I defy you, Etsy!

Unofficial "rules" of Etsy success that I am cheerfully breaking:

1. Develop a presence in the forums to draw in customers.  I spend almost no time there, for two reasons: One, people are really, really catty there.  They're way nastier than their enemy Regretsy, they just frost it in sugar.  Two, I'm still having trouble seeing the point of dealing with it in terms of sales.  I am in a very saturated category.  If I sold one-of-a-kind poodle warmers or something, then it might be worth it, but frankly?  I kinda doubt it.

2. Views are the most important thing ever.  Nope; customers are the most important thing ever.  I love to have my work appreciated, but views are a number.  If I got to talk to everyone who viewed me, that would be something else.  This is more a philosophical mindset than an action, but nonetheless, I defy it!

3.  Put your shop policies in your descriptions.  I'm resisting this one.  I'm resisting it hard.  Those who have been around for a while will notice I've recently added a little blurb at the end of "all orders ship USPS First Class, allow two weeks," etc., but honestly?  That's more to give the descriptions an obvious stop-point ... the same reason you put strong-colored binding on a quilt ... than as a policy advisory.

4.  Create a unified product line.  I frankly cannot imagine how people do this without going mad.  I would be utterly insane if I tried to make all my stuff match a theme.  I'm going a little crazy trying to make stuff that I can put in Flickr sets, fergodsake.  I love the steampunk assemblage stuff, that's really sort of my home now that I have developed sufficient skill to execute it the way I picture it, but trying to confine myself to that style would result it truly unmarketable bizarrities.

5.  Put your best item in your avatar.  Mine has been and remains my little orange dancing pig.  I hand-drew that logo when I first got started and I plan to use it forever.  It stands out a lot more than most of the jewelry-business avatars, which are all, y'know, jewelry (and occasionally cause me to go ... "Yes, I have bought pendants at WalMart, too, I recognize that which is the sole thing in your image").  And because of the above, my goal has to be to build business and name recognition, not style recognition.  My style is very different from others', but also occasionally from itself, and you have to see the milieau of work over time to see the common threads.

6.  Use a solid-color background.  Oh, god, I am defying this one hard.  But I love my broken-pottery-and-raw-silk background.  I have occasionally contemplated switching the background color behind the ivory pots to orange, but a.) this would require rephotographing the whole shop and b.) I wouldn't be able to use my brother's T-shirts anymore (seriously, worn jersey-knit is the best fabric for photographing jewelry on).


So maybe it's killing my sales, but I have been a stubborn mule approximately from birth, so this is my business model and I'm stickin' to it.