15 Things To Do While You're Waiting For Sales!

We've all been there.  Hopelessly refreshing our shop, looking at that little number in the right-hand menu; "Sales:..."
Sometimes things slow down, or grind to a complete halt, and it can be frustrating, discouraging, or even make you want to give up on the whole thing!  Instead of indulging in the cycle of negativity, here are 15 constructive things to do while you are waiting for sales.  Work your way down the list, and maybe by the time you're done, that little number will be a digit or two higher than the last 1000 times you checked it!! ;D

1)  List and Relist.  Have you been putting off listing some items you've got stashed away?  Now is the time to let them out into the wild!  If you don't have anything new to list, try relisting a few items to bring in traffic!  Remember - the more you list, the more likely it is you'll make some sales!

2) Rearrange your shop!  Shuffle things around and give your shop a fresh look.  Let overlooked items have some time in the spotlight.

3)  Browse through the shops and heart any items you like.  Make connections and give someone a happy moment when they check their hearts!  This can eat up plenty of time.  Browsing Etsy is just too much fun!!

4)  Scope out the competition.  See what other people are charging for similar products.  Check their tags!

5)  Clean up!  Review each listing you have made one by one, thoroughly.  Go through, change shipping prices or descriptions, add other information you may have skipped over if you were in a hurry to list your item.  Check again for spelling or grammatical errors.  You can never be too thorough!  Pinch and perfect your listings while you wait!  You'll be surprised what you find!

6)  Search on Etsy for some of the key words and tags you've used in your listings and see what comes up.  Adjust listings accordingly.

7)  Hit the chat rooms and make some new friends.  Do some show and tell with other Etsians and share tricks of the trade or just a nice conversation to pass the time.  Chat now!

8)  Organize your supplies.  If I ever have free time or get blocked, one of the best ways to get some inspiration is to organize my supplies.  When you take an inventory of what you've got to work with, the many different ways you could use them start to pop into your head!  Not only that, but you will be prepared for your next sale if you take the initiative to organize your shipping supplies etc.

9)  read some forums in the Etsy Community section and get some tips for success!  Or consider participating in some give-aways!

10)  Brush up on the Etsy Seller's Handbook, which can be found HERE .

11)  Create a Treasury !  It is lots of fun, and good exposure, another good way to meet people on Etsy.  Let the shops you feature know you have included them in your treasury.  Here's a LINK to some of the Treasuries I've made!

12)  Join a Team !  From the Team home page: "Etsy Teams are groups of organized Etsy members who network, share skills, and promote their shops and Etsy together. A Team forms around a shared location, crafting medium, or another interest.   Etsy's 450+ Teams make us not just a marketplace of individuals, but an interconnected and diverse artistic community.   Teams are Etsy’s biggest and most creative grassroots engine for support, networking and marketing – for each team member’s shop, for the Teams themselves, and for Etsy as a whole."


13)  Make some new items for your shop.  Make a goal of how many items you would like to have in your shop.  I've found that 80+ items is a good number.  The more you have in your shop, the more likely it is you will have something that someone out there just has to have!  If you don't feel like listing them right away, that's okay too!  But it's good to have a decent stock of items.  


14)  Research shipping costs for your items.  The more specific you can be for each country, the better.  Try to estimate the weight and cost as closely as possible.  Those of you with a postal scale will have an easier time of it!


15)  Take a break from your shop.  Yes, you read that right!  Sometimes we need to take a break from obsessing over our shops and focus on something else for a while.  Do something nice for yourself.  Take a walk.  Take a bubble bath.  Play a game.  Write a letter.  You'll find yourself refreshed when you come back!


I hope you've found some useful suggestions in this list, and that when you finish the checklist you come back to find SALES!!