Today we have another Q&A I did recently and wanted to share some of the best bits with you all, we were talking Christmas, branding, occasions, photos! 

Let's Talk Christmas!! What do I need to be thinking about right now (August)? 

First thing I will ask you is, are all of your Christmas products planned? Not necessarily have them all made and ready to go but have you started making them, priced them up, know who they are targeted for? You are aiming to have all of your Christmas products listed by the end of August. I know it sounds crazy but as we know occasion themed products need to be listed at least 4 months before the actual date. 

If you are in the HBSA course we have the yearly product planner for you to use with all of the prompts and reminders for when you need to list and market all of your occasion themed products for you. 

BOSS! Do you want to make more sales on Etsy? Then you need to increase your conversion rate! DON'T PANIC! I'm going to explain exactly how to do that in my FREE 90 minute masterclass - The 3 Step System To Skyrocket Your Etsy Conversion Rate 🙌🏻

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How do I get more sales as aa new business on Etsy? 

That's a really loaded question! I have a ton of videos on my You Tube Channel that are all tailored around answering that question! 

I would say you need to get your Trio right.

The trio is  

1. Your target market
2. Your products
3. Your brand

The trio. is basically like 3 legs of a stool and if one of them isn't working well the stool will be kind of off kilter, someones gonna sit on it and break their skull open......basically you need to get those 3 things down and the quicker you can get those sorted the better. 

Branding - So your Etsy shop branding should be like a magnet to your target market, your target market should be attracted to your brand and your target market should be attracted to your products. Those three things work in tandem. 

Top Tip - Branding is not just your logo, its not just your colours, that is a very surface level thing and branding is much more important than that and I always say the biggest asset in your business is your Brand.  Lets say for instance you sell your business in like 20 years time, they are not buying your products, they are not buying your warehouse, they are actually buying your brand! 

My sales have increased but my conversion rate is lower. What can I do next? 

This is completely normal for this time of year (August) during the summer months people are like browsing on line whilst they are on the beach, sitting on a plane but their heads are not really in it. I tend to browse the internet and favourite things, add them to my baskets but I dont really start buying until the weather is a bit cooler, when I'm inside more. Also if your target market has kids! Summer holidays are really tough time to get anytime to yourself and actually buy stuff. So it is completely normal.  

You will still continue to grow but your conversion rate will probably die down but you will find that in September and October your conversion rate should start to come up.  

If you are looking at your conversion rate over a week, a day a month that is not a long enough time to identify a core business problem.  If you are looking so micro at your stats like I've had a bad week this week what am I doing wrong, that won't help! You need look at at least 2 or 3 months of data and if those 3 months point towards there is a problem here, then you will need to spring into action. 

Dont just jump into action and start making changes, look at your data and identify what are your normal business trends and get to know your stats first before making changes. 

Do you have any product photography tips

We have some awesome lessons in the HBSA course so if you are in the course please do go and watch these!

My biggest tip is I prefer to use natural natural light rather than any studio lights. I would also say to take your pictures on a semi cloudy day so that you dolt have to deal with the sun going in the sun coming out and I actually dont like studio lights, I just think they look really really fake! I would also say keep your background plain and add a couple of branded props to keep photography on brand. 

What is HBSA?

HBSA- Handmade Bosses Success Academy is my signature course the only course I offer and it basically has everything in that you need to get you to 5 figure months. 

It is a 3 pronged approach so you have the course, the community and you have the group coaching call as well - these are lives in the student only facebook group where I answer your questions, we can take a look at your shop and really dive into it on the call. 

There are 5 phases, designed to get you from point zero to consistent 5 figure months and beyond! 

Is it too early for Halloween stock? (August)

NO!! This needed to be listed last month - July.

Im a chocolate maker, is Etsy going to be the right place for me?  

The biggest thing I can see with that is the postage, depending on what it is you sell, is there anyway of making sure that chocolate arrives in good condition? I think if you are clear and can overcome those potential objections to your target market I can't se why not. I actually supported a local baked goods Etsy shop recently and they are getting a lot of local orders since Etsy kicked in with the geographical location thing on their website. 

Does everyone recommend Royal Mail or can we use Evri? 

It feels like there isn't really a general good choice and it seems to depend on your local couriers, how good the service is where you live, like do you have a post office near you. I have always used Royal Mail and Ive just started using Etsy labels to purchase my Royal Mail labels and arrange for Royal Mail to collect the parcels from my house and I've not had any go missing!  I've never actually used Evri so can't personally comment on their service from experience. 

So it really does depend on your local couriers, access to services and check out local facebook groups and see if people are talking about lost Evri parcels and dont gorget to check out the insurance coverage on the postage, you will need to make sure it fits your products. 

Christmas Prep!

TOP TIP - If you are quiet right now (the Summer slump is a thing) PLEASE use this time to prepare for Q4 and get ready for Christmas, as that is going to be a big big month for everybody!! 

Start getting in your supplies, stock up on everything you need, and I if you have a few little things that you need to do like tweaking a process, how you buy your postage etc. NOW is the time to sort that out before Q4 kicks in because we all know by the end of October we will not have the time to do this! 

So if you are quiet right now, get yourself prepped for Q4!!

My best income months are November, December, January - How can I extend them through the rest of the year? 

It depends on what you sell really, If you are in the HBSA course there is a 6 figure year planner and mini course which covers this and we call it the momentum push were you start to build something but you dont let the hump even out you continue to push it. 

I would say the biggest thing is try and almost market stack. What I mean by that is basically the you start to come to like the 20th December when things start to slow down you could do something like a sale to continue the push, then you could do a January clearance, then you could do a new product launch so you basically stack the things one on top of the other and continue pushing.

I put a sale on my teacher gifts the week before schools finished was this to late? 

Yes it was really. I would say start the sale about 4-6 weeks before - remember Etsy only allows a sale to run for 4 weeks. 

I have 2 different categories of items in my shop with 2 very different audiences. Could I be hurting my marketing and branding, maybe I should drop the less popular one? 

I get this question a lot! People say I have 2 different things that I make or want to make and the thing with this is it is vey much a target audience thing, is it the same target audience that you are driving with one niche versus the other if they are the same person then it can work if they are NOT, you could be diluting your marketing and branding trying to do them both.

HBSA has a workshop and bootcamp all about how to niche and when to consider opening another shop so if you are in the course this section will help with this. 

General rule of thumb if it is the same target market you want to attract to one niche then that's fine if its not then that is the time to really start thinking, do I need to get rid of one, or have 2 shops. 

How do I apply for a power hour with you? 

You can apply via my website using this link. - Power Hour 1-1 with Steph  

If you'd prefer me to visually teach you this blog post, then you can watch it HERE.

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