I’ve seen many sellers run sales and discounts who had great results but running sales never really worked for me personally so I don’t really offer them at my shop. But with the recent down turn in the economy and sluggish sales, one can only hope for a sale by slashing prices and offering deep discounts. I am confounded with the mixed advice/ideas offered on the forum about the subject. And I need to move my item or stop going to thrift stores for like a month until I figure a solution of how and where to store my finds. Slower than usual sales, lack of space and my uncontrollable urge to go thrifting is what I’m confronted at this time.Having almost 400 item listed for sale in my Etsy shop is quite overwhelming; having 400 inventory laying around all over my house is another story. And I still probably have another one hundred other items still in a box or plastic bag that needed to be inspected, cleaned, photographed and listed. If you’re a daily thrifter like I am then you’re bound to find something each shopping trip and therefore need to be very creative about storing such finds before hubby trips on one of your train cases and start to really get annoyed and would never let you out of the house again.
I have converted two rooms in my basement to store my inventory, half of the garage to store my packing peanuts and various sizes of boxes, part of the family room downstairs as shipping area and I’m still in need of space. The two instances where I spent a whole weekend looking for a sold item to package in the sea of my ever growing inventory was not a deterrent to stop my thrifting obsession, I take it as a sign that I need more shelves in the house.
So what to do, I have been thinking of running a sale, buy-one-get-one-half-off-or-something-the-like, free shipping is out of the question since most of my items are heavy. But I will definitely try some kind of discount sale in April for my Etsyversary, so stay tuned.
What do you think? would you discount price to boost your sales or maintain prices to preserve your product?
ok.. I'll bite on this one! I always felt that it was better to keep my prices reasonable and not run sales. I still do ..but..I tried this in my former brick & mortar shop. I finally gave in and ocassionaly ran a sale. Reasons...some people are programmed to think a sale is always a better value and mainly shop sales. It would bring in new people. My regular customers usually came in to see my sale items but also bought other items too. I have now started a sale in my etsy shop. Reason..there are some people on etsy who search only by sale. Again helping to attract new customers who have never visited your shop. In this economy more people are shopping sales. And finally it did help to move some of the inventory I have had for awhile. Like you I continue to shop and run out of storage room! Phew!..sorry answer so long..hard to fit this in a comment
ReplyDeletesue
gosh honey...if i only knew the answer!...have you ever tried ebay...i sell art stuff on etsy but have found ebay better for collectibles...just more lookers i think....or maybe you could fill a big container and send it over here to Australia where vintage stuff is more expensive!
ReplyDeleteI completely understand and have had to curb (*sniff*) my daily thrifting too. I am trying to find a new game plan myself and plan to rely on reshooting and relisting.
ReplyDeleteDiscounts and sales have never really worked for me on Etsy but (as Chrisy said)I have been putting my more collectible items (Arabia, Cathrineholm, etc.) on eBay for a quicker turnaround. An item with 100 hearts is not money in the bank, you know?
I'm happy to have found your blog!
xoxo
alia