Scientist by day, Etsy crafter by night.
On this edition of The Manly Pinterest Tips Show, Julie Grandbois demonstrates the true power of time management. Despite being a MSc Biology graduate from Northern Ontario, Canada, and working as a laboratory technician at the University of Alberta, Julie opened up a shop online called Julie’s Elegant Crafts.
Starting to craft as a hobby after pursuing with her Master’s degree, Julie found some tips and tricks to making her own cards, and decided to sell them online—only to realize that they weren’t quite popular. She moved onto to Pinterest for help, where she learned what the trends were, and what she needed to make in order to successfully sell. Now a DIY professional, her spare time results in gorgeous crafts of all kinds.
Julie has mastered the art of combining two different platforms to create her small business. She has a shop for all of her crafts located on Etsy, but navigates Pinterest to share her own crafts and get insight from other crafty people. For her, Pinterest was an inspiration that pushed the doors of her shop open and encouraged her to keep them open.
Listen in as Julie weaves a web on how to combine two of the web’s most powerful tools – Etsy and Pinterest – to create yet another way to make the social media work for you.
Here is a list of questions we discussed:
- Can you give us a brief overview of Etsy? (2:38)
- How does Etsy make it’s money? What is the cut per item sold? (3:36)
- How long do listing last? (4:03)
- How did you get started with Etsy? (4:19)
- Were your first Etsy items a success? (5:01)
- What were some of your earlier challenges on Etsy? (5:28)
- What came first for you – Etsy or Pinterest? (5:52)
- Why did you open an Etsy store instead of your own web shop? What are the pros and cons to make you decide to open an Etsy store? (7:44)
- Does Etsy have a good backend tracking system so you know from where traffic is coming? (10:55)
- Does Etsy calculate shipping? (11:49)
- How has Pinterest helped you grow your Etsy shop? (13:31)
- When you say, “I advertised on Pinterest,’ do you mean paid advertising or that you advertised through your pins? (14:13)
- Do you use Pinterest for new ideas? (14:43)
- What advice would you give to someone who is looking to make photos for pins tied to the products they are selling? (15:42)
- Do you just put products in front of a white background when you’re taking photos? (16:26)
- Are the sale items you have in your Etsy shop part of an overall strategy, or do you just have a lot of stock for those items? (17:31)
- Do product rich pins tie into Etsy store products, or is that a separate thing? (18:51)
- How did you grow your massive Pinterest following? (19:38)
- Do you use a pin-scheduling tool or do you do it manually? (20:34)
- How do you use Pinterest for research? (21:16)
- How soon before a holiday or season do you start readying your products and start promoting? (22:15)
- Do you partner with other Etsy sellers on Pinterest group boards? (23:52)
- Do you have certain Etsy store owners with whom you will partner? (24:50)
- Are the good group boards invite-only, or do ask to be on those boards? (26:02)
- Have you had good luck with group boards? Do you find them they hard to find? (26:43)
- What advice do you have to increase click-throughs from Pinterest to your Etsy store? (27:48)
- Do you keep product pin descriptions short? What is an example ofwhat you’d use for one of your pom-pom product pins? (28:38)
- Do you start your product description with what your product is, and then you put your call to action? (29:49)
- Do you think Pinterest’s proposed ‘Buy It Now’ button will hurt or help Etsy sellers? (30:38)
- If you had to start all over on Etsy, what would you do different? (32:14)
- Do you think the money you spend on the money is worth it? (32:44)
- What advice do you have for guys just starting out on Pinterest? (33:38)
Thanks For Watching And Listening!
I really appreciate you joining me for this week’s episode. Have questions or comments? Leave a message in the comment section below!
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Thanks to Julie for being such a great guest. See you for the next episode where we’ll be adding testosterone, one pin at a time!
Michael Q Todd (@mqtodd) says
Great info Jeff and Julie can we sell pretty much anything on Etsy?
jeffsieh says
Michael,
I’m not a Etsy expert, but I think it’s mostly handmade, short-run sort of products. I could be wrong. But there is a ton of different things on that site to explore!
Sneha says
I really appreciate the info and ideas. I love your blog!