So you see these stores getting featured on Etsy and you wonder if that transforms your store into a roaring success? I've wondered the same thing, I presume anyone who gets big exposure on Etsy through one of their promotions must be killing it from all the attention. Then I became one of those stores and have seen things from the other side. I thought I'd share my adventure for other sellers who assume it's champagne and caviar dreams after Etsy features your store.
First, I should specify that my store was not profiled as one of these sellers who get a big spread on the site with details about my process and glossy photos of my loft-style workspace. They did interview me for a possible feature like that but ultimately didn't move forward with my store. I presume my story wasn't interesting enough or my house wasn't photogenic enough, I never got a follow-up on that idea.
However, my store was selected to be featured in a nationally televised commercial campaign for the Holiday 2019 shopping season. In my mind this should be even more lucrative than a write-up on the Etsy site. They are buying ad space on prime time television and my store's name will be splashed across the screen hundreds or thousands of times. Surely this will translate to mega sales right?
The whole thing started back in July. We sold two of our vintage travel bars in two different Etsy stores. Shortly after that we got a message from one of the buyers that our item would be featured in a commercial for the holiday season. They messaged occasionally to give us additional information, asked for head shots and other stuff like that. In early November they sent us a link to the ad and told us it would start running soon.
We actually saw one of the ads on television, but what I learned later is they made 3 different ads and they were all in shared rotation. So my ad was only playing maybe 30% of the times that an Etsy spot was aired. Also, the ad runs about 20 seconds and my product was in maybe 5 seconds of the ad. My picture and store name is up for 3 of those 5 seconds. So it's a pretty small part of the overall advertising campaign.
We were told that we would see a possible 150% spike in traffic to our store. We never noticed any traffic increase we could attribute to the ads. Obviously holiday traffic did increase between Black Friday and mid December but nothing we could clearly tie to the ad itself. We were told that our store would also be included in posts on the Etsy site but we never found a link nor did we see anything in the traffic logs to indicate an Etsy link to our store. For the most part our traffic is quite similar to what we saw last holiday season. Perhaps an increase of 10-20% but certainly nothing like 150%.
The only real change we could see is that people were buying the travel bar from the ad. They told me to stock up so I scoured for 6 months and managed to get 7 of them in advance of Christmas (a minor miracle for any single vintage item). I recycled the same listing that Etsy told me they were pointing to and each time that travel bar would sell in a day or two. I had a backup travel bar in another listing and that one did not sell quickly but eventually a smart shopper searched my shop and found it. The main win from this campaign was people buying the travel bars I had stockpiled. But I didn't see any meaningful uptick in overall sales to my store.
Now that it's over, I can't really quantify what this exposure got me. In past seasons I've had "hot" items in my store and I would easily sell 1-2 per week during the holiday shopping window, which is equivalent to the 7 travel bar sales we got. I can't say with any certainly that I wouldn't have sold those travel bars without Etsy's help because travel bars sell well anytime I have one in the store. Even if I attribute those sales to the campaign, it definitely wasn't the spike they suggested our store would experience.
For a hand-crafted store I could see this being a meaningful boost if you're in a position to crank out hundreds of the featured product leading into the holidays. For a vintage store, we just can't source that many of any single item to leverage the exposure. I'm lucky if I have 2-3 of the same item in my store at the same time. I actually felt bad for the other vintage seller in the campaign, I'm pretty sure the product they featured for her was not something she could get more of. The take-away is that getting a product featured in an Etsy commercial will get you a boost in sales for that product. Shoppers do not seem to browse through other great items in your store or purchase anything else.
I hope this information helps temper expectations for future Etsy sellers who do not know what might happen during an ad campaign. I'm not sure what I could have done differently in terms of prepping, but I would have liked to know just to manage my stress if nothing else.
Feel free to share you own experiences in the comments!
Showing posts with label etsy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label etsy. Show all posts
Thursday, December 19, 2019
Monday, March 5, 2018
Antique Dealer Prices, Discounts and Haggling aka How to Make an Offer
My dad is an avid Lionel train collector and a while back he asked me about haggling. As a vintage dealer I'm generally on the other side of that process. There are plenty of shoppers who don't want to engage in bargaining. But if you are walking away from an item at the listed price, it obviously doesn't hurt to make an offer and see if the seller takes you up on it. Sometimes they're happy to make a sale and willing to drop the price to get it.
First, lets understand where the seller is coming from. We spend a lot of time finding items for our shop. Personally I'm on the prowl 2-3 hours every day. I hit thrift stores, I check estate sale listings and online auctions. Once I bring something home I shoot professional quality photos, write captivating copy and create the online listing. If cleaning or repairs are needed I do that too. After the purchase I carefully wrap, box and ship it out. So even a cheap $5 item has at least 20 minutes of my sweat equity in it. This is good to keep in mind when you evaluate a haggle, it's not fair to ask me to earn less than minimum wage for my time. It may help to realize that paying me for my time has saved you 2-3 hours of your time hunting down this same item in your local thrift shops.
There are times when dealers get stuff in “box lots” which means we bought a box of random stuff. In that situation our cost might be low for each item in the box. If someone comes to my store wanting to haggle I have more wiggle room on those items. If you know a seller who regularly offers low priced wares, this is likely the reason. I find that silver, brass and copper most frequently gets sold in bundles like this so if you want to haggle with a seller these may be good items to target.
Another way to get the dealmaking ball rolling is to buy more than one item. If you're willing to buy multiple items in their shop, you can use a bundling tactic to get a discount. The more items you combine in your order the more likely you'll pick at least one that has wiggle room on it. This increases the likelihood that your dealer will work with you on a bundle price. You also save money on shipping!
Fire Sale!
Another way to find discounts on vintage wares is when a dealer is going out of business and they need to get rid of everything. This happens a lot more than you’d think because the antiques business is not strong right now. Some dealers are just collectors who “store” their collection in an antique mall and at some point they decide to bail out. Or a dealer has passed away and the family is liquidating their stuff and likely don’t even know the value of it. The best place to find "fire sale" deals is in an antique mall. They have several hundred dealers under one roof and there's always at least 2-3 doing a sale ranging from 20% to 50% off. The higher the discount, the more likely it's a true liquidation. Finally if there's an item you've had your eye on for a while and it's still in the store 6+ months later, the dealer may be open to bargaining. No dealer wants to have an item sit around too long, they want to make some profit and put that money into a new product. Try making an offer!
Ok so you've found an item you like and you want to try haggling. Obviously you want as good a deal as you can get but not be so low the seller is offended. I can tell you right now that 50% is too low. That's not to say you'll never get a taker, I suppose 1% of the time that might work. But the other 99 times you'll piss off the seller and they may stop talking to you. Most dealers don't have such amazing margins that they can give a 50% discount and still make a decent profit. Thanks to eBay the vintage market is pretty competitive and bloated margins are a thing of the past.
A good place to start is 30% because it's low enough that you're getting a nice, beefy discount but not so low that the dealer feels like you have no respect for their time and effort. Understand that they probably won't agree to this but they shouldn't be offended either. They may counter with 10% and you can counter with 20%. At this point they will either take the 20% if they have wiggle room or counter with 15%. If they don't take 20% you can rest assured they probably can't go that low. Most dealers would like to reach terms quickly and not risk you walking away, so they will take the 20% if they are able.
If you really want to up your game, a more advanced tactic is to do some market research. Check Etsy and eBay and come up with an average price for the item you want. Etsy prices are often higher than eBay because there's no bidding war for the buyer. If you're talking to an Etsy seller, it's fair to use their Etsy competitors as a benchmark. Try to find at least 5 competing items and figure out the average price, then use that to help with negotiations. Bear in mind that your comparison items should be the same size/condition. It's not fair to compare a chippy Pyrex bowl to an intact one. A side benefit of seeking out competitors is you might actually find a better deal!
Be careful not to come off pompous with this approach because you're essentially telling the seller they mispriced their item. Be willing to share links to the other products if they ask so they can see for themselves. Some sellers don't do market research when they come up with pricing, so they may not realize they are off target. If you're haggling in person you can use your phone to show them. This strategy might not work if they are stuck on their price, but it's may work where other options fail.
Good luck!
LUCK = I went to an auction or estate sale and the prices just happened to be cheap that day and other bidders/buyers didn’t swoop in and nab the cheap stuff before I did.
There are times when dealers get stuff in “box lots” which means we bought a box of random stuff. In that situation our cost might be low for each item in the box. If someone comes to my store wanting to haggle I have more wiggle room on those items. If you know a seller who regularly offers low priced wares, this is likely the reason. I find that silver, brass and copper most frequently gets sold in bundles like this so if you want to haggle with a seller these may be good items to target.
Another way to get the dealmaking ball rolling is to buy more than one item. If you're willing to buy multiple items in their shop, you can use a bundling tactic to get a discount. The more items you combine in your order the more likely you'll pick at least one that has wiggle room on it. This increases the likelihood that your dealer will work with you on a bundle price. You also save money on shipping!
Another way to find discounts on vintage wares is when a dealer is going out of business and they need to get rid of everything. This happens a lot more than you’d think because the antiques business is not strong right now. Some dealers are just collectors who “store” their collection in an antique mall and at some point they decide to bail out. Or a dealer has passed away and the family is liquidating their stuff and likely don’t even know the value of it. The best place to find "fire sale" deals is in an antique mall. They have several hundred dealers under one roof and there's always at least 2-3 doing a sale ranging from 20% to 50% off. The higher the discount, the more likely it's a true liquidation. Finally if there's an item you've had your eye on for a while and it's still in the store 6+ months later, the dealer may be open to bargaining. No dealer wants to have an item sit around too long, they want to make some profit and put that money into a new product. Try making an offer!
Making the Offer
Advanced Haggling
If you really want to up your game, a more advanced tactic is to do some market research. Check Etsy and eBay and come up with an average price for the item you want. Etsy prices are often higher than eBay because there's no bidding war for the buyer. If you're talking to an Etsy seller, it's fair to use their Etsy competitors as a benchmark. Try to find at least 5 competing items and figure out the average price, then use that to help with negotiations. Bear in mind that your comparison items should be the same size/condition. It's not fair to compare a chippy Pyrex bowl to an intact one. A side benefit of seeking out competitors is you might actually find a better deal!
Be careful not to come off pompous with this approach because you're essentially telling the seller they mispriced their item. Be willing to share links to the other products if they ask so they can see for themselves. Some sellers don't do market research when they come up with pricing, so they may not realize they are off target. If you're haggling in person you can use your phone to show them. This strategy might not work if they are stuck on their price, but it's may work where other options fail.
Good luck!
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