{Etsy Tips} 52 Ways to Improve Your Shop During Rainy Day

Hi, Brittany here! It's raining where I live, so I thought I'd use my first post to write a rainy day to-do list of sorts. I hope it helps you as much as it's helped organize my thoughts.

1. Connect your viewers to the handmade aspect of your business by adding a story to your descriptions that tells how you made each item.
2. Review the prices of your items to stay competitive.
3. Update (and use) all 13 tags to match current trends and holidays.
4. Read the Merchandising Desk Report for the current month (again).
5. Create a treasury. Include members from your various teams and notify them of being included.
6. Participate in the Etsy Success Team Forum.
7. Ask your teammates for a shop critique.
8. Update your titles to match your new tags (or vice versa).
9. Fotofuze your pictures to brighten your white backgrounds.
10. List your items on Tophatter.com or Dreamers into Doers.
11. Flip through the current treasuries and comment on the ones you like.
12. Comment on the current article on the Etsy Blog.
13. Clean out the unused stock in your workroom and donate it to another artist.
14. Blog.
15. Write a tutorial for how to make one of your items.
16. Organize your workroom to fit your current needs.
17. Add brief shipping details to your listings.
18. Keep people viewing your shop by placing links to shop sections in your listings.
19. Design a new item.
20. Learn a new method for making your items.
21. Visit your local thrift store for supplies.
22. Contact local shops about consigning your items.
23. Create a catalog of your current items to leave in doctors’ offices, banks, etc.
24. Work on your wholesale linesheet.
25. Take a bath and relax.
26. Read magazines in your industry.
27. Subscribe to a few craft blogs and add meaningful comments to a few posts.
28. Watch a tutorial video on YouTube.
29. Search for your items in Etsy and take note of the tags of the listings on the first page.
30. Sign up for Google Analytics to better track your search ranks.
31. Look for suppliers that hand make their items.
32. Ask your family members and friends to critique your store.
33. Design business cards specifically for your shop (without your personal address on them).
34. Sign up for, or use, Twitter – for your business J.
35. Sing up for, or use, Facebook – for your business J.
36. Read a few posts on handmadeology.com
37. Analyze, or create, your yearly budget.
38. Work on your Business Plan, or download and start the template from sba.gov
39. Sign up for Wanelo and list some of your items.
40. Start, or update, your own website.
41. Do something creative outside your field: paint, draw, sew, write, etc.
42. Find ways to cut costs in your daily spending.
43. Find a good non-profit organization that could use the items you make—and donate a few.
44. Create a MailChimp newsletter to send updates to your customers.
45. Work on making more stock for your shop.
46. Ask your friends for items they’d like to see you create. You might be surprised by what they suggest.
47. Make your best seller in multiple colors.
48. Start working on a holiday line.
49. Set goals for the rest of the month, or the next month.
50. Streamline your processes.
51. Check your listing views on statsy.org
52. Find websites, or blogs, to advertise on. 

For more information about me, you can check out my personal blog: The Lion Hair Blog.