Selling online tips – Hollow Books by Refined Pallet

There are many online platforms; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more. Each offering you a means of connecting with your potential customers and promoting your online business. You post, tweet, like, comment and reply on a regular basis and then BAM! Something you put out there goes viral! Were you prepared and did you do it right to maximize the effect on your business and sales?… I didn’t. In this article I’m going to share what I should have done differently to harness the power of “going viral”. Not how to make something go viral as that is not really something you can fully control, but what I could have done in my standard posting practices to tap into the viral potential.

First, let’s discuss what “Viral” means. It will be different depending on who you talk to, what business they are in and their current presence online. The base definition of viral is, “A picture, post, or video that becomes popular through an organic process of Internet sharing, typically through media sharing websites, social media and email.” But how do you determine if something has gone viral as it applies to your online activities? My gauge is to look at how my online activity is currently received by the online community on average. Don’t let the Coca-Cola definition of millions of likes per post be your benchmark, look at your own activity. A good rule of thumb for a smaller business is to take the average of your current activity and multiply that by 100 to determine your benchmark for going viral.
• Example: On your Facebook page you typically get 52 interactions to your posts on average. This can be likes, shares, comments or whatever. So your benchmark for “going viral” is 52×100 = 5200. Let’s say you posted some sort of announcement and it gets shared, comments and likes in excess of 5200 times, consider that a “viral post”.
• Another Example: If you are basing your viral status on the number of eyes that see your post the same formula can be applied to view stats. If your Instagram photos average 102 views, then viral would be: 102 x 100 = 10,200 views.

A little background of my post that ended up going viral. The setting is a page I manage for my shop on Facebook. I have a small following of 105 individuals and the average post gets seen by 106 with 13 interactions. (It’s possible to have more people see your post than you have followers)

My Viral Post: I posted three pictures of a project that was just completed. Here is the post.

That’s when things got crazy over the next few days. The post ended up being viewed by 108,653 people, shared 526 times, receiving 4927 interactions and just over 18,000 post clicks. Although this generated a lot of interest in my products with a tiny flood of email, Facebook messages and post questions, had I done a few things differently there would have been a lot more. Here is what the activity looked like after one week.

What I screwed up! Standards to put into place for all future posts.
Make it easy to be found!
First of all, in the original post I did not include any type of link to my online shop, website, YouTube Channel or email. After the first day I edited the post and added my Etsy shop address and views of my store exploded. Basically I missed out on the first day, or about 23,000 views worth of interest. If someone is interested in what you have posted, make it as easy as possible to find you!

Watermark Your Pictures!
It really can make a difference in directing interested parties back to you if what they are looking at has the information they want. In today’s social media, visual impact is huge and many don’t read the text attached to a post. They are looking at the pictures and videos to get information. I really wished I had taken the time to insert my shop address along the edge of each picture attached to my example post. You never know how many will “right-click-save” that image to paste it into an email to a friend or to a post on their own social sharing sight. More and more of the younger crowd are saving pictures or snapping screen shots on their mobile devices so they don’t have to search through old posts to find it later to show a friend. No watermark and you have missed countless opportunities to be found.
More on watermarking to come in a future article dedicated to the subject.

Be Ready to Respond
If you are lucky enough to have a post go viral, chances are you will have a flood of inquiries come in. These could be in the form of email, Facebook messages, Twitter DM, other social media conduits or any combination thereof. Some of these platforms have the option to set up autoresponders and if they do, use them! Luckily I figured this out long ago with Facebook and set up an autoresponder for all the pages I manage. The auto response does not need to be anything complicated, but at the minimum you should include something to keep your potential customer occupied or interested in what you have to offer while they wait for a response. Including a link to your online shop is a perfect example. However, the most important thing you can do is RESPOND as quickly as you can to capture that interest in what you have to offer. An autoresponder buys you some time, but not days or weeks.

That’s it. Three simple things to harness the potential of going viral. I’m no expert on how to increase the chances of having a post picked up and propagate like wildfire, but I sure learned a lot when it did. I hope that by passing along my experiences/mistakes, your online business can be better prepared for when it happens for you.

Author: Jef Spencer, Owner/Craftsman of Refined Pallet. Shops on Etsy, Amazon and Ebay.

There are many…. and I mean many good practices to employ when running your online business that lead to successful sales. I have found there is no one “magic bullet” that a shop owner can implement to realize success. It takes time, dedication and testing to see what works for your particular shop or products to stand out with your target customer. However, as you massage your marketing, shop appearance, product pictures and everything else you can think of to get your stuff noticed, keep these tips in mind to increase your profitability along the way. It’s only natural that as you sell more, your expenses increase and that’s a good thing. Your business is growing so why not turn your expenses into extra income?

Today I wanted to pass along some of the ways that I have made extra income from my expenses. Yes, you can make money from your expenses! It takes a little creativity, sometimes a change in perspective and of course discipline to avoid some potential pitfalls. In the end there are some ways to harness your expenses to generate additional cash.

Rewards Credit or Debit Cards.

Tip #1 – Never ever pay for your shop expenses directly from your bank account. Whenever possible, pay for your expenses using a rewards credit or debit card. Something with a percent cash back or credit to your monthly bill. A prime example that most online sellers may already have is a PayPal Debit Card linked to their PayPal Business Account. With the PayPal Debit Card, you are paying with real cash, not credit, so you can avoid the pitfall of racking up charges on a credit card and paying finance fees. You get 1% of your spending back as a cash deposit back to your PayPal account every month. However, there are many true credit cards with rewards that will earn you 1% and sometimes more in cash equivalent rewards. Some as a rebate check monthly or quarterly, others as a credit on your outstanding balance every month.

Etsy Specific – So all you Etsy sellers out there. Never pay your Etsy bill from your Payment Account!!! Use this method to cover all your Etsy Monthly Expenses: Transaction Fees, Listing Fees, Advertising, Payment Processing, and the biggie…. Postage purchased through the Etsy Shipping Service.
Amazon Specific – This is a toughie since this platform takes its fees from your sales and you miss out of the opportunity to charge to your rewards card. However, use that card as the backing for your account in case you end up owing more than what is on account, like in the case of a period with heavy returns.

Tip #1 Part 2 – Supplier specific rewards cards. Every handmade crafter out there needs to purchase raw materials, parts and other supplies to actually craft your final products. Chances are you have a favorite supplier that you purchase the bulk of your material from. See if they offer a rewards credit card. I’d bet that if they do it will come with an extra incentive to use it for purchases from their store. That 1% cash back on a generic rewards card could turn into 3%, 4% or even 5%. Spend $1000 per year at that store and you are looking at an extra $50 bucks in your pocket in the form of cash, credits or gift cards. Some quick examples**:

Do you sew? Jo-Anne Fabrics offers a Mastercard with a points system. It equals to every $200 you spend in their store, receive a $10 Gift card. That’s a 5% payback! (Also 1% on all other purchases)
Woodworker? Try Woodworker’s Supply Mastercard. 3% back on all purchases made in their store or online.
However controversial, do you shop at Hobby Lobby? They have a Visa that for every $500 spent in store gets you a $25 gift card. That’s 5% back on your supply spending.

Tip #1 Part 3 – All your other business expenses. Chances are whatever rewards card you settle on will offer the bonus % on purchases made from their business and something like 1% on all other purchases. So, you are spending the money anyway. You may as well get cash back or points from your business purchases on:

Mailing & Shipping Supplies
Office Supplies
Postage Purchases
Advertising/Marketing
Web hosting and domain services
IMPORTANT – Major equipment purchases like a new computer or tool for your business
Wireless and/or home internet bills
Utilities
Business Insurance
Just about any business expense that you can charge to a credit card!!

Pitfall to Avoid: Running a balance on you credit card and getting hit with finance charges. PAY IT OFF! The best practice is to pay the balance off every week or whenever your sales income is transferred to your working bank account. (Etsy is Weekly; Amazon is every two weeks)

Reward Credit Card Summary – Individually your expenses may be insignificant, but it’s the long term game you are playing. Over the year your expenses can be collectively substantial and as your business and sales grow the expenses will increase. You can easily spend into the thousands on basic everyday supplies and administrative costs running your business. Even at the 1% rebate level it can make it all worth while. Just make sure you never carry a balance on a credit card.

Shop Waste and Leftovers

Tip #2 – Sell your crafting or manufacturing “waste”. Look, no matter how efficient you are in your process for making products, you have scraps left over. If you sew I’m sure you have a basket of remnants. Are you a wood woodworker with boxes of end cuts? Maker if jewelry with tins of bent headpins, miscellaneous beads and charms? Come on, you know you have a stash of leftovers that you intend to “make something with it someday”. Realistically it’s never going to happen, and it shouldn’t. You should be spending your time making the things that actually sell. Not trying to recycle what won’t. As the (modified) adage goes, “One crafter’s trash is another crafter’s treasure”. Sell that scrap and either reinvest the cash back in the business or take it as profit. You would be surprised what you can sell through various outlets. Someone out there has the desire and talent to do with your scraps what you don’t have the time to do yourself. Resist the urge to hoard what is useless to your business and list it for sale on one of the many available outlets. Just be reasonable as to what you “think” the actual value may be and don’t price it as to recover your investment. You did already by making whatever you make. Selling the scraps is gravy. Places to sell you garbage:

Craigslist
Ebay
LetGo
Local Online Bulletin Boards
Facebook Crafter Pages
Upcycle Clubs (Local or online)

Gift Card Promotions

Tip #3 – Bonus Gift Card Purchases. Not everyone has the opportunity to take advantage of this one but if you can it could become a triple whammy in terms of cash benefit. Let’s say that your favorite supply vendor runs a pre holiday shopping season special on their store gift cards. Buy $100 in gift cards and get a $10 bonus gift card. Look at what you are spending at the store and make the call to purchase as many gift cards as you will realistically spend to purchase your supplies for a given period time. Say three months. You are going to spend the money so you may as well get a little extra for it. Here are the potential Whammys!!

First Whammy – You just got a reward (free money) for spending what you would have spent anyway.
Second Whammy – When you spend those “bonus cards” you can still claim the full purchase on your taxes as expenses.++ (Even though you paid for it with free money) You have a receipt, it’s an expense.
Third BONUS Whammy – If it is allowed to purchase the gift cards with your rewards credit card, well that could be an additional 1% to 5% coming back to you just like a regular purchase. (Most gift cards must be paid for with cash or cash equivalent like a debit transaction. Hint – Some credit cards that can be run as debit cards still have at least some reward attached to the transaction)

Holy Whammys Batman!

The Final Opportunity

Tip #4 – Donations! Alright, so you tried to sell off your scraps or “failed” items. By “failed” I mean either items that don’t meet your quality standards to sell in your shop or quite frankly, items that just don’t sell…. period. This is the last stop and you can either allow these things to pile up in your workspace and hinder your productivity and efficiency to move ahead with your business, or get them out of the way. Donate the piles of stuff to a local charity or goodwill. How does this add to your bottom line if you are just giving it away? That happens at the end of the year at tax time in the form of a deduction or write-off. In effect lowering your profitability on paper so you end up paying taxes on a smaller portion of your realized profits. So if you made $1000 in profit for the year but “write off” $100 in donations you will only be taxed on $900. Just make sure you claim what is realistic in losses or donations and verify with your tax professional as to what is legal according to your local tax laws. (Claim your material costs, not retail price of the products you could have made from them. See Disclaimer ++ at the bottom of this article)

Another note on the rewards you receive and the taxes you claim at the end of the year. Make sure you note my disclaimer on taxes at the end of this article, but…. any rewards, cash back, credits or gift cards that you realize may not have to be claimed on your taxes as income. You can declare the full paid price of any purchases for your expenses. Example: You purchased $100 in supplies but got 5% cash back from your credit card. The receipt says $100 so you can claim the full expense of the purchase on your taxes. The $5 you received back does not need to be declared by either lowering you expenses or increasing your income. It just goes straight to your pocket, tax free.

Closing Notes

While it is best to minimize your expenses to help maximize your profit margins, expenses will happen. It’s a fact of life when running a business. Instead of cringing every time you open your wallet, change your perspective and realize that you could actually be making money when you spend it. With some creativity and cash management skills in place it becomes routine. Every reward that comes back makes running your business a little more rewarding.

Disclaimers

** Sample Reward Card offers at the time of article publication. Terms change so check what’s currently offered.

++ I am NOT a tax professional. Please verify the validity of the statements made in this article for yourself as they apply to your federal, state or local tax laws and regulations. Every region is different and tax laws/practices change.

Author: Jef Spencer, Owner/Craftsman of Refined Pallet. Shops on Etsy, Amazon and Ebay.

Tag: Selling online tips

Tips for Selling Online – Make Money from Your Expenses