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Monday, August 27, 2012

It's time.......


It's been way past time to review my inventory procedures......it takes me way too long to pull fiber orders for both my Etsy shops, the biggest culprit being the Ashland Bay solid colored merino rovings which there are hundreds of. I thought I was organized having bins marked with type of fiber but once you get up to 6 giant bins of one type of fiber it becomes a time sucker trying to find a particular color. This past weekend I talked over my problems with my husband who is an expert in cutting costs & time so huge corporations make the big bucks.......some of the hints I picked up seemed like they would work great for my little company.

So.....much of today was spent on administrivia counting inventory, numbering bins, changing and updating all info on my spreadsheets and then listing tons more items in the one etsy shop. Another time saver will be that I've now listed all of each color/type of fiber in one of the Etsy shops, not just one of each. Earlier this year Etsy changed the way it handled multiple item listings so fees are only paid as one sells and the other automatically lists - putting all my inventory on etsy will save me re-listing time with each sale. Now if I could just speed up the boxing/printing postage part of the job, I seem pretty efficient there but will talk to my in-house expert to see if there's anything else I can do to save more time. What this all comes down to is finding more time to weave.

I'm sure everyone is familiar with Pinterest. I've gone and looked at it a few times but am trying to ignore it since it would just end up being another sit in front of the computer time sucker for me and I already spend too much time in front of the computer. There has been a lot of controversary over items on blogs and etsy shops being pinned. I just saw that 3 of my handwoven scarves have been pinned and repinned - I'm not sure how I feel about it. I found this out because when I look at my Etsy shop stats every morning I can see where people come from that are looking at my shop - yesterday I saw pinterest.com listed as a source for several looky-loos prospective customers. Of course I went to Pinterest and did a search using my company name and saw the scarves in question pinned by someone I don't know and repinned by others I don't know. On one hand it's a good thing - it brought more people to my shop, and above the photos of my scarves my blog address was listed so it did show the source of the photos. But do we, meaning collective we out there, want anything from our blog/website pinned? I don't know if that's a good thing. Yes, if we put something out there on our blog it's there for the world to see, but maybe we should be able to control where we want our images shown, maybe we don't want them to show up on any old website out there in cyberspace. Something to ponder. I'd love to hear what others think.

7 comments:

  1. I'm not on Pinterest either, but a couple weeks ago did a search there and found some of my weaving photo's pinned. Like you, I wasn't sure how I felt about that. I haven't watermarked my photo's in the past, but a watermark on the photo would definitely source it.

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  2. Personally, I think Pinterest is the lesser of the evils. Once you put an image online, you lose control of who copies it, or how it gets used. Images from commercial websites get "repurposed" all the time. A lot of the time, this repurposing is benign - someone likes an image, so they keep a copy for themselves. But othertimes, it is pure theft - the image gets reused on a different website, and the image is never credited. Once Google Images came along, it got very easy to search for particular types or colors of images without ever having to view the original website at all.

    With Pinterest, the source website is *always* credited. Even if the person who pinned it didn't name your site in the comment or description, clicking on the image will return the viewer to your site.

    Some people may pin the images as a virtual wish list, an easy way to remember nice things they've seen and where to buy them. Others pin as inspiration - I don't use pinterest much myself, but do keep a board of nice handwovens, fabrics, or color combinations I see as a kind of "inspiration board". I know a lot of people pin craft ideas this way, and recipes to try also.

    And, as you noted, it will drive traffic to your site. Thousands of people will see your items who probably would never visit etsy on their own, or who wouldn't search for yarn or handwovens if they did.

    What is your particular concern with your items being pinned?

    Diane

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  3. I've been contemplating the whole Pinterest/blog thing too. It can bring more readers but I bet they're mostly just pinning pictures and that bothers me. I'd rather have real readers who are actually interested in a whole post rather than a picture and that might actually leave a comment. Otherwise, they're just "stealing" pictures. I would like to have some control on the whole pinning/Pinterest thing.

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  4. You know I am a pinterest addict. I have found so many interesting blogs to follow through pinterest that I never would have come across-that I now read all the time! I think Pinterest is a great way to market your product as well as for people to become interested in your blog, etsy shop etc. In fact some people I know pin their own etsy shop to pinterest. It is the third largest social media site and growing after facebook and twitter. I think that if you are worried about your images put a watermark on them and use this free tool to build your business...oh and find some of the best recipes on the planet ;-)

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  6. I like Pinterest too and it seems that having your Etsy items 'pinned' is wonderful free advertising! You can't expect everyone who looks to buy and this is getting your beautiful woven items 'out there' where lots more people will see them...and the source is credited so people can find you. What do you see as the down side? And as Liongate said...some of my very favorite recipes where ones I found on Pinterest!

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  7. I don't use Pinterest just because it's all I can do to try to follow our family and friends on Facebook, let alone read blogs, but I understand and appreciate the value. I'm not sure how it can hurt you.

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I love your comments - thank you!