What is Your Etsy Shop's First Impression?

I am a big believer that you only get one chance to make the best impression and when this comes to sales you have to really impress them to get the wallet open. That is why on Etsy it is all about using your 3 promotion spots to show your best of and the variety in your items. Often times when people first open your page (any Etsy page) they see the banner, then the shop announcement, and finally the 3 feature items. One thing I kept seeing when doing shop critiques was that the shop announcement is so long you can’t see the feature items when you first open the page. Which means the customer has to scroll down to find out what your product is and if they would like to purchase it. Now I know what you are thinking it doesn’t take any effort to scroll down. But we are artists we like to sit and explore the different shops. But if you are a shopper quickly looking…scrolling down is a huge mental block. Think about it like a real store. Would you go into a story in the mall that tells their company history in their store front windows or would you go into the store displaying their absolute best merchandise? So what should a customer see when they click on your shop? Here are my suggestions:

(keep thinking…real store)

1) The Banner – This is your shop sign (in the real store scenario) so it should definitely have your name in it. Brand yourself just like the GAP or any other retailer. I really like the banners I see that are a collage of product photos with the shop name layered on top but I have seen other great banners made up of graphic arts just make sure it has your name and your medium written in it if you aren’t using some sort of product representation.

2) The Shop Announcement – This is like a sign you can put in your shop window, you just don’t want to take up the entire window with it. So just because I think this shouldn’t be too long doesn’t mean I think there should be nothing in the shop announcement. Give a brief description of you and your product and then use the rest of the space to keep things current. You can keep things current by talking about certain items that would be good for upcoming holidays, talk about charities your shop is involved in at the time, or promote a sale. Just make sure your promotions are timely and up to date.

3) The Three Feature Items – This is your store front display and these are the items that are going to get them to walk in (scroll down) to see the rest of your merchandise. These items should be seasonal, a variety of your work, a variety of you price points, and most importantly the most visually appealing of the three previous.