Free Retro Spring Animal Clipart
These tiny clip art images are perfect for spring projects where you needed an added touch. Sized from just 2-4" at print resolution these little animals are adorable!
Happy Crafting
Shawnna
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How Many Listings Should You Have on Etsy?
When I started selling on Etsy way back in 2011, my digital seller peers were convinced that a certain magic happened with sales once you had 50 items in your shop and then again at 100 items.
They weren't wrong. Once I hit those inventory numbers (or thereabouts) I did notice an uptick in sales. So did many of my peers.
But here's where people get this myth about listing numbers completely wrong. There is no magic number. It just depends on what you sell, how competitive your niche is and the quality of your listings.
Let's be honest. Of course the number of products you have in your shop matters. But the ideal number of products suitable for one business isn't the same for another.
Let me give you an example from brick and mortar retail. If you walked into a really high end designer boutique hand bag shop you might find 20 different hand bag designs each in a variety of colors. And let's say each bag might cost thousands of dollars. This store wouldn't need a really high volume of daily sales to make a profit and be successful.
Contrast that to the Dollar Store where you probably have something like 1000 different products. But each is sold at a dollar each. (actually 1.25 these days). This store requires significant daily traffic to earn a profitable income.
Two completely different stores, serving completely different needs and requiring completely different inventory strategies based primarily on the price of their product.
Would the dollar be successful if it only had 20 products? No. Would people continue to shop there if the choices available were reduced to only 20 products? Probably not. People shop there because it has an amazing array of choices for really cheap.
So there is some aspect of quantity needed to sell successfully anywhere, in addition to having products that people actually want to buy. The way that Etsy SEO works, and the people shop on Etsy is where the beginning of this myth comes from.
When competing for sales against hundreds or thousands of other products, it is much easier to get found with 100 listings than it is with 10. At the very least you should have a broader range of keywords to get found in search for with more listings than with less. But there is no one specific number of listings that creates a magic formula for getting found or getting sales.
Getting found in Etsy search results depends on quite a few factors; including, your particular niche, how much competition you have, your photo quality, your SEO, how much traffic you yourself are sending, your sales history, your shop quality score etc.
When I first started selling on Etsy, and hearing about the so called magic of the number 50 or 100 for item listings I cam across a shop that had less than 10 listings that was doing really really well. Totally blowing up the myth of 50. The shop owner was a lawyer offering e-books on topics relevant to Etsy sellers.
This kind of shop doesn't need a high volume of listings because they have a very unique skill backed by accreditation that can't be easily replicated. At that time I believe they were they only shop of its kind on Etsy. So they had no competition with a high quality product that was targeted directly at customers who needed the info in those e-books. Talk about a recipe for success!
No matter what kind of shop you have, determining how many listings you need in your shop should be based around the income you're hoping to earn and the price point you are selling at, factoring in how much competition you have or how easy/difficult your product is to make.Generally speaking, the greater skill o complexity of a product + a higher price point the less amount of listings you'll likely need. Versus the opposite, the less skill or complexity + lower price point the more likely you'll need a higher number of listings. Even within this very generalized rule there will be exceptions. And much of that has to do with popularity. If you have an amazing product that you can't keep in stock inventory doesn't much matter :)
Bottom line, be consistent with your listings. Don't rush to create mass amounts of products that aren't good quality or are not what people are looking to buy. Just keep working away at it and have some longer term goals in mind to aim for and you'll get there in time!
happy crafting!!
Shawnna
Free Vintage Easter Cross Spring Flowers Cards
Vintage Christian Easter cards featuring the holy cross with spring flowers. Scanned from vintage postcards these old ephemera cards will have slight imperfection due to age and wear, just part of their vintage charm.
Happy Crafting
Shawnna
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Free Vintage Drawer Pull Printables
These vintage style drawer pulls were used in library card catalogues or apothecary cabinets. Arranged as a PDF printable these also come as individual PNGs. Download altogether in the zip folder link below.
Happy Crafting
Shawnna
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Is it Getting a bit too Crowded on Etsy?
Etsy has been around for quite a few years now, but its popularity has really exploded in just the last few. As an online marketplace it's a great place for people to sell handmade goods, vintage items, and various supplies. But has its recent exponential growth made it too saturated to start your business on?
A lot of new sellers coming into the marketplace say yes. But in reality the answer isn't that simple. It's certainly harder to stand out and get found than it used to be, but not impossible. The Etsy of today is not the Etsy of 10 years ago. And sellers need to up their game to get in and do well, but there is definitely room for new products and new ideas.
HOW MANY SELLERS ARE ON ETSY
As of early 2023 the number of seller accounts are being reported as active on Etsy are approx 5.4 million - with 89 million total users on the site. An active seller account means that the shop had at least one transaction in the last reported 12 month period.
HOW DOES THAT COMPARE TO OTHER VENUES?
If we look to Ebay as a comparison (and ebay has been around a lot longer) there are 18.3 million sellers with 138 million total users. So more than double the sellers but no one is saying Ebay is over saturated.
Meanwhile, Instagram is currently at 2.3 billion users. So selling via social media would be just as, if not more challenging.
The internet as a whole is quite crowded, so it will likely always be difficult to be seen or found. Not impossible, you'll just need to work at it.
ARE CERTAIN PRODUCTS OVER-SATURATED ON ETSY?
This comes up quite a bit. There are certainly quite a few specific product groups that are very heavy in selection, jewelry is a popular example. But over-saturation means that product availability has out-stripped demand. And I'm not sure that this is true for any category on Etsy.
You really have to look beyond Etsy to the wider market when you analyze this question. Is there more jewelry on Etsy for example than the rest of the internet combined? Hardly. Because Etsy is a marketplace though you're going to find a broader selection than single retailer sites.
For some perspective the word 'jewelry' on Etsy had 25.3 million results. On Ebay there were 1.8 billion.
SO WHY IS SELLING ON ETSY SO HARD?
This is complicated, and the answer is, it depends on the seller in question. Here are a few factors to consider when starting out as an Etsy seller:
1. Most new sellers to Etsy don't have real world business experience or even a relevant education in a useful business field (like marketing maybe). So sellers are learning 'on the job' and that takes time.
2. A lot of new Etsy sellers jump in feet first without a lot of prep work or research beforehand. This step can make a big difference to how quickly or how well a shop does.
3. There's a common misconception that selling on Etsy is easy. It isn't. It's usually hard work.
4. Too many sellers make mistakes that get them shut down or simply ranked so poorly they'll never be found in search. See points 1 and 2.
5. Lastly, shops that are creative and original do better than those who just add more of the same that's already there.
I hope this helps de-mystify the Etsy saturation question!
Shawnna
Make a Vintage Library Card Collage
I used Photoshop to make this design, but you can use any software that gives you the ability to layer elements, apply opacity and/or layer adjustments and an eraser tool.
You could use Canva but I find it doesn't have quite enough design flexibility. So something like Procreate or an online editor such as Photopea are better choices if you don't have access to PS.
To make this collage card I used the following steps (all elements used are available in my shop):
1. I started with a 3x5" canvas and added a texture background by re-sizing one of my digital papers to fit as desired.
2. I then added the library card PNG overlay, which fits nicely into the canvas size. I applied the layer adjustment multiply so it blended a bit into the background paper.
3. Insert the vintage lady graphic and re-size to fit nicely. I used Multiply again but also took the opacity down to about 80%.
4. At this point the library card lines are running through the graphic quite harshly and I want to soften the whole element to give it a grungier look, so I use the eraser with a texture selection at 50% flow and just brush lightly and randomly until I'm happy with how it looks. (you can change the eraser to any grungy texture for this)
5. I opted to add an embellishment in the top corner, I re-colored it to gold and took the opacity way down for a barely there look so that it's more like a watermark.
6. To finish off I added a dragonfly on top, re-sized and positioned to fit again applying Multiply as a layer adjustment.
And that's it!
Resources Used:
Paper Background in this set
Library Card Overlay
Vintage Ladies
Swirl Elements
Dragonfly from this set of graphics
Happy crafting
Shawnna
Make Colorful Tab Dividers for Spring
Make these easy to create tab dividers for a custom look in your journal or planner!
This is not a full tutorial, but an inspiration design post with a few tips to quickly create these using my handy templates.
Every software program will have slightly different steps depending on the file format you're using, so make use of google to search for tutorials on specific steps you get stuck on with your program of choice!
Use my stencil window template in programs like Word or Canva for super fast designs.
In this example I simply drew colorful rectangles using the shape tool onto a blank canvas then dropped the template on top. A few quick adjustments to the color strip placement and instant presto, I have a ready to print and cut tab sheet. You should be able to easily draw basic shapes in any software program.
If you are using Cricut, upload the SVG file and you can directly edit the tabs however you want right in Design Space. Beware of the print and cut sizing though, you'll need to lose a column of tabs to accommodate!
Want to edit in Photoshop, Photopea or PS Elements? Use the PSD file and simply change the shape colors individually or by row in just a couple clicks. Use the clipping mask tool to insert patterns.
You can also edit these in just about any other program, just look for the file format compatibility and use the correct file for your program. Look at my beginner tutorials if you want to use the stencil template like I have shown here.
Add additional details like labels or icons to further personalize. You get to create whatever you want with these!
Resources Used:
Tab template from my shop
Happy Crafting
Shawnna
3 Free Vintage Birthday Postcards
Three beautiful vintage birthday cards featuring purple lilac flowers scanned in at extra large size for utmost versatility. Use these public domain images in any project type.
Happy Crafting
Shawnna
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Can I Edit This Template in Canva?
In my Etsy shop I get this question a lot for my templates. Given the popularity of Canva it's a reasonable question and many 'would be' customers possibly even expect that of course these will work in Canva.
Unfortunately, that's not at all the case, so if you're a Canva user it's important to understand exactly how their service works, what's possible and what isn't.
Canva operates a closed system. That means files made in Canva can only be edited in Canva and files not made in Canva cannot be edited there (or least very minimally so).
So basically, if you want to work in Canva with templates you have to buy Canva specific templates.
And because Canva templates can only be edited in Canva, sellers will always have them very clearly labelled as Canva templates.
Designers (like me currently) who do not label their templates as Canva specific therefore, are not designing templates made for use in the Canva program. It's just that simple.
If you have followed that so far, the next question might be, is there nothing I can import into Canva for my design projects? And the answer is: yes, there is!
But elements imported in Canva are currently very restricted in how you can use or edit them so you need to tailor your expectations accordingly. For the most part you should expect that anything you upload into Canva is going to have to be used almost exactly 'as is'.
And here is where there is one possibility with my own templates that could allow you to use them in that somewhat restricted way, but still used in Canva anyway.
And that's with my stencil style file format. These are saved as PNG files meant to be used in any program and you just stack your design elements underneath it. Like in the example below:
I offer this file format where applicable with all of my templates.
It may not be the most elegant way to design but it does the job and works just fine for simpler projects.
Templates with a lot more parts to it may not be as easy to work with here, but it also depends on your experience, skill and patience with the program.
happy designing!
Shawnna
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