends are precious, I don't necessarily want to spend a whole day somewhere random for unknown (potentially small!) reward. </li>
<li>I have to make a real effort and take a day or two off work to build up enough stock for a fair; again I don't always want to spend my annual leave doing this! </li>
<li>I think I'm better off concentrating my efforts on pet shows where I can target potential buyers a bit better. (Although, have I actually done a pet show yet or even investigated doing one, of course not!)</li>
</ol>For all these reasons, I have only sold at a few fairs, usually sharing a table with my Mum! So when someone contacted me through Etsy to ask if I would be interested in having a stall at her monthly vintage / craft market, the Dandy Lion, which had an animal theme for April, my default answer was no. But after finding out some more info, and seeing that the smallest tables were only £8, I decided to take the plunge. It was up in North London, and we live in Surrey, but the travel would be free as I have a season ticket & tube travelcard. So I thought for a mere £8 outlay, even if I didn't sell a thing I wouldn't be too disappointed. I worked hard to get lots of stock made and took half a day off work on Friday to finish things off.<br />
<br />
As well as getting stock ready I had to think about how I'd decorate my stall. I didn't want to spend much on this, so decided to go "home-made" and printed out some signs and bunting. The paper bunting looked great, strung on wool, and added some height to the stall.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNpF3gyX4XafUH0MY4vNfxGnQH0yJzitSf0EPMKWQt1rIIX6iBjwtHN3-QbIJ1l_jDyrJKWzKvFuE61hGcPJxPtblA40vQJNMSIpC-ELn008zxXvnBGKRYr_ZGFGzxPdqIhN6A-VAzvYA/s1600/dandy_bunting.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="124" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNpF3gyX4XafUH0MY4vNfxGnQH0yJzitSf0EPMKWQt1rIIX6iBjwtHN3-QbIJ1l_jDyrJKWzKvFuE61hGcPJxPtblA40vQJNMSIpC-ELn008zxXvnBGKRYr_ZGFGzxPdqIhN6A-VAzvYA/s400/dandy_bunting.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
I bought a single flat white sheet to cover the table, which meant I could pin the small paper signs (size info, payment etc) in place. I made a tiny corkboard to pin my charms on, out of a photo frame and a sheet of cork from a model railway shop! I ordered Moo business cards with photos of my happy customers on the back. These made a good talking point, some customers asked if they were <i>all </i>my cats! <br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmsFnsLPjm1V5cxJkYQBtpa1G13ClAx0XjCej7zQyn7XNqGsEZUve3NsPd4ufsQgAEMei7s9eX9_8u_RvBWgq83yYavPGAzZCp_VJdaEiHH-2q24IIdZVgEE12v0IQjbNYq-Z2MYT1Nj0/s1600/dandy_toiletrolls.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmsFnsLPjm1V5cxJkYQBtpa1G13ClAx0XjCej7zQyn7XNqGsEZUve3NsPd4ufsQgAEMei7s9eX9_8u_RvBWgq83yYavPGAzZCp_VJdaEiHH-2q24IIdZVgEE12v0IQjbNYq-Z2MYT1Nj0/s320/dandy_toiletrolls.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
A mug tree borrowed from friends made a nice upright display for a few collars, and I separated out small and large collars in glass jars, but what about the rest of them? Usually I would just lay the collars out in their packaging, but I decided this time I couldn't be bothered with this (as I store them hanging, which you can't do once they're packaged). Also, I wanted to display them at an angle for best customer viewing... what to do? In the end, I went a bit Blue Peter! I used toilet roll middles with a sheet of printer paper rolled around them and tucked in the ends. The collars looked great clipped around them, and all for free! <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
As a last touch I wanted a collar model! I searched charity shops for a toy cat but didn't find any of the right size, so in the end I made do with this lovely tiger - so cute, it looked brand new and only cost £1.50! He was a hit with the little kids there, one 4 year old shyly asked his mum if he could buy it with his pocket money, aw.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbWJnZWGb7tYrOSQsK8OwPt6udK7jyQdfMMLqoaZ4FosFd1FUznMK0I0uqQS-DfCDyTvfedeXNXxe0lNnvtAOfZOl6-pyVrYp8UeyCbnSk5z-l0UtKerdGU1U_Lu0x0pHaLapd1gbsY6E/s1600/dandy_tiger.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbWJnZWGb7tYrOSQsK8OwPt6udK7jyQdfMMLqoaZ4FosFd1FUznMK0I0uqQS-DfCDyTvfedeXNXxe0lNnvtAOfZOl6-pyVrYp8UeyCbnSk5z-l0UtKerdGU1U_Lu0x0pHaLapd1gbsY6E/s200/dandy_tiger.JPG" width="158" /></a></div><br />
As well as my collars, I make catnip mice to sell at fairs, as they give something for cat owners to buy if their cats "don't do" collars. They went down well with customers, however the biggest fan of these was the pub's resident cat, who sniffed out the catnip as we were setting up and decided that they should all be hers!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgArDGXuBG-8rTsPTUl7JCGg5KqaDffTl1jiXlfF-MJmTImL-b-JCZVqrMouOwRRTvptuMwb50AzF5huWxnaTZLQlli23gJZq0-esBXw2YPrjirxWG0ScQ14KKwOuGeafP8y8btGWya7ck/s1600/dandylion1.JPG"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgArDGXuBG-8rTsPTUl7JCGg5KqaDffTl1jiXlfF-MJmTImL-b-JCZVqrMouOwRRTvptuMwb50AzF5huWxnaTZLQlli23gJZq0-esBXw2YPrjirxWG0ScQ14KKwOuGeafP8y8btGWya7ck/s320/dandylion1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
I decided to donate one of the mice to her in the name of peace and quiet and to save the stall from being pulled over. She loved it!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGn4X2PhpV1Vi9gizjPfH_QgtKKjWoBhpDXDfGnu2TaCAjyOViqJDHMTucFt62TjMyif12OEVu3Zhy_GhRQUCgmKykhK1Il3rtPTvQJexqIR3S7IQQ-kxmEGCLEc0BY6CN3dxx1vtOjr4/s1600/dandylion4.jpg"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGn4X2PhpV1Vi9gizjPfH_QgtKKjWoBhpDXDfGnu2TaCAjyOViqJDHMTucFt62TjMyif12OEVu3Zhy_GhRQUCgmKykhK1Il3rtPTvQJexqIR3S7IQQ-kxmEGCLEc0BY6CN3dxx1vtOjr4/s320/dandylion4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
The fair was held in a pub, and to start with it was very quiet, but footfall did increase over the afternoon; although the organiser did say it had been busier in previous weeks - I think the Easter holidays meant family numbers were down. I only sold a few things but I did make my stall cost back and then a little more. I met some other craft and vintage sellers including this guy who makes amazing dog collars!<br />
<br />
To be honest I wasn't really fussed about selling so little - I was hardly out of pocket and got to spend the day with my husband who allowed himself to be dragged along for company / moral support - I think the fact the fair was held in a pub may have encouraged him! With a stall cost of only £8 I knew it wasn't going to be crazy busy, so I didn't have high expectations. Also, I got some practice setting up a nice looking stall, and gave out plenty of business cards. It's given me a bit of confidence to go investigate selling at cat shows now, as I think I might be able to fill a larger table with a bit of creative thinking. Best of all, I have a ton of stock now so can relax and not go near my sewing machine for a while, hurrah!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtcp6-UXaQORRVexhH4fMHiTkh7t1_YXFcZAQa776hcKZSbjFzOa2VKFHeBKXh-4yr70JMP-eTQO-IVqigWtePTxLUiw5mNUYcRq_JFIV8pMaIz3-UKi09-v_lLC8rKneghTTJxb3DMKE/s1600/dandylion2.JPG"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtcp6-UXaQORRVexhH4fMHiTkh7t1_YXFcZAQa776hcKZSbjFzOa2VKFHeBKXh-4yr70JMP-eTQO-IVqigWtePTxLUiw5mNUYcRq_JFIV8pMaIz3-UKi09-v_lLC8rKneghTTJxb3DMKE/s400/dandylion2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-62579789148236786492012-03-03T12:50:00.001-08:002012-05-21T06:18:57.645-07:00Posting Abroad: Keeping Missing Parcels to a Minimum!<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
I wanted to split up my introduction to posting internationally. The first concentrated on the services available while this one is more concerned with how you can improve the chances of your packages getting to their destination in a timely fashion, and in one piece. <i>Note this article was updated May 2012.</i><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Customs</b> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">If you are posting goods beyond the <b>EU </b>you will need to include a CN22 form - commonly known as a customs sticker. This is regardless of what posting service you are using (letters, small packets etc). You can get these from the Post Office when you buy postage (and they will give you a stack or roll of them if you ask), or you can print them out if you buy postage online and tape them to your package. The list of countries in the EU can be found on <a href="http://www.royalmail.com/delivery/mail-advice/customs-information" target="_blank">this page</a>; along with a short list of countries that <i>definitely do</i> need a customs form although you might think they don't (eg the Channel Islands). <b>Note that quite a few countries within the "Europe" pricing band are NOT in the EU.</b></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRgmBJpQ9DXezTfVlaDXbnxf_Py09Lv6SLEzmkGmlyad0Gul8T3-7Dx6GJDKDuxOPBThJvmse8gosVAP2AF1Vqwfd1utGQDkZUkKdv2OKfi6wRFlZbT2dKj_IGpb6oY1NCO9j6soWdUWs/s1600/cn22_complete.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRgmBJpQ9DXezTfVlaDXbnxf_Py09Lv6SLEzmkGmlyad0Gul8T3-7Dx6GJDKDuxOPBThJvmse8gosVAP2AF1Vqwfd1utGQDkZUkKdv2OKfi6wRFlZbT2dKj_IGpb6oY1NCO9j6soWdUWs/s320/cn22_complete.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">You need to write what the contents are - this should be reasonably specific but use your noggin, don't write "Gold ring with rubies" on, I expect "fashion accessory" would be OK. You don't want your package to become a target. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">You need to tick one of the boxes at the top - as you have sold the item, the correct one is "other". Don't tick "gift" even if the buyer asks you too unless you are happy that you are technically committing fraud. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">You can add the weight if you want, but I rarely bother. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">You must put the price the buyer paid. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">Sign and date at the bottom. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;"><b>STICK THE STICKER TO THE FRONT OF THE PACKAGE! </b>Some countries - Canada is a good example - are real sticklers for protocol and insist that the form is on the same side as the address. There's a slim chance that your package could get sent back to you if this isn't done. </span></li>
</ul>
</div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Be legible!</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b><br />
</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">You can use the RM website to print out postage online (this is what I always do) or buy at the post office, but if you are hand writing the address, make sure it's very <b>clear to read</b>, especially if you're sending to a country which doesn't use the same alphabet as us. Some helpful customers from countries such as Japan might give you two addresses - one in English and one using their characters. If they do this I suggest putting both on the front of the package. There's some guidance here for <a href="http://www.royalmail.com/delivery/mail-advice/addressing-your-mail" target="_blank">addressing clearly</a>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Also do not forget to <b>include your return address </b>- if your parcel goes astray you want it to come back to you. Some countries require a person's name on the return address, not just the company name.<b> </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Get the address right</b> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">If you sell on Etsy most of your customers will be from the USA. When Americans write their address they tend to use just the first 5 digits of their zip code (post code), but there are also another 4 digits which pinpoint the address to just two or three houses. I strongly recommend adding the extra 4 digits to the address - you can find out what they are <a href="https://tools.usps.com/go/ZipLookupAction%21input.action" target="_blank">here</a>. While the 5 digits specify the post office, the extra 4 digits specify which postman will deliver it. The extra 4 digits means it has a good chance of being sorted more quickly and I've heard anecdotally that it can speed up delivery time by a day or so. Another bonus is that with the full 9 digit zip code, even if the rest of the address was unreadable, the parcel should still make it to the right person. But really, how likely is it that the whole address would smudge but not the postcode?!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Apart from the USA, I generally just trust that people get their own postcode right, but if you want to check postcodes for other countries, here are a few links:</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.canadapost.ca/cpotools/apps/fpc/personal/findByCity?execution=e1s1" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: small;">Canada</span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://auspost.com.au/apps/postcode.html" target="_blank">Australia</a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://tools.nzpost.co.nz/tools/address-postcode-finder/APLT2008.aspx" target="_blank">New Zealand</a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.royalmail.com/postcode-finder" target="_blank">UK</a></span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.grcdi.nl/linkspc.htm" target="_blank">Loads of other useful address and postcode links for lots of countries</a></span></div>
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<i>Edited to add: I had a comment that if you are using Royal Mail Online Postage, the "Post Code" box only allows 8 characters - not enough for US 9 digit postcode. I just put the whole thing in the "County / State" box above, and leave the Post Code box empty. Note that the proper format for the US zip code includes the state abbreviation: eg PA 19380-1234 so it actually requires 13 digits!</i><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1556811569" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="220" src="http://img2.etsystatic.com/il_fullxfull.193101682.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/61886252" target="_blank">Embroidered Envelope by lucykatecrafts on Etsy</a></td></tr>
</tbody> </table>
</div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT ABOUT ROYAL MAIL ONLINE POSTAGE & FOREIGN CHARACTERS!!</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">If you use Royal Mail's online postage tool to buy international postage, please be aware of the following: the online postage tool <b>cannot handle accents or other non-English characters</b>. However, <b>it will not tell you this, it will just delete any lines containing non-English characters from the address</b>. This means, as happened to me recently, if you have a French address where both street address and city have accented letters, the final address label will just say "Mme Jacques, FRANCE". Not much use, is it!! If you're like me and use online postage a lot, you won't do a test print or check the address is correct before purchasing and printing, so beware! I also ran into problems with a Swedish address containing </span><span class="st"><i>æ</i></span><span style="font-size: small;">. (I did get a refund for both of these though!!)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Weigh things correctly</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Ideally you'll get your items weighed at the post office when you buy your postage, but if you are trying to estimate postal costs when setting up shop, make sure you weigh items with all the packaging and any extra inserts that you will include. If your item comes very close<b> </b>to a weight step up, then use the higher band. Obviously if you have not paid sufficient postage your item may be returned to you by Royal Mail.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b> </span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><b><span style="font-size: small;">Check the Royal Mail international incident bulletin</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.royalmail.com/customer-service/international-incident-bulletin" target="_blank">This is a great link</a> for checking if there are any expected problems with posting to international destinations. I'm not suggesting you need to check this every time you post anything, but if you had something particularly important it might help you decide whether it was worth forking out the extra for Airsure, for example.<b> </b></span><br />
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<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Package things well</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">I am rather lucky in that my cat collars are small, light and very tough, so they don't need protective packaging. However, if you sell delicate or brittle items then obviously you must package them appropriately so that they can cope with potentially careless handling on their journeys around the world. You probably know more about packaging your goods than me, though, so I'll leave it here for this post, but here's some <a href="http://www.royalmail.com/delivery/mail-advice/wrapping-and-packing" target="_blank">wrapping and packing advice</a> from Royal Mail.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b><b> </b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>How likely is it that things actually go missing?</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b><br />
</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Even if you follow all instructions to the letter, things can still occasionally go missing - that's life, after all - but in my experience this is pretty rare and shouldn't put you off offering international postage. On Etsy I have had over 200 sales of which I estimate 80% have been abroad (mostly to US, then Canada, then Australia, New Zealand and a few other countries). Of these I have had two packages completely lost (one to the US, one to NZ), and two where the buyers informed me after 3 weeks that the package had not arrived - however, it turned up by 4 weeks. Perhaps I am luckier than most because my packages are very small and light, but still, I'm very pleased with that ratio. It is worse than my ratio for domestic postage (no losses out of probably 250 sales), but still very low. I have heard stories from other sellers who have worse luck though, so your mileage may vary.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
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<br />
<b>Consider self-insuring for loss or delay</b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">As mentioned in the previous post, if a parcel is lost or delayed, you can claim compensation from RM after 5 weeks, but it may take 90 days to get a resolution. You really should refund the customer or resend the item before this time is up. I'm not suggesting grossly inflating your postage prices, but consider adding a small "insurance" amount to your postage prices - maybe just 10 or 20p depending on the usual cost or postage risk of your items - to insure for any losses or breakages. This cushions you a little, and also means you can be more generous with resending items; perhaps resending sooner than you usually would if the customer needs the item for a particular date, or telling customers they can keep both items if they end up with two. This will improve how your customers see you and make it more likely that they'll (a) mention you to others and (b) return to your shop!</span></div>
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<br /></div>Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-19304120324259959212012-03-03T12:47:00.005-08:002012-05-21T06:25:26.900-07:00Posting Abroad: The Facts<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">A common barrier stopping UK sellers from taking the plunge into Etsy is that they are wary of posting items internationally. There's really not much to be worried about once you know the basics, so I thought I'd put a few tips down here to help reassure you. </span>Most of this post refers to Royal Mail. I have most experience with RM, but there is a bit about other options at the bottom. <i>Note this article was updated May 2012.</i></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">So, when posting with Royal Mail internationally there are a few decisions to be made.</span><br />
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<u><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Air or Surface Mail?</b></span></u><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b> </span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmPnGHbniZsnmcU16ijT0AEAy_XhbCLR-lsotcOxpmMS1xcyGApveRWYAoSYPIDqrbHmN2fNmxcWZoP-IjxVuE11ecos-EZu7YmfFj1D4LWZxmZlvKBDcMSblRRNlmL53HKhMv-MqT30Y/s1600/airsurfacemail.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmPnGHbniZsnmcU16ijT0AEAy_XhbCLR-lsotcOxpmMS1xcyGApveRWYAoSYPIDqrbHmN2fNmxcWZoP-IjxVuE11ecos-EZu7YmfFj1D4LWZxmZlvKBDcMSblRRNlmL53HKhMv-MqT30Y/s320/airsurfacemail.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Excuse this pic. I am learning how to use my tablet!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: small;">Surface mail goes by boat and is vvveeeerrrrryyyy slow. It might possibly work out for you if you are sending something very large or heavy, but for most purposes you'll want to be using Airmail.</span><br />
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<u><b>Letter, Small Packet or Printed Paper?</b></u><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">The next decision is which of three categories of posting you want to use. Each category has its own price profile (one for Europe, one for Rest Of World). This can be quite confusing so I hope I manage to explain things clearly!<b> </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Letter: </b>You don't have to be sending an actual letter to post an item as a Letter ... You can send ANYTHING as a Letter (unless it's on the <a href="http://www.royalmail.com/despatch-inward-mail-services/hints-and-tips/prohibited-goods" target="_blank">prohibited</a> list!). </span><span style="font-size: small;">If you're sending personal correspondence to someone abroad you <i>must </i>use this category, but you can also use it for sending commercial goods.<b> </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Small Packets: </b>Once more, it doesn't have to be small, or a packet, to be sent Small Packets!!!<b> </b>You can send gifts, goods or commercial samples as Small Packets. You can include papers or a letter if they are related to the item being sent, so a receipt or thank you note is allowed. </span><span style="font-size: small;">Again the weight limit is 2kg and you must write "Small Packets" on the parcel.<b> </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Printed Papers: </b>This is for books, newspapers, flyers, etc. I sold some magazines on Ebay to someone from the USA and this was the cheapest method. Weight limit is 5kg, so higher than the other classes, and again a letter can be included if they related to what's being sent. You must write "Printed Papers" on the front.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><b>How much will this cost?</b> </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Unlike domestic post, the size of the package has no bearing on the cost of postage, it is purely determined by weight. </span><span style="font-size: small;">Having said that, there are size restrictions on packages being sent internationally:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="message-tracked">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">For international letters or packets, the length plus the depth plus the width must not exceed 900mm, also the longest side of the letter / packet must not exceed 600mm. For international items in the form of a roll, the roll must not exceed 900mm in length, also the length plus 2 times the diameter of the roll must not exceed 1040mm </span></div>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-size: small;">RM's prices are set by where you are posting - there's one price for Europe and one for Rest of World (ROW). For a list of which countries count as Europe for cost purposes, see <a href="http://www.royalmail.com/delivery/delivery-options-international/airmail/airmail-zones" target="_blank">here</a> (note that some countries which count as Europe for cost purposes are not in the EU and hence do require customs declarations; eg The Channel Islands, Switzerland).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">For items going to Europe or ROW over 100g, Small Packets will be cheaper than Letters, <b>BUT there is nothing to stop you using Letters if your package is under these limits.</b> Over 100g, the two categories now cost the same (since April 30th 2012). </span><br />
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<br />
The next question is, do you need <br />
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<u><b>Extra Tracking or Insurance?</b></u><br />
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<div style="font-family: inherit;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Standard airmail: </b>Your package is insured for up to £50, and is trackable until it leaves the UK - after this point, it's on its own. However you are still covered by RM - if the item has not arrived after 25 working days, you can claim the postage back as long as you have proof of posting.<b> </b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Airsure: </b>If £50 isn't enough for your items, or you require tracking to the final destination, you can use <a href="http://www.royalmail.com/delivery/delivery-options-international/airsure/prices" target="_blank">Airsure</a> if you are sending to certain countries. I haven't ever used this myself as my items are all quite cheap, so this isn't from first hand experience. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">AIRSURE OUTSIDE EUROPE: By paying an <b>extra £5.40 </b><i>on top of the airmail cost </i>you get <b>tracking to the destination</b>. By paying <b>another £2.50 </b>on top of that £5.40, you get <b>extra insurance </b>(up to £250 or £500 depending on the country). Also, RM say that with Airsure packages generally get to their destination one day quicker than normal airmail. Airsure is only available to countries where RM have agreements with the postal service to share tracking information. This is actually quite a short list: </span>Australia, Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand and USA<span style="font-size: small;"> (nb this list may change so do double check). </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">AIRSURE WITHIN EUROPE: You can also buy Airsure for <a href="http://www.royalmail.com/delivery/delivery-options-international/airsure/faqs#13300225" target="_blank"><i>some </i>European countries</a>, </span><span style="font-size: small;">prices are on <a href="http://www.royalmail.com/delivery/delivery-options-international/airsure/prices" target="_blank">this page</a> </span><span style="font-size: small;">and note they include the basic Airmail price<b>.</b></span><b></b></div>
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<b>International Signed For: </b>If you need more than £50 insurance but are not sending to an Airsure country, you can use this service. From £5.15 on top of the Airmail cost, you get £250 or £500 insurance (dependent on country) and your item must be signed for before it is left with the recipient; otherwise it will be taken back to the local post office. Note that you don't appear to get confirmation that it has actually been signed for or who signed for it. You are relying on the local postal service to act properly and get a signature... <a href="http://www.royalmail.com/delivery/delivery-options-international/international-signed/faqs#13300243" target="_blank">This page</a> says that tracking to destination is available for a certain number of countries, I'm not exactly sure how this tracking differs from the tracking you get with an Airsure item!<b> </b><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1983452828"><img border="0" height="151" src="http://img0.etsystatic.com/il_fullxfull.315426620.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/93905652" target="_blank">Airmail Screenprint by NigelDK on Etsy</a> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br />
So once your item is on it's way, how long will it take to get there, and what will happen if it doesn't arrive, or doesn't arrive in one piece?<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Timelines for delivery</b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">According to the RM website it takes <b>3 working days</b> for post to get from the UK to Western Europe, <b>4 days </b>to Eastern Europe, and <b>5 working days</b> to reach the rest of the world. Honestly, this is quite optimistic! 5 working days is the fastest I have ever known any of my packages to get to the USA (it has happened a few times, though), 7 working days to Australia. Europe I find quite a lottery as some countries have much better services than others - Italy in particular has a reputation for having quite a lackadaisical postal service.</span><b> </b><br />
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<br />
<b>If it goes wrong...</b> <br />
<br />
<i>If you have proof of postage (from the Post Office)</i>, you can claim for a lost international item after 20 working days for Europe, 25 for the rest of the world (so that is 5 weeks). Note you cannot claim any earlier for Airsure items. You can also claim for damaged items, but <i>not</i> delayed items. All information and links to the required forms are <a href="http://www.royalmail.com/customer-service/personal-customers/refunds-and-compensation/claims-process" target="_blank">here</a>. They say to allow 90 days for them to respond so this is may not be a quick process.<br />
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<br />
<b>Other options</b><br />
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If you can't or don't want to use Royal Mail for your international posting for whatever reason (eg weight, speed of delivery, etc), the only alternative is a courier. Royal Mail's price finder does include Parcelforce deliveries; they seem to generally be a similar price to other well known couriers such as FedEx or DHL. I haven't personally used couriers before but I have had a look at "middleman" sites like <a href="http://www.parcel2go.com/" target="_blank">Parcels2go</a>, <a href="http://www.interparcel.com/" target="_blank">Interparcel</a>, etc, who seem to provide cheaper options than going direct to the courier companies themselves. One benefit with using a courier is that generally they will come to you to pick up your parcel, so no queueing at the Post Office!!Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-8254950520123934272012-03-01T04:53:00.001-08:002012-09-18T06:16:31.713-07:00Folksy & Etsy Comparison Part 7: Everything Else!<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">At last, the last post!! This one contains some stuff that didn't really fit in anywhere else, and a <b>pep talk </b>to encourage Folksy sellers to dip their toe in the Etsy waters!</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Downloading shop data</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Folksy – </b>can’t do this</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Etsy</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b> –</b> can download current items for sale and also all past orders as .csv files</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Although Etsy make this a bit easier for you, remember you can download sales from Paypal as well.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Seeing statistics for your shop</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Folksy – </b>Some useful statistics on your dashboard</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Etsy</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b> –</b> Extensive shop statistics</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_pGxDwD_cjyPXYhq2m1Xip1mUwcTMEe0YvIdbLagpcFFz6t-ABbkhqWsvYXKVS1n9S_onbpP_oXAR2HDyKAENzZ7w53cVDF9JqZWkH7Yo99Lc-dUBRL2CeaOtQWMCvZujZCUaLR6K_cA/s1600/etsyviewslikes.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_pGxDwD_cjyPXYhq2m1Xip1mUwcTMEe0YvIdbLagpcFFz6t-ABbkhqWsvYXKVS1n9S_onbpP_oXAR2HDyKAENzZ7w53cVDF9JqZWkH7Yo99Lc-dUBRL2CeaOtQWMCvZujZCUaLR6K_cA/s320/etsyviewslikes.png" width="201" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Etsy has a feature called <a href="http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2011/etsy-success-shop-stats-insights/" target="_blank">Shop Stats</a> which gives a LOT of information about your sales, revenue, favourites, clicks, views; traffic sources to your shop from outside Etsy, and which search terms people <i>in</i> Etsy are using to find you. I rarely look at Google Analytics for my Etsy shop now, only if I need something more complex. Additionally, each listing in your shop includes a count of how many people have viewed that item (see screen grab to the left), and how many have favourited it (and you can see who has favourited it, too). Your activity feed shows when your shop, or an item in your shop, is favourited. Also keep an eye out for individual listing stats coming soon (I have the beta!)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Folksy doesn't have anywhere near such sophisticated tools on its website, but there are some useful numbers presented on your Dashboard; in particular, the number of orders received in the last 30 days, plus £ revenue in the last 30 days and over the whole history of your shop. Unfortunately you can no longer find out in Folksy how many views your item has had; you must go to Google Analytics. You can see how many favourites each item has had: click on your username in Folksy to be taken to Your Dashboard, then click on "manage listings" and below each listing name is a heart symbol with the number of favourites next to it.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Community</span></b><br />
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Both sites have forums which are available to both buyers and sellers, although sellers outnumber buyers on there hugely!<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Etsy</b> - The</span><span style="font-size: small;"> community is divided into Teams. There’s a team for everything! In particular there are many UK seller teams that can be a good source of advice and support. Some teams require you to be involved in active promotion of the other members – eg making treasuries including them, promoting them on your FB or Twitter or blog - and in return you obviously get a big boost too. These teams may be </span><span style="font-size: small;">by invitation only and they may expect quite a lot of you. </span><span style="font-size: small;">Some teams are there primarily for questions and support. Some teams do not allow you to promote your own stuff – or only allow it if you in turn are promoting others. </span><span style="font-size: small;">I get by fine on Etsy without using Teams too much - I just don't have the time at the moment to join in the ones which require a real commitment - but I do like to pop in to some of the British support teams sometimes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">There are a couple of <a href="http://www.etsy.com/forums" target="_blank">forums</a> left on Etsy (there used to be lots more) but technically these are also Teams that anyone can join. These include business advice, site help, etc. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Folksy - </b>Doesn’t have anything like Teams in an official sense, but sometimes I consider its forum to be a big Folksy Team! Due to Folksy's smaller size, I find the forums there more friendly and easier to navigate than Etsy's. Threads don't move as fast and it's easier to keep track of a conversation. There's a promotion board in the forum, but actually it seems you can promote your items to your hearts content in the other boards too. A common tactic is for someone to start a thread saying (for example) "Ooh I've just listed this hat with a big star on, anyone else got any star items?" and you’ll find lots of people will post their items there too.<i> For Folksy-ers opening up on Etsy, do bear in mind that the kind of self-promotion allowed on Folksy is frowned upon in the Etsy forums and some Etsy teams.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Note that on both Etsy and Folksy you MUST NOT <b>call out</b> on the forums or team threads. "Calling out" means referencing a particular seller or sale in an identifiable, negative way. I'll probably do a brief post on this some time as it can be tricky to understand.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>The Second-To-Last Word: I strongly recommend any Folksy seller to give Etsy a whirl</b> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">My opinion is, what have you got to lose? At worst, you lose a few 20c listing fees. At best you are opening your items up to a whole new audience. I have a theory that there is a group of people in the USA (mostly women, probably quite wealthy, not necessarily also Etsy sellers) who search on Etsy first when buying something. They are savvy - if they find something they want, they don't care if they have to wait a few weeks for it to arrive from the UK, paying $$ international postage, and they don't care if something vaguely similar is available more cheaply from a seller in their own country - they want THAT ONE.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">I love selling on Folksy, it works really well for me; but to put it bluntly, Folksy is not well known outside the UK. Even in the UK, probably more non-crafters have heard of Etsy than Folksy. If you want international sales, you've really got to try Etsy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">The only people who may not benefit are people selling bulky, heavy, or fragile items, for whom international posting may be a chore; or people selling stuff that is really very generic - but I don't think there are many shops like that on Folksy. Jewellery sellers may struggle more to be seen in such a huge marketplaces, but I still think it's worth giving it a shot, perhaps putting more effort into joining Teams etc to get the boost you need.</span><br />
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I know that an oft-quoted reason for not trying Etsy is the perceived difficulty of <b>posting internationally</b>. I'm going to talk about this in a couple of posts to try and show it really isn't that scary!!<br />
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<b>The Last Word: Don't neglect your Folksy shop, though!</b><br />
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I know that sometimes Folksy sellers get disillusioned with what they see as the slow pace of change and improvements on the site. They may see Etsy as a holy grail of perfection. But if you see it this way, please do remember how much bigger Etsy is than Folksy (as I described in my <a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/01/folksy-etsy-comparision-part-1.html" target="_blank">first post</a>). In the time I've been writing these posts (about a month) there have been several new features implemented by Etsy that I've had to add in. Etsy is constantly evolving and changing, responding to its customers (ie, us the shop owners mainly). This is purely because it has the investment and infrastructure to do this. Folksy does not - or at least, not in such a huge way.<br />
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So although I hope these comparisons of the two sites are useful, do always bear in mind this fundamental difference between the two sites and don't expect Folksy to be able to act as swiftly and smoothly as Etsy in terms of fixing bugs, introducing new features, etc. On the other hand, they are much more friendly over on Folksy, I think, and the community of sellers on the forums is simply fantastic. The ethos of the site is different in a subtle but quite important way too. (Plus - I promise Etsy isn't perfect either - my goodness some of the complaints threads there are EPIC!)<br />
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<b>Good luck!! </b><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">All parts of this series: <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/01/folksy-etsy-comparision-part-1.html" target="_blank">Part 1: Introduction</a> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-2-listing.html" target="_blank">Part 2: Listing</a> </span> <span style="font-size: x-small;"> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-3.html" target="_blank">Part 3: Personalising your shop </a> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-4-how-items.html" target="_blank">Part 4: How items appear on the sites</a> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-5-sharing.html" target="_blank">Part 5: Sharing your shop and items</a></span><br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-6-buying.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Part 6: The buying experience </span></a><br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/03/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-7.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Part 7: Everything else!!</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
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Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-62970625037143774822012-02-23T14:00:00.001-08:002012-09-18T06:13:01.606-07:00Folksy & Etsy Comparison Part 6: The buying experience<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">This is the second last part of my looong winded comparison of Folksy and Etsy. Here I'm going to cover some aspects of the buying and selling experience; some from the customer's point of view, some from the point of view of you the seller. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><b>Note I have updated this post 18th September 2012</b></i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Folksy & Etsy - </b>both now have the ability for buyers to leave a message to you when they check out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Vital if you have product options such as colour or size! Etsy is however now going a step further by trialling out the ability to add selectable options to your listing directly, so that buyers choose from a drop down box before adding to basket. I am testing this out on some of my collars and it looks great!</span><b><span style="font-size: small;"></span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">How can customers contact you</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Folksy – </b>message system </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Etsy</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b> – </b>conversations – otherwise known as "convos"</span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">The Etsy conversation system is great and works really smoothly. You can apply actions to multiple convos at a time, and there's even a search function for your convos. One particularly nice touch is that y</span><span style="font-size: small;">ou can set an "out of office" message when you are on holiday.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;">I think the messaging system is a great illustration of the resources Etsy has at its disposal: they are able to invest in parts of the site that aren't absolutely essential to the running of our shops. Similarly, as Folksy is much much smaller they have to prioritise their investments. As a result the messaging system on Folksy is fairly bare bones. It </span><span style="font-size: small;">is a bit clunky, for example you are only able to view a few messages at a time, and you can only delete messages one at a time. Another irritation is that when you reply to a message, it doesn’t bring up the subject header automatically. But ultimately, these niggles are really minor, essentially it does the job it needs to - enabling customers to get in touch with you.<b> </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Payment methods</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Folksy – </b>Paypal is the only integrated payment method</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Etsy</b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b> – </b>Paypal is mainly used, but other options are available and integrated into the checkout process.</span><br />
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Another area Etsy seems to have been investing in quite heavily recently is broadening the checkout options for customers. As well as the ubiquitous Paypal, they offer bank transfers and are testing direct credit or debit card payments (US shops only at the moment).<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">I haven't looked much into <a href="http://www.etsy.com/help/article/488" target="_blank">bank transfers</a> myself - it seems a bit complex but could be useful for UK-> UK purchases. There’ll be charges to consider for international purchases made this way. Essentially, you add your bank details to your account and they are revealed to the buyer once they’ve committed to buy. The buyer loses Paypal protection; but it doesn’t make so much difference for the seller. There may be security issues but the same details are printed on your cheques, so if you are happy paying for things by cheque this shouldn't present a big problem to you.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">The option for "<a href="http://www.etsy.com/blog/news/2012/announcing-direct-checkout/" target="_blank">Direct Checkout</a>" - direct credit and debit card payments without leaving the Etsy site - is quite tantalising, I hope it will be rolled out to shops outside the US in time. However, note that international buyers can use Direct Checkout when buying from US shops who are using it. Using </span>Direct Checkout will cost sellers a 3% + $0.25 USD payment processing fee per sale, so that is a little cheaper than Paypal for most sales (not the cheapest things). Brilliantly, you don't need a merchant account to take payments this way, which saves on business banking fees. I really hope they bring it to UK sellers soon!<br />
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Etsy also allows you to take payment by cheque, money order or any other method you wish... I haven't used these myself, I believe that once you have been paid you will have to manually mark the transaction as paid.<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">At Folksy too you can choose to accept payment by bank transfer, cheque, postal order, etc, but these have to be organised between you and the customer. Once the payment has cleared, you must contact Folksy support to get them to mark the transaction as paid.<b> </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Confirmation of purchase</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Folksy – </b>buyers get a generic email from Folksy</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Etsy</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b> – </b>buyers get a personalised email.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">I love being able to customise the order confirmation email on Etsy. You can use it to put lots of important information in. In my first paragraph I say "If you’ve bought a collar with a colour choice, don’t forget to tell me which option you want", and information about expected shipping times. It's also useful to add last posting dates for Christmas. All this information should be elsewhere in your shop (eg in shop Policies), but it's always good to repeat the important stuff!<b> </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Currency settings</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Folksy - </b>£ only.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;"><b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Etsy</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b> – </b>Any currency supported by Paypal.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">On Etsy the basic currency of your shop can be $ or £ (or many other currencies). So you can set your prices to eg £10 instead of $15, which may one day will be £10.14 and the next £9.92. Etsy converts your price to the price of the buyer – eg a buyer in the UK will see your price as £10 but a buyer in America will see your price as $15.72. The transaction is done in the home currency of your shop, so £10, and if the buyer is not in the UK they will experience (small) FX charges from Paypal for the conversion. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Having everything in £ makes your accounting (much) easier but could potentially put off customers (however I think most Etsy buyers are savvy to this and don’t mind the few cents extra). If most of your customers are from the US anyway, you could just keep it in $ (I do). Note that according to HMRC you need to have the Paypal conversion rate for each purchase made in a currency that isn't £. I check and note the conversion rate every day I get a purchase and make a note of it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">On Folksy, international buyers will still see your prices in £ and they won’t be converted to their currency until they get to Paypal (by which time they have committed to buy your item). Again they would be charged the slight extra for FX from Paypal. To be honest, international buyers are few and far between on Folksy at the moment (I’ve had one from US, one from Canada, one from France and one from the Netherlands out of about 200 sales).<b> </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Etsy - Shop local </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Etsy has a "shop local" feature where you can narrow down search results to be local to you – this could be "London" or "UK" or there’s even a "EU" option now. This is really great if you are looking for something and you can’t wait several weeks for delivery from the US or other international locations. To make sure your items are picked up by a local search you go into Account > Profile and start typing your city into the City box. Then you must pick one of the options that Etsy gives you. If you don't do it this way your item won't be picked up in Local searches.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">I also suggest putting "UK" as one of your Etsy tags, some people search this way.<b> </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Etsy - Shopping in another language</b> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">One interesting thing from Etsy here is that they now have<a href="http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2012/translating-a-marketplace-etsy-in-german-and-french/" target="_blank"> "Etsy in German" and "Etsy in French"</a> – this is a setting where the whole Etsy site is translated into French/German. For customers using these settings, </span><span style="font-size: small;">Etsy translates their French/German search terms into English and shows customers relevant results, so you don’t need to translate your listings to catch these customers. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">However... if you do have good language skills, as a seller you do have the option to sell in French or German. This means that you translate your shop announcement, policies, etc and all listings into the language, and anyone with the site set to that language will see your listings in their language. To take this option you are supposed to be able to conduct business in that language, so probably not one for you if you can just scrape by with GCSE or O-level vocab on a holiday to Brittany. In the UK we are not far from France and Germany so I think this is a bonus for us; if you have the language skills you can go one step further and make your shop bi- or tri-lingual!</span><b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Next and final part of this series (I promise!) - all the little bits that I couldn't fit anywhere else!!</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">All parts of this series: <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/01/folksy-etsy-comparision-part-1.html" target="_blank">Part 1: Introduction</a> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-2-listing.html" target="_blank">Part 2: Listing</a> </span> <span style="font-size: x-small;"> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-3.html" target="_blank">Part 3: Personalising your shop </a> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-4-how-items.html" target="_blank">Part 4: How items appear on the sites</a> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-5-sharing.html" target="_blank">Part 5: Sharing your shop and items</a></span><br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-6-buying.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Part 6: The buying experience </span></a><br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/03/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-7.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Part 7: Everything else!!</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
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Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-21441693756809638402012-02-14T11:56:00.000-08:002012-02-14T12:00:45.817-08:00Google - more than just a search engine!Today I've discovered <i>another</i> thing Google can do! <br />
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I already knew it could act as a currency converter:<br />
<a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=what+is+%C2%A310+in+dollars" target="_blank">what is £10 in dollars</a><br />
<a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=10CAD+in+CHF" target="_blank">10CAD in CHF</a><br />
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<a name='more'></a>And as a converter for almost anything else you could think of.<br />
<a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=5+ft+4+inches+in+cm" target="_blank">5 ft 4 inches in cm</a><br />
<a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=7lb+6oz+in+kg" target="_blank">7lb 6oz in kg</a><br />
<a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=how+many+square+feet+in+a+hectare" target="_blank">how many square feet in a hectare</a><br />
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It knows scientific constants too!<br />
<a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=speed+of+sound" target="_blank">speed of sound</a><br />
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Plus act as a calculator for the simple...<br />
<a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=what+is+seventeen+times+two" target="_blank">what is seventeen times two</a><br />
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...or the more complex.<br />
<a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=cube+root+of+7138" target="_blank">cube root of 7138</a><br />
<a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=log%288.5*3%2Bsqrt%2874%29%29" target="_blank">log(8.5*3+sqrt(74))</a><br />
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And it can combine more than one operation, clever clogs!<br />
<a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=20%25+of+%C2%A36.95+in+CAD" target="_blank">20% of £6.95 in CAD</a><br />
<a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%C2%A31.43+per+litre+in+USD+per+gallon+" target="_blank">£1.43 per litre in USD per gallon </a><br />
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It can tell you the local time anywhere in the world,<br />
<a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=time+sydney+" target="_blank">time sydney</a><br />
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Or when the sunrise is,<br />
<a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=sunrise+london" target="_blank">sunrise london</a> <br />
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And when a flight will land (I discovered this the day before my brother arrived home from 5 months travelling the world).<br />
<a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=BA565" target="_blank">BA565</a><br />
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You can use it to search a site which has a rubbish search of its own (ahem, Folksy!)<br />
<a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=blue+kindle+cover+site%3Afolksy.com" target="_blank">blue kindle cover site:folksy.com</a><br />
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But today, thanks to <a href="http://mashable.com/" target="_blank">Mashable</a>, I discovered it can also plot graphs! Like this one. <b>HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!</b><span class="messageBody" data-ft="{"type":3}"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=sqrt%28cos%28x%29%29*cos%28300x%29%2Bsqrt%28abs%28x%29%29-0.7%29*%284-x*x%29%5E0.01%2C+sqrt%286-x%5E2%29%2C+-sqrt%286-x%5E2%29+from+-4.5+to+4.5" target="_blank"><span class="messageBody" data-ft="{"type":3}">sqrt(cos(x))*cos(300x)+sqrt(ab<wbr></wbr><span class="word_break"></span>s(x))-0.7)*(4-x*x)^0.01, sqrt(6-x^2), -sqrt(6-x^2) from -4.5 to 4.5</span></a></span><span class="messageBody" data-ft="{"type":3}"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIHd-dn-hwxXFlKucQrvD5LLcATpOzrh0xmWeDvsdTKzY3siVgmtsICMTs9nhEIW9_29NEjralaF1Zs-KHpR5i_kORIti9BQzUPi5WzvO2jo6sFwzYV6EesFQrwUtoAbvTiggT1iVezA0/s1600/valentines+day.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIHd-dn-hwxXFlKucQrvD5LLcATpOzrh0xmWeDvsdTKzY3siVgmtsICMTs9nhEIW9_29NEjralaF1Zs-KHpR5i_kORIti9BQzUPi5WzvO2jo6sFwzYV6EesFQrwUtoAbvTiggT1iVezA0/s320/valentines+day.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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<span class="messageBody" data-ft="{"type":3}">PS There are lots of hidden tricks called "easter eggs" in Google too. Try typing "askew" into google to see what I mean, and there's a list of more <a href="http://mashable.com/2011/11/03/google-easter-eggs-2/" target="_blank">here</a>.</span>Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-87969767414670286382012-02-14T06:17:00.002-08:002012-09-18T06:10:06.123-07:00Folksy & Etsy Comparison Part 5: Sharing & Promoting<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
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Well, I'm slowly getting through all these posts! This one is about how Folksy and Etsy each make it easier (or harder) for you or others to share your shop and items for sale with the rest of the internet, and encourage them to buy when they visit you.<br />
<i><b>Note I have updated this post 18th September 2012.</b></i> <br />
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<a name='more'></a><b>Adding links to other web presence<span style="font-size: small;">s</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Folksy – </b>you can put the URLs of your Facebook pages and Twitter etc in your profile, but these will not be clickable links, customers will have to copy and paste into their browser.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Etsy</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b> – </b>You can add links to your Twitter and Facebook business Page to your shop front page, making it easy for customers to find you (add the links in Your Shop > Info and Appearance).</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit3QOoiS9C-oL0ZXz0p7qLpKcqdFx6JGIa4-POO19sf1dTOF89ErtPD9_FTru6k46oc_47TSIN2pIK70yup_PuQzy5NcdudIUJaBGbORIq5QSwu_DxY8ubsrgVrBFpYQ4UNn1epaPpl6A/s1600/etsytwfa.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit3QOoiS9C-oL0ZXz0p7qLpKcqdFx6JGIa4-POO19sf1dTOF89ErtPD9_FTru6k46oc_47TSIN2pIK70yup_PuQzy5NcdudIUJaBGbORIq5QSwu_DxY8ubsrgVrBFpYQ4UNn1epaPpl6A/s640/etsytwfa.PNG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Note that neither site allows you to give links to other websites where your items are for sale and if you do this you run the risk of suspension from the site.</span><b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Promoting your items</span></b></div>
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<b>Folksy - </b>Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest buttons on item listings so they can be shared easily.<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<b>Etsy -</b><b> </b>Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest <span style="font-size: small;">buttons, plus Treasuries, the possibility of </span><span style="font-size: small;">pay-per-click search ads and your items potentially being on Google.com shopping.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.etsy.com/treasury/?ref=buy_page_nav_treasury" target="_blank">Treasuries</a> are an Etsy tool.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> These are great advertising for your items, and a good way to join in the Etsy community and help out your fellow sellers. You can make your own Treasuries and you may find yourself being featured in others', too. </span>Folksy doesn’t have a Treasury feature but you can use Pinterest to curate collections of items. Currently Folksy staff choose the front page so you might find one of your items on there one day too.<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Having your items on Google shopping is great, although the advantages can be overstated. I rarely get more than 5 clicks a day. There is no rhyme or reason to when your Etsy shop becomes "syndicated" as they call it – it is completely random. My shop took about a year. But others have been waiting longer and for some it happens much more quickly. <b>There is no point asking Etsy when your shop will be syndicated. </b>To check if you've been syndicated, click the "Your Shop" link, and look down at the links on the left. There's a section called Promote, and if you've been syndicated there'll be a link called "Syndication" there. There'll be a future post about </span><span style="font-size: small;">Google shopping.</span><b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Coupon codes</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Folksy –</b> No.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Etsy –</b> Yes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Etsy wins here, as you can give out coupon codes for either a fixed amount off or a percentage off. </span>You have to manually make the codes inactive after they've been used, but that's not a big deal. <span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">If you want to offer a discount on Folksy you need to either manually adjust the prices on listings or offer a Paypal refund. A Paypal refund takes up to 7 days for the money to be back in your buyers account, and you don’t get refunded the difference in Folksy seller fees. You do get your paypal fee back for the refund though. Folksy have said they are working on the ability to implement discounts, however they have said this will be in the form of a shop sale, rather than individual discount codes. I suspect they are trying to do something different to Etsy, but actually I think the discount code feature is what most people want. We'll see.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">SEO</span></b></span><b> of images</b></div>
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SEO (search engine optimisation) kind of fits here because part of the reason we share and promote our items is to increase our SEO. There <span style="font-size: small;">used to be an important difference between how Folksy and Etsy named the images you uploaded to your listings; however they now do the same thing: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Folksy & </b></span><b><span style="font-size: small;">Etsy</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b> –</b> rename your photos to a random string of numbers when uploading.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Folksy used to win here; if you named your image "sterling silver drop earrings jewellery UK" then it would be called that on Folksy too. This meant that a Google image search for sterling silver drop earrings UK would pick up your photo. Unfortunately now the image is renamed to random gobbledygook, like on Etsy. As the listing title is applied as associated text to your photo, it can in theory be picked up by Google image search, but it will be far below any photos that include the text as the photo name. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>The next - and possibly last! - post will be on the <a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-6-buying.html" target="_blank">buying experience from the customer's point of view</a>. There may possibly be one more just to add all the little things that didn't really fit anywhere else!</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">All parts of this series: <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/01/folksy-etsy-comparision-part-1.html" target="_blank">Part 1: Introduction</a> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-2-listing.html" target="_blank">Part 2: Listing</a> </span> <span style="font-size: x-small;"> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-3.html" target="_blank">Part 3: Personalising your shop </a> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-4-how-items.html" target="_blank">Part 4: How items appear on the sites</a> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-5-sharing.html" target="_blank">Part 5: Sharing your shop and items</a></span><br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-6-buying.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Part 6: The buying experience </span></a><br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/03/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-7.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Part 7: Everything else!!</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
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Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-8893003049095848642012-02-10T09:49:00.001-08:002012-09-18T06:03:43.065-07:00Folksy & Etsy Comparison Part 4: How Items Appear on the Sites<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">This fourth part of my series comparing Etsy and Folksy concerns how items appear on each site, and how customers might find your item; so this includes how searching and browsing works on the two sites. This is a slightly tricky area to cover as it is probably the part which is most prone to being changed, but hopefully it'll still be useful even if some minor aspects are altered in the future.</span><b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><b>Note I have updated this post 18th September 2012</b></i></span><b><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Visibility of newly listed items</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Folksy – </b>when <i>browsing </i>categories, the default is for newest items to show up first. Newly listed items appear on the bottom of the home page, but only 10 at a time. </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Etsy</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b> – </b>At the bottom of the home page, there's a scrolling list of all new items being listed on the site. Also, in your activity feed, on the right you can see new items from your favourite shops. When <i> browsing</i> categories, the default is for newest items to show up first.</span><br />
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Folksy used to have two front pages. You saw the first - a carefully curated collection of items - before you logged in to you account. Once you were logged in, you saw the most recently listed items across all categories. It was a good way to find sellers you hadn't heard of before, and I must admit to making a few impulse purchases from this page! On the other hand, the quality of photos and mix of items could be varied, and Folksy decided to ditch this "logged-in" front page when they revamped the site in November 2011. <span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The consensus in the Folksy Forums was that sellers missed the opportunity to browse all newly listed items and eventually Folksy brought it back in a limited way. However as only 10 items are on the front page at any time, they don't last long on there! So still, it isn’t uncommon for a new Folksy listing in a busy category to get no views at all. You need to put some legwork in with promotion if your item is to get any views.</span><b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Tags / Keywords</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Folksy – </b>only material and colour are now used.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Etsy</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b> –</b> up to 13 tags of your choice; up to three more tags formed of the categories and subcategories your item is in. Other descriptors too.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Tags or keywords are specific descriptive words you associate with your item in some prescribed way. In Etsy they are key to determining your position in search results and you can enter up to 13 of them in a listing. As well as single words you can use short phrases that people might search for, like "cat collar" or "pearl necklace". There are also fields for "who's it for?" (I answer "cat"!), Occasion (eg Valentine's Day) and Style (eg modern, punk).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">In Folksy, the only keywords that are used are material and colour, and they are used when browsing categories in the site.</span><b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Categories</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Folksy –</b> not so many categories and currently there are still some categories “missing”. </span><span style="font-size: small;">Folksy categories are based on <b>who </b>you are buying for (Women, Men…) rather than <b>what</b>.</span><b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;">Etsy</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b> – </b>loads, and many subcategories too.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> Etsy </span><span style="font-size: small;">categories are generally based on <b>what </b>you are buying (eg Toys, Candles), but there are some <b>who / why </b>categories too (Pets, Weddings)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">In the site revamp of November 2011, Folksy's categories were given a complete overhaul. They are now based on who you are buying for, which leads to the slightly odd situation that an accessory like a Kindle case must be either in the Women or Men category… Also there are still some categories that seem to be missing, but hopefully some of these oddities will be smoothed out in time. In September 2012 Folksy announced planned changes to categories including removing "who are you buying for" as the core categorisation - it hasn't been implemented as I write this, but you can read about it <a href="http://blog.folksy.com/2012/09/12/better-categories" target="_blank">here</a>. When browsing categories in Folksy, you can select a predetermined <b>price filter</b>, select what <b>material </b>the item is made of, and the <b>colour </b>of the item (these last two must be input by the seller in the listing process for this to work). Categories are by default ordered by recency but you can also order by price.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">In Etsy, categories and subcategories for your item are chosen in the listing process - they actually form the first few tags of your item; for example the first three tags of my listings are always Pets > Collar > Cat. You can duplicate items in more than one main category if you want (although you have to pay more than one listing fee). For example, there's a "Clothing" category with a subcategory "Children", and a "Children" category with a subcategory "Clothing". A search for "girl's dress" is going to bring up things in both categories, but if someone's browsing, they may only find one of the categories.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Search</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Folksy – </b>honestly, it’s a bit of a mess at the moment... </span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;">Etsy</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b> – </b>FABULOSO!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Etsy has a near perfect search, I think. When you search a term you can narrow by category and subcategory (eg searching <i>wooly hat </i>gives me results in Crochet, Accessories, Knitting, Children, and I can select which one I want to look at). You have the option to look only at results in the UK, London, Europe, etcetera. By default, search results are presented by relevancy but you can order them instead by recency, or price (most expensive or cheapest first). You can set a customised price filter and say you only want to see items under £15, or items between £3.54 and £17.21, if you so desired. You can exclude any items which don’t offer shipping to the UK. Due to the sheer number of products on Etsy you may sometimes have to do a bit of sifting to find what you want, and there are cheeky sellers who eg will tag a hat with "gloves"… naughty. But usually you can tweak your search terms to find a good result. Currently search results are presented in numbered pages, although I have heard that Etsy have been toying with infinite scrolling search (NOOOO!).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">On Folksy, (sigh), once you search you cannot narrow your search down in any way. Just now I did a search for <i>blue hat</i>, and on the first page of results was a brooch in the shape of a hat. Not what I wanted but no way to tell Folksy I only want to see clothing results. A silly example, but hopefully you see what I mean. (Of course I could go into categories and browse the hat subcategory). Additionally you cannot sort your search results in any way. Search results are presented using "infinite scrolling" which means if you click to look at a product, when you click "back", you’re not in the same place in the search you were before. This can be very frustrating, and </span><span style="font-size: small;">I strongly recommend right-clicking to open item pages in a new tab of your browser, so you don't lose your place. </span><span style="font-size: small;">Search results are presented somewhat randomly – I assume it’s some kind of relevancy but it’s hard to tell... Definitely more work needed here, Folksy! They have promised that improvements to search are being worked on at the moment, phew.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>The next post (number 5!) will be about how the two sites help (or hinder!) you when sharing and promoting your items.</b><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">All parts of this series: <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/01/folksy-etsy-comparision-part-1.html" target="_blank">Part 1: Introduction</a> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-2-listing.html" target="_blank">Part 2: Listing</a> </span> <span style="font-size: x-small;"> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-3.html" target="_blank">Part 3: Personalising your shop </a> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-4-how-items.html" target="_blank">Part 4: How items appear on the sites</a> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-5-sharing.html" target="_blank">Part 5: Sharing your shop and items</a></span><br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-6-buying.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Part 6: The buying experience </span></a><br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/03/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-7.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Part 7: Everything else!!</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
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Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-58013964580832596682012-02-08T03:05:00.000-08:002012-02-08T03:50:01.876-08:00Oversharing on FacebookYesterday (Tuesday 7th February) was Safer Internet Day, apparently. Last week I <a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/facebook-privacy-ticker-hoax.html" target="_blank">blogged about the Facebook Ticker</a> and how to tell who can see various posts on the site, turns out that post was inadvertantly timely! I just wanted to add a little more about watching how we share things on social networks.<br />
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Every morning this week I have heard an odd advert on Radio 1, each with a different DJ saying something along the lines of "oh, that's gross... that's disgusting! I can't believe he's put that photo on his timeline!" and a strapline broadly saying "If you would be embarrassed for your Grandma to see it, don't put it on Facebook". It's a good message and there's more info about the Share Take Care campaign <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/2012/02/how-the-bbc-share-take-care-ca.shtml" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>I'm nearly 31, and so for my peer group Facebook (and other online social sites) came along when we were (mostly) beyond the age when we would routinely embarrass ourselves on our frequent nights out. Most of the worst photos are in paper, not digital format, and even then, I remember not taking my camera on a night out as it was to expensive to risk being damaged. But for those a decade younger than us (and more) who have grown up with cheap digital cameras and camera phones, their years of drinking to excess may be captured forever on their social networks if they aren't too careful. My friends and I were talking the other day (in a pub, ironically) about this and one friend thinks that this generation will have a rude awakening when they come to apply for jobs and find that much of their social life from the past few years is searchable by anyone through Facebook, Twitter and Google.<br />
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So I just wanted to reiterate what I said last week about getting your privacy settings right on your personal page (and encourage your teenagers to do so too, if you have them!). Although it's not just a problem for teenagers - this <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-16929442" target="_blank">50 year old primary school teacher in South Wales</a> was disciplined by her professional body for inappropriate Facebook updates about drinking. It's also not just a problem for personal pages - <b>any comment you make on your business page or Twitter feed may be searchable by people interested in your business</b>.<br />
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If you're cross about something and tempted to vent about it on your business page, give yourself a day to cool down and reconsider. Even if it's something that seemingly can't reflect badly on you, it is probably more professional <i>not</i> to use your page in this way. Personally I find it a turn off when I see a business page being negative about others, no matter how obscure, eg "Just to let you know all my pin cushions are all HAND SEWN by ME unlike certain OTHER pin cushion makers out there". It can be a difficult tightrope to walk, though - as small businesses run by one person, one of our main assets is the personal touch we are able to share with our customers. The previous example could instead be much more positive: "Did you know my pin cushions are all completely hand sewn? My thumbs are suffering for my perfectionism though, ouch!". If you have genuine issues with another person or business then it's best dealt with in private; public spats will damage everyone involved regardless of where the fault lies.<br />
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It's almost impossible to have a satisfying rant while remaining completely professional, but if you really feel you must try, stick to the facts and perhaps get someone else to look at the post first to help you remain as polite, objective and business-like as possible - <b>strong personal feelings are probably best kept on personal pages</b> (unless you are purposely trying to inflame debate, but that can be a dangerous tactic!).<br />
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Happy sharing, people!Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-74658596986852955262012-02-05T11:08:00.001-08:002012-09-18T06:22:35.551-07:00Folksy & Etsy Comparison Part 3: Personalising Your Shop<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">This installment is all about how Folksy and Etsy differ when it comes to personalising your shop; making it look like you want it to. It's important to remember that you are selling on someone else's site, so you're never going to be able to completely tailor the appearance of your shop, but both sites - Etsy in particular - do offer a few helpful ways to keep it organised.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><b>Note I have updated this post 18th September 2012.</b></i> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Removing items</b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b> from your shop</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Folksy & Etsy –</b> You can deactivate a listing and it just sits there in your "inactive items", hidden from customer's view. The clock is still running on the listing period, so it may expire while it's inactive. At any time before it expires, you can reactivate it (no cost) and it appears in your shop again. </span></div>
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Folksy added the ability to deactivate listings without deleting them completely, in 2012. This is important if you are going to a craft fair and don't want to sell something twice!<span style="font-size: small;"> In both shops you can completely change your listing; so if you want to remove something from your shop <i>and </i>you have a new item to list, you can replace all text photos and title with the information for the new item. If you change the title of the item, the link will change, but in both websites the old link will redirect to the new one, so there's no problem there.<b> </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Arranging your shop</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Folksy –</b> the items in your shop appear only in order of listing. You can't change them, but if you have the Plus account, by renewing items they go to the front of your shop, so you can rearrange this way, but it seems like far too much hassle to me!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Etsy</b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b> –</b> can arrange your shop to your hearts desire. Also, you can pick four "featured" items to sit just below your shop banner, and you can arrange your shop either as a gallery view, or as a list:</span><br />
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<table border="0" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr> <td style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><img alt="pic name" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgm5oELQ7grxs_ZkmOYiJ6LM_wvYJygirrYUdZE55SAmfgZyyVQSB7sk8hXyLvHo_y1nYiJBdB_YqeIqlRENKbp19-WDx9qK2pirp6lcbPOOHasMs6J4GLm3CpDEUf_2z0VSwFqCGi65M/s320/etsy_gallery.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Gallery view</span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgm5oELQ7grxs_ZkmOYiJ6LM_wvYJygirrYUdZE55SAmfgZyyVQSB7sk8hXyLvHo_y1nYiJBdB_YqeIqlRENKbp19-WDx9qK2pirp6lcbPOOHasMs6J4GLm3CpDEUf_2z0VSwFqCGi65M/s1600/etsy_gallery.jpg" target="_blank" title="View"> </a></span></td> <td style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><img alt="pic name" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3ws0lJf1AVn6NwSNMPdQIsvhYxzuAS5xyMgbHkzTC-GVQK6O9HemNpEvb9piQsnnOELuhQkvVcaqsbCtcinLWLDNfaGLrzl-cHCIrBBsiBTxaGB7nWcE3ZGZonhRg8XdQiR419BrTd1E/s320/etsy_list.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">List view</span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3ws0lJf1AVn6NwSNMPdQIsvhYxzuAS5xyMgbHkzTC-GVQK6O9HemNpEvb9piQsnnOELuhQkvVcaqsbCtcinLWLDNfaGLrzl-cHCIrBBsiBTxaGB7nWcE3ZGZonhRg8XdQiR419BrTd1E/s1600/etsy_list.jpg" target="_blank" title="View"> </a></span></td> </tr>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Holiday</span><span style="font-size: small;"> mode</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Folksy – </b>when you tell Folksy you are on holiday, your listings stay visible in your shop, but they cannot be bought. </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Etsy</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b> – </b>When you put your shop on vacation mode, none of your listings are visible, only a special vacation announcement which you can customise to tell customers when you’ll be back. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">In my opinion, Folksy just edges Etsy here, just because it lets customers still browse your shop while you're on holiday. For this reason when I go away, I usually like to keep my Etsy shop live, but put Folksy into holiday mode.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> However, Folksy doesn't provide a specific holiday shop announcement, although you can change your usual shop info to say when you'll be back (who knows if customers will read it though!). </span><span style="font-size: small;">Etsy does provide a special vacation announcement, and also an option for sellers to tick a box to receive an email when you come back off vacation (don’t worry, Etsy sends this for you automatically). They also allow you to set an auto-reply to any convos (messages) that might be sent to you while you're away.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Shop sections</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Both Folksy and Etsy allow you to divide your items into categories, to keep your shop organised and make it easier for customers to find what they are looking for.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Shop banner</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Folksy's </b>banner dimensions are 726 pixels wide and 85 pixels high. They can be .jpg or .gif files.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Etsy's </b>are 760 x 100 pixels, they can be .jpg, .png or .gif files.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;">Note that in both shops, your banner appears on your shop's front page, but not in individual item pages.</span><br />
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<b>Next up is how your items appear on the two sites, including how search works.</b><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">All parts of this series: <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/01/folksy-etsy-comparision-part-1.html" target="_blank">Part 1: Introduction</a> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-2-listing.html" target="_blank">Part 2: Listing</a> </span> <span style="font-size: x-small;"> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-3.html" target="_blank">Part 3: Personalising your shop </a> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-4-how-items.html" target="_blank">Part 4: How items appear on the sites</a> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-5-sharing.html" target="_blank">Part 5: Sharing your shop and items</a></span><br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-6-buying.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Part 6: The buying experience </span></a><br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/03/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-7.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Part 7: Everything else!!</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
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Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-61251574431803360592012-02-03T12:19:00.000-08:002012-02-03T12:20:24.410-08:00Facebook Privacy & the Ticker "Hoax"<div style="font-family: inherit;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">This is just a <strike>quick</strike> post about a "hoax" that is going around on Facebook (related to your personal profiles, not business pages). I'm not sure if hoax is </span><span style="font-size: small;">quite </span><span style="font-size: small;"> the right word – but certainly it encourages people to do something under false pretences and is likely to give people a false sense of security and misunderstanding of Facebook's privacy structure. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">It's been circulating in various forms for a while, ever since the news ticker appeared (that thing on the right hand side of the facebook page that gives you snippets of info about what your friends are doing). Here's an example of it:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><h6 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1}"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="messageBody" data-ft="{"type":3}">Hi, Friends. I like to keep my FB private except to those I am friends with. So if you all would do the following, I'd appreciate it. With the new FB timeline on its way this week for EVERYONE. . . please do both of us a favour: Hover over my name above. In a few seconds you'll see a box that says "Subscribed". Hover over that, then go to "Comments and Likes" and unclick it. That will stop all our posts showing up on the side bar for strangers to see. But most important, it limits hackers from invading our profiles. If you repost this I will do the same for you</span></span></h6></div></blockquote></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">If you follow the instructions in the post, all that will happen is that <i>you </i>won't see <i>that friend's </i>updates on <i>your </i>ticker any more. It doesn't change anyone's privacy settings or change what anyone on Facebook can see. It is really quite pointless, unless you are just bored of seeing that friend's updates in your Ticker!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Here are a few important points:</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</div><ul><li><span style="font-size: small;">By default, <b>anyone who can see a post can like or comment on it</b>, so if your privacy is set to "public", ANYONE can comment on or see your status updates. So if you're sharing some controversial views, anyone on facebook can weigh in with their opinion of you and your views…. </span></li>
</ul><ul><li><span style="font-size: small;">The Ticker only displays information that you're <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">already able to see</span></b> elsewhere on Facebook. It just brings more stuff to your attention than the Newsfeed does. Thus, removing people from your Ticker doesn't affect them appearing on your Newsfeed.</span></li>
</ul><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<ul><li><span style="font-size: small;">If you want your own <b>status updates to not be seen by anyone other than your friends</b>, then you need to set all relevant privacy settings to "Friends". When you are writing a status update, you can set the privacy of that particular update if you want it to be different to your default setting. </span></li>
</ul><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNim-LmMqj8CW5V1S8uvdHYBNlV5ApolROuzooNEfjxuZVN8el1w9dWtMkFJujieypoBJOzU0-5fvDYo71t1NpPaQqAWsZGYRXQ-loLaXpZsQcg-PPRDrITdqkZmRxF8g1IxrHzCsWKIg/s1600/facebook_setprivacy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNim-LmMqj8CW5V1S8uvdHYBNlV5ApolROuzooNEfjxuZVN8el1w9dWtMkFJujieypoBJOzU0-5fvDYo71t1NpPaQqAWsZGYRXQ-loLaXpZsQcg-PPRDrITdqkZmRxF8g1IxrHzCsWKIg/s320/facebook_setprivacy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><ul><li><span style="font-size: small;">If you comment on the status of someone else whose settings are Public, then <b>their settings override yours</b>, and so their status and your comment is visible to everyone, and your comment will be broadcast to your friends on their Ticker and/or Newsfeed. </span><span style="font-size: small;">Likewise, if you write on someone's wall, it is <i>their </i> privacy settings that control who can see that post, because it's on <i>their </i>wall. </span></li>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">I'll give an example. Let's suppose Amy has a friend, Bob. Bob has a friend, Carl, who isn’t friends with Amy.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Amy has her privacy set to Friends:</b> If Amy posts a status update and Bob comments on it, Carl can’t see either the status update or Bob’s comment, because he's not friends with Amy, so it won’t show in his newsfeed or ticker. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Amy has her privacy set to Public:</b> If Amy posts a status update and Bob comments on it, "Bob commented on Amy's post" will show up in Carl’s ticker. Even if Bob does <i>not </i>comment on Amy's update, Carl could still see Amy's status update, if he searches for and finds her profile (or clicks through to her profile from Bob's friend list), because she has set her privacy such that <i>everyone on Facebook </i>can see her updates, if they care to look. Also, even if Bob has his privacy set to Friends, <i>everyone on Facebook</i> will still be able to see his comment on Amy's status, because it's public.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">You can tell who a status update is shared with by looking at the small grey icon to the bottom left of the post on your newsfeed. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFyCNLQxYBEiz_sGAxpjpL-wNsXecsRKXK6Hp7dD6l_ieK7nQz-6nArTEcNL1mLC1ZyNwih3pMQBEn0sdjWpURK5SbmxkymX1LJTbu-geKzX0IaFl7J9rKCRUXu0LIEiQbyH2G1YfmG-0/s1600/facebook_public.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFyCNLQxYBEiz_sGAxpjpL-wNsXecsRKXK6Hp7dD6l_ieK7nQz-6nArTEcNL1mLC1ZyNwih3pMQBEn0sdjWpURK5SbmxkymX1LJTbu-geKzX0IaFl7J9rKCRUXu0LIEiQbyH2G1YfmG-0/s1600/facebook_public.jpg" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">If you see the <b>globe </b>– that means it's a public post and if you comment or like it, this fact will appear in all your friends' tickers.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4bEYywLRR4CW0agxZOJjvEWBCcLRN0-Ra-WEcO4O58QaqL3IMb09mHY6JYYjNkQx4BE-wXN2nunThgGg5bLgbVLChJhnfU6H0JlFxdQjRDZHxfwWku2ulXDOr7s8M7WEv4M88lTD4h78/s1600/facebook_friends.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4bEYywLRR4CW0agxZOJjvEWBCcLRN0-Ra-WEcO4O58QaqL3IMb09mHY6JYYjNkQx4BE-wXN2nunThgGg5bLgbVLChJhnfU6H0JlFxdQjRDZHxfwWku2ulXDOr7s8M7WEv4M88lTD4h78/s1600/facebook_friends.jpg" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">If you see the <b>head-and-shoulders </b>– it's restricted to friends of the original poster, so you can comment and it will not show on your friends' tickers unless they are also friends with the original poster.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYeXwBo4usiJJKWnh0C3jlLS7gT7VmiGtRwpyvtduGOi55KLsjn8pG-iCrXWsQAow46aXp5EXDXHwwE9OYja4kbeyoFFM_NtgTpRrqz7YDhWmvrOLX52yrPtHA18FurfGCJa1zNC-5mWg/s1600/facebook_custom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYeXwBo4usiJJKWnh0C3jlLS7gT7VmiGtRwpyvtduGOi55KLsjn8pG-iCrXWsQAow46aXp5EXDXHwwE9OYja4kbeyoFFM_NtgTpRrqz7YDhWmvrOLX52yrPtHA18FurfGCJa1zNC-5mWg/s1600/facebook_custom.jpg" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">If you see the <b>cog </b>– that means the settings are custom and you can hover or click on the cog to find out who can see it. </span></div><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">The take-home message is - <b>if privacy worries you, then you need to consider not only your privacy settings, but the privacy settings of the people you interact with on Facebook.</b> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">I really would recommend that if you have your own business and use Facebook, you set your default privacy setting for your personal account to "Friends", and also make sure that your other privacy settings are suitably set – in particular, settings for photos are separate and are set individually for each album you create. According to the Distance Selling Regulations your real name and address should be given on any sites you sell through, so it may be possible for people to work out who you are on Facebook. We share a lot on Facebook – how excited you are about your upcoming holiday, or that you're pleased to have the house to yourself this weekend</span><span style="font-size: small;"> – </span><span style="font-size: small;">and you don't want that information falling into the wrong hands. Do note that Facebook doesn't publically link your business Page to your personal profile, so that's one less thing to worry about!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">If you want to read more about this, then try this <a href="http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/09/26/facebook-ticker-privacy-scare/" target="_blank">blog post</a> from computer security company Sophos or this <a href="http://www.jonloomer.com/2011/12/28/hover-over-my-name/" target="_blank">page</a> which is also quite informative.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</div><span style="font-size: small;">PS: In my Amy/Bob/Carl example above, there's on</span><span style="font-size: small;">e thing I'm still wondering about. In the example, if Amy has set her privacy to Friends, and Bob comments on her update, <i>tagging </i>Carl in the comment (and Carl approves the tag), what does that mean? Surely now Carl can see Amy's status update? Can all of Carl's friends see Amy's status update too? I haven't been able to work this out yet as you need to coordinate 4 people to test this… Amy, Bob, Carl and one of Carl's friends, Dave… I do know that if you set a photo or album to be seen by your friends only, if you tag someone in the photo then all their friends can now see your photo, and potentially everyone can see it if the tagged person's privacy is set to "Public".</span> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div>Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-44882354475059518202012-02-02T14:25:00.001-08:002012-09-18T05:57:15.340-07:00Folksy & Etsy Comparison Part 2: Listing<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">So <a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/01/folksy-etsy-comparision-part-1.html" target="_blank">last time</a> I gave a bit of background to Folksy and Etsy and talked about some of the things that can and can't be sold on each site. This time I'm going to concentrate on the differences (and similarities) between the sites in terms of actually putting items up for sale; including listing, renewing or relisting items, and ease of setting postage rates. Enjoy! </span><br />
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<i><b>Note I have updated this post 18th September 2012 - there were LOTS of changes to both sites over Summer 2012 when it comes to listing!</b></i> </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Listing items</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Folksy -</b> One listing is for one item and costs <b>15p</b> (excluding VAT, so 18p with 20% VAT). You can list a quantity of up to 100, but each quantity costs 15p+VAT, so 5 items will cost 75p+VAT. The listing lasts <b>4 months</b> (actually 120 days, to be precise). For sellers with the <a href="http://folksy.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/86404-about-the-folksy-plus-plan" target="_blank">Folksy Plus account</a> (which costs £30 per year), listing is free.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;">Etsy</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b> -</b> This is a little complex to explain. One listing allows you to sell just <b>one </b>item and costs <b>20c</b>. If you list a quantity of greater than one, then you still only pay 20c <i>at that point</i>, but if the additional quantity sells, you do pay the 20c at that time. A listing lasts <b>4 months</b>. As an example:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-size: small;">I list a quantity of 4 Bumblebee cat collars. At that time, 20c is added to my Etsy bill. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">Someone buys one collar. At that time, no listing fee is added to my Etsy bill, just the selling fee.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">Someone buys two collars. At that time, two listing fees - so 40c - is added to my Etsy bill, as well as the selling fees.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">The listing still has one collar available to buy, but the 4 months runs out before it sells. So I never pay a listing fee for this last collar.</span></li>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The bonus is that you can add quantity at any time. So after selling the two collars at once, I could have increased the quantity from 1 to 3 without paying any further listing fee at that time. It's really easy to update listing quantities now too. The only time you pay a new 20c fee is when you list a brand new item, or are renewing a previous expired listing. Additionally, whenever someone buys a quantity of your item, if there is quantity left, the expiry date on the listing extends to the full 4 months AND the item behaves like a "new" item, moving to the front of your shop and also helping with Etsy search, especially if browsers sort search results by recency.</span><br />
<i>Although not technically related to "listing", </i><i>I think here is a good place to mention the selling fees on both sites too: on Folksy it is 6% of the cost (5%+VAT), on Etsy 3.5%.</i><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Many crafters make one off items and the ability to have multiple quantities on a single listing isn't of interest to them. Etsy and Folksy are now not so different for these crafters - Folksy is marginally more expensive at18p, Etsy costs 20c which is roughly 13p. The selling fees are higher at Folksy as well.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRsfyGXqJsVaIIU5nhEjpgU5W-r-sDLf8lP9xhgIP2NkZUKCCbkuW0gbeq65WSgGqseGcrVCEzUH5ysxYdMsdYtYYRZ8YeKR6xh-W3zTFL38hgkXvle3gy3T0Ac9CSz2uRqRtN-8Afz58/s1600/folksy+listing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRsfyGXqJsVaIIU5nhEjpgU5W-r-sDLf8lP9xhgIP2NkZUKCCbkuW0gbeq65WSgGqseGcrVCEzUH5ysxYdMsdYtYYRZ8YeKR6xh-W3zTFL38hgkXvle3gy3T0Ac9CSz2uRqRtN-8Afz58/s200/folksy+listing.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Folksy listing: quantity of 5</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;">If your craft allows you to make multiples of the same item (like mine does), then lucky you! Etsy is SO more convenient than it used to be now that you can list quantities without paying the listing fees upfront. I really believe this change in Summer 2012 has transformed my Etsy shop, as previously I just didn't want to pay that 20c when I wasn't even sure the item would sell. I'd always list collars with quantity =1, and risk losing impulse customers who wanted multiples of the same style. The introduction of the Folksy Plus account has revolutionised that shop for me too! A payment of £30 and all listings are free for a year. Instead of just having 8 or 10 collars in my Folksy shop, I have now got almost my full range in there, which makes my shop look much more attractive. Even aside from the potential cost savings, batch making is a great way to <b>increase your efficiency</b>, as making things in small batches </span><span style="font-size: small;">usually </span><span style="font-size: small;">saves time versus making them all separately. It also means that you only have to do one photography session to potentially sell those five items.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Ease of listing</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Both Etsy and Folksy use a <b>one page listing </b>system now, so there's not much between them in this respect. I slightly prefer Etsy as you can see your photos (as thumbnails) immediately after you upload them and rearrange them if you wish. On Folksy you have to click through to the preview page to see them. Listing on Folksy used to be rather slow, but now they have made some changes (September 2012) and it's much much better.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Relisting items</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Folksy -</b> Woohoo! Folksy brought in everlasting URL</span>s in 2012, so when you renew an item, it keeps the <b>same URL</b>.<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;">Etsy</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b> -</b> You can relist the same listing (they call it <b>renewing</b>) – and you keep the <b>same URL</b>, assuming you click the "renew" button on the sold or expired listing, not the "copy" button.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Well, when I first wrote these guides, Etsy won hands down if you make the same or similar items, as Folksy used to give you a different URL when you re-listed an item after it sold out. It made it really hard to keep products at the top of Google searches and every time you re-listed, all the old links would point to a sold-out item. However, this is no more. When you relist an item now, the URL stays the same, and so there isn't anything to choose between Folksy and Etsy on this point!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">It's important that a product URL will go on and on and on, because you can keep promoting the same items and seeing the rewards - in terms of Google placement - build up. It also means that you keep your item views as you renew them each time - so you may end up having an item that was listed yesterday but already has 1000 views (because you’ve been renewing it every fortnight for the past 6 months).</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Shipping</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Folksy -</b> has grouped countries together into areas, but still no ability to save postage costs in a shipping profile.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Etsy</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b> - </b>uses <b>shipping profiles</b>,<b> </b>which<b> </b>mean you can set a profile and apply it to all listings when you create them. You can also group countries together into "shipping areas"</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Etsy </span><span style="font-size: small;">uses shipping profiles, which<b> </b>are saved in your shop information, rather than in each listing. This means you can set a profile (or multiple profiles) and then when you make a new listing, all your profiles are available to select in a dropdown menu. This is a real timesaver if you have fixed shipping tariffs like I do. Folksy doesn't have this ability, and so in theory you must set all your postage details in each new listing that you make. However in practice it's easier - </span><span style="font-size: small;">if you make a new listing by using the "list similar" button on an existing listing (in your seller Dashboard), the shipping information in that listing is preserved so you don't need to enter it again.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Another advantage with Etsy is that it allows you to group countries together into shipping areas, which means for example that you don't need to include every European country separately, but can group them together into one postal area. This is a real boon for UK sellers, since Royal Mail divides its charges according to whether you want to send something within the UK, within Europe, or to the Rest of the World. You don't want to go having to set postage individually for Albania, Andorra, etcetera do you?</span><br />
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Folksy have had an attempt at implementing this idea, but in my opinion it's a bit half-baked.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaP9CXQNgzZvU8MJ81WwSrEIxsk-AjOxb1inAUH3fIWRZKTEI_xUJqwZkqUsSUAz-nL8H3_cXMnxYaAfmz12JPj4Gsq1pXORH-8OlFGUk7dHJ-CF5-MA3Yt6dWU267uIUilkEi_KPzEvY/s1600/stamp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaP9CXQNgzZvU8MJ81WwSrEIxsk-AjOxb1inAUH3fIWRZKTEI_xUJqwZkqUsSUAz-nL8H3_cXMnxYaAfmz12JPj4Gsq1pXORH-8OlFGUk7dHJ-CF5-MA3Yt6dWU267uIUilkEi_KPzEvY/s200/stamp.jpg" width="172" /></a><span style="font-size: small;"> As of September 2012, Folksy has defined postal zones for us. These zones are UK, EU, USA & Canada, Rest of World. The reason I think it's a bit rubbish is that these zones don't accurately reflect Royal Mail pricing zones, which is surely the service which the majority of sellers use. Royal Mail's definition of Europe includes the EU but all other countries on the continent, eg Norway, Switzerland, and about 10 or 12 others. Folksy claim that most of these countries have never had a Folksy customer and that is why they have only included EU countries in their Europe zone - that is probably true for Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, etc; but I have had orders to Norway, and under Folksy's current system I will be overcharging them for postage, because they are lumped together with Australia and New Zealand. So as far as I'm concerned, it's still Etsy 1, Folksy 0. Maybe Folksy 0.5, if I'm feeling generous...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">One slightly annoying behaviour in Etsy which I will flag up here is that if you change a shipping profile it won’t automatically update in your listings too. However you don't have to go into each listing to re-apply it, there's a clever tool that lets you apply shipping profiles to multiple items at once.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-3.html" target="_blank">Next in the series</a>... How the two sites vary when it comes to getting your shop to look as you want it to, and other aspects of day-to-day running of your shops.</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">All parts of this series: <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/01/folksy-etsy-comparision-part-1.html" target="_blank">Part 1: Introduction</a> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-2-listing.html" target="_blank">Part 2: Listing</a> </span> <span style="font-size: x-small;"> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-3.html" target="_blank">Part 3: Personalising your shop </a> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-4-how-items.html" target="_blank">Part 4: How items appear on the sites</a> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-5-sharing.html" target="_blank">Part 5: Sharing your shop and items</a></span><br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-6-buying.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Part 6: The buying experience </span></a><br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/03/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-7.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Part 7: Everything else!!</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
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Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-23369204630271364942012-01-31T03:04:00.001-08:002012-09-18T05:26:29.671-07:00Folksy & Etsy Comparison Part 1: IntroductionI thought I'd kick off the blog with a series of posts about some of the differences and similarities between two popular and large craft selling sites - the UK based Folksy and US based Etsy. It would be easy to have titled this post "Folksy vs. Etsy" (and a lot shorter!), but I feel that's unnecessarily provocative! I enjoy selling on both sites - both have their strengths and weaknesses - and it's my opinion that most craft sellers can only gain from having shops on both sites.<br />
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I hope that these posts will provide useful information to sellers new to either or both selling platforms, through objective facts and some of my own opinion and experiences too.<br />
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This first post includes a brief introduction to both sites and a run down of what you can sell on each one.<br />
<i><b>Note I have updated this post 18th September 2012!</b></i> <br />
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<a href="http://etsy.com/">etsy.com</a> was launched in June 2005 by a group of three Americans. It now has <a href="http://www.etsy.com/about/team/" target="_blank">250 employees</a>, hundreds of thousands of sellers (exact numbers are hard to come by now - <a href="http://www.handmadeology.com/how-many-sellers-on-etsy/" target="_blank">this</a> site suggests there were nearly 300,000 shops <i>with items in stock</i> as of February 2011) and millions of registered buyers (7 million in December 2010 according to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/27/technology/27etsy.html" target="_blank">NY Times</a>). <a href="http://www.quantcast.com/etsy.com" target="_blank">Quantcast</a> says that in 2011 Etsy got visits from about 7 million individual visitors every month, rising to 10 million per month in the run up to Christmas. You can check how many items there are for sale on Etsy at any one time <a href="http://www.etsy.com/search_results.php?search_query=&search_type=all" target="_blank">here</a> (at the time of typing this, it was 8.5 million, of which 6.4 million were handmade). Monthly "<a href="http://www.etsy.com/blog/news/tags/weather-report/" target="_blank">Weather Reports</a>" on the Etsy blog give information about the number of sales and their dollar total (for example in <a href="http://www.etsy.com/blog/news/2011/etsy-statistics-august-2011-weather-report/" target="_blank">August 2011</a>, 2.3 million sales were made which totaled $45 million; in <a href="http://www.etsy.com/blog/news/2012/etsy-statistics-december-weather-report/" target="_blank">December 2011</a> 3.4 million and $70 million). In 2011 the top Etsy shop made over <a href="http://www.handmadeology.com/top-1000-handmade-etsy-sellers-of-2011/" target="_blank">50000 sales</a>!<br />
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<a href="http://folksy.com/">folksy.com</a> was built by two British blokes and launched in summer 2008. It is based in Sheffield and now employs 9 members of staff. According to <a href="http://folksypress.tumblr.com/press_information" target="_blank">this</a> press information, as of November 2011 there were 7900 active shops, 139,000 items for sale, 2.4m unique visitors a year, and sales had an average value of £17.45. Visits to Folksy each month are of the order of 300,000 (from the site's <a href="http://blog.folksy.com/category/monthly-updates" target="_blank">monthly updates</a>), increasing towards Christmas (423,000 in November 2011).<br />
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As you can see, the difference between the two sites in terms of size is huge - and it's worth bearing this in mind when comparing them in terms of their other characteristics. The much greater investment in Etsy, and much larger numbers of employees - including 90 "engineers" working on the nuts and bolts of the website - means that new tools and features "come to market" a lot quicker. On the other hand, the small size of Folksy makes it much more of a cohesive community in my opinion, and I find it more friendly, on the whole.<br />
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<b>Accepted items</b></div>
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There are some important differences between Folksy and Etsy in terms of what is allowed to be sold on the sites. The list of acceptable items for sale on Etsy can be found <a href="http://www.etsy.com/help/article/147" target="_blank">here</a>, and for Folksy <a href="http://support.folksy.com/kb/selling-on-folksy-2/what-can-i-sell-on-folksy" target="_blank">here</a>. Remember, you don't need to sell the same product range on each site. I've highlighted some of the key differences below:<br />
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<b>Vintage</b></div>
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<b>Etsy </b>- there's a thriving <a href="http://www.etsy.com/category/vintage?ref=fp_ln_vintage" target="_blank">vintage section</a> on Etsy (2m listings!), defined as anything 20 or more years old. I know, right?! My Popples could be vintage now, if only I'd kept them... hang on, this makes <i>me</i> vintage...<br />
<b>Folksy </b>- vintage items cannot be sold on Folksy as-is. If you have significantly altered a vintage item, for example by reupholstering it, printing or painting it, or decoupaging it, that is acceptable. Will Folksy ever allow vintage items to be sold as they are? Personally I doubt it, they really seem to pride themselves on being a handmade site.<br />
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<b>Food</b><br />
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<b>Etsy </b>- yes<br />
<b>Folksy </b>- no<b> </b><br />
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<b>Bath products and cosmetics</b><br />
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<b>Etsy </b>- yes<br />
<b>Folksy </b>- yes to solids such as soaps and bath bars, no to liquids such as balms, lotions and oils, and no cosmetics.<b> </b><br />
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<b>Supplies</b><br />
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<b>Etsy </b>- yes<br />
<b>Folksy </b>- yes<br />
As of summer 2012, Folksy is now quite a lot more supplies-friendly in my opinion, due to the Plus account which takes listing fees out of the equation. However, neither site offers the ability to add options (such as colour, size, quantity) to a listing. Still, if I was starting a supplies business, I would probably go to ebay first. Having said that, there are a lot of large supplies sellers on Etsy (although, most of them have ebay shops too).<b> </b><br />
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<b>"Handmade" vs "Hand Assembled"</b><br />
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<b>Etsy </b>- anything goes.<br />
<b>Folksy </b>- they do not allow what they call "hand assembled" products.<br />
This has been a controversial topic on Folksy and I don't want to cause any further arguments about it here. Broadly, to be sold on Folksy, an item must fall into at least one of these two criteria: <b>majority handmade</b>, or <b>original design</b>. Thus a hand knitted jumper from a pattern that you have permission to use falls under the first; a professionally produced print of one of your photographs falls under the second. Folksy's guidance can be found <a href="http://support.folksy.com/kb/selling-on-folksy-2/what-can-i-sell-on-folksy" target="_blank">here</a>, and more clarification <a href="http://blog.folksy.com/2011/09/12/handmade" target="_blank">here</a>. If you are unsure whether your products are permitted, I strongly recommend that you contact Folksy <i>before</i> you list them, not afterwards, as there's no reason to think you'll get your listing fees back if you inadvertantly list something that isn't permitted. Essentially if your craft involves putting two mass produced things together (eg a chain and a pendant or charm, or a card and a premade decal), it's unlikely you'll be able to sell it on Folksy - but do ask.<br />
Etsy is much more permissive, allowing "hand assembled" items, people to sell in collectives or groups, and even permitting a significant amount of the making process to be outsourced. As a result of this, along with the size of the site and difficulty policing it efficiently, the lines between what is and isn't acceptable are in my opinion more blurred than they are on Folksy.<br />
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<b>A final word - </b>note that on top of each site's policies, all applicable rules and regulations of the country you are selling from must be adhered to as well. These include but are not limited to legislation regarding: copyright, safety of toys and other products marketed for use by children, fire safety regulations for furniture and nightwear, cosmetics, and food safety and hygiene. These laws apply to single person businesses just as much as they do to huge manufacturers. A couple of starting points for UK sellers are these two pages from Folksy: <br />
<a href="http://support.folksy.com/kb/legal-obligations-for-uk-sellers/copyright" target="_blank">Copyright information on Folksy</a><br />
<a href="http://support.folksy.com/kb/legal-obligations-for-uk-sellers/trading-standards" target="_blank">Product safety information on Folksy</a><br />
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<b>The <a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-2-listing.html" target="_blank">next post</a> in this series will be about listing and relisting items on the two sites.</b><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">All parts of this series: <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/01/folksy-etsy-comparision-part-1.html" target="_blank">Part 1: Introduction</a> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-2-listing.html" target="_blank">Part 2: Listing</a> </span> <span style="font-size: x-small;"> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-3.html" target="_blank">Part 3: Personalising your shop </a> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-4-how-items.html" target="_blank">Part 4: How items appear on the sites</a> <br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-5-sharing.html" target="_blank">Part 5: Sharing your shop and items</a></span><br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/02/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-6-buying.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Part 6: The buying experience </span></a><br />
<a href="http://craftmetric.blogspot.com/2012/03/folksy-etsy-comparison-part-7.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Part 7: Everything else!!</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span>Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2530923214622231579.post-27479962451457710272012-01-28T09:59:00.000-08:002012-02-02T12:53:41.351-08:00Welcome to my (other) blog...It's always a bit awkward, the first post of a blog... so I won't linger over it. This is my second blog, my other one is <a href="http://mogstogs.blogspot.com/">here</a>, but this time I fancied talking with my own voice rather than through my two cats!<br />
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I started my business "Mog's Togs" in 2010, selling handmade cat collars. In October 2010 I set up shops on <a href="http://folksy.com/shops/MogsTogs">Folksy</a> and <a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop/MogsTogs">Etsy</a> and then a year later from my own <a href="http://www.mogstogscatcollars.com/">website</a> as well. Since starting Mog's Togs I've learned such a lot about selling online - some things specific to crafts and some things more general - and I'm still learning new stuff every week. I am a bit addicted to Google and use the skills I've learned from my day job as a researcher to help me find and assimilate the right information as fast as possible when I'm trying to solve a problem, answer a question or improve the way I do things. After all, there's only so much you can do during your lunch break...<br />
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I decided I'd like to start sharing some of the things I'm learning with others - partly because I like helping people out, partly because it saves time writing things out repeatedly in forums! In particular I have my mother in mind; she's a ceramicist, multimedia artist, knitter, painter, drawer (and lately a weaver) who has been selling her work locally for quite a few years now. She's had a <a href="http://www.brandywineart.co.uk/" target="_blank">blog</a> for a while, but is now considering selling some of her makes online. I know she'll have lots of questions for me so hopefully I can answer some of them on here before she's even asked them!<br />
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I'm also going to take the chance to occasionally feature the work of other crafters and artists - quite a few of them have helped me out by sharing my work on their blogs and so far I haven't been able to reciprocate. Hopefully this will change now!<br />
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So that wasn't quite as brief as I'd hoped, but here we are, a new blog, a home for my ramblings and hopefully a source of help for others too. <br />
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PS - I'm not promising it's going to be entirely cat free, by the way...Rachel (Mog's Togs)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01399402828879010671noreply@blogger.com1