I know a few of you have been waiting for this post. I apologize for its delay. My munchkin was sick and then being the kind, sharing family we are, I got the same upper respiratory crud too. Today I'm finally feeling like a part of the living world again! That whole line about moms never getting sick is bunk!
If you haven't heard about
Heartsy yet, it's time to crawl out from under your rock and check it out. It's a Groupon-like deal for Etsy shop owners. And until Groupon starts offering me $14 for $35 worth of groceries at my local grocery store, Heartsy is much, much more addictive. If you don't have an Etsy shop, but appreciate awesome deals from handmade artists, Heartsy is your dream come true! If you have an Etsy shop, arranging for a Heartsy deal may get you more money in one day than you can make in a couple weeks. At least it did for me.
While I was waiting to set the date for my Heartsy deal, I purchased two deals from other Etsy artists. Not only did I fall in love with the shops featured and just couldn't help myself, I also wanted to see how Heartsy would look to my potential customers. My deals codes were emailed to me right away and I was free to shop immediately. I made my purchases the same day I bought the deals and both times I spent over the allotted store credit. Not by much in either case, but enough to potentially cover the shipping. I haven't received my purchases yet. Considering the amount of traffic I received in one day, I'm very willing to be patient for my order!
When you apply to Heartsy, make sure you submit your best product photography. You have to have at least 30 'Yes, Definitely' votes to be considered. I know it's tempting to get all your friends to vote for you, but try getting votes without lobbying. Don't you want to know if people outside of your circle thinks your stuff is as amazing as you do? Once you get 30+ votes, someone from Heartsy will shoot you an email with a proposed deal. You do have some room to negotiate the deal, but trust me, you really don't need to. Some deals are limited and some deals are unlimited within a certain time frame. I was concerned that I'd end up losing money on individual orders and that absolutely did not happen.
I'm not sure how Heartsy decides what deal is right for you or what day of the week will work best. It probably has something to do with how many votes you get, how established your store is and maybe even just a 'gut' feel about what you sell. My deal was $14 for $32 worth of store credit. It ran on Tuesday March 8th for 10 hours (maybe 12, not sure, it was kind of a blur!). I sold 59 deals that day. Just let me do that math for you, 59 deals times $14 is $826. Let that sink in. How many handmade artists, especially ones that completely run their business by themselves, make $826 in one day. BTW, Heartsy paid me promptly that same day via Paypal. Cha-ching!
So far, only 41 people have claimed their deals, so my next stats are really based on 41 deals not 59. Out of the 41 claimed so far, 8 of them purchased either the exact amount of the store credit or slightly less - so 16%. Meaning that 84% of the rest of the deals were over the $32 store credit. Of the 33 remaining deals claimed, 5 of them were significantly over the store credit. I considered an additional purchase of $10 or more as significant. So 12%. The balance were over the $32 store credit and ranged from cents up to $10. I considered this amount to cover the shipping/packaging costs.
On the surface, $14 for $32 (57% savings) is not a great profit margin, for me anyway. I don't have my products marked up much more than 57%. But this is definitely a case where the volume made up the difference. No other time would I sell over $1K in product much less $2K which is the approximate retail value of what I sold. Plus, I've lost count of how many of the customers told me they found my store via Heartsy and they'd be back for presents, Christmas, etc. It's essentially like I was paid to advertise my shop. when you look at that way, it's so worth whatever deal Heartsy proposes for your store.
And to be honest, I think I could have sold more. Halfway through the day, I had to take A for a Dr's appointment. I left the house just as the deal was started. By the time I got out of the appointment, I checked my emails on my phone and I was FLOORED. I couldn't believe how much had sold. While I was waiting for prescriptions to be filled, I was renewing items like crazy. Which is hard to do on a phone with a sick and cranky little boy in tow. I certainly hadn't anticipated being gone on the day the deal was offered, and I think this didn't help me. It prevented me from utilizing any social media to help further market myself. By the time I got home and settled, I set my first task as finishing to renew items and address customers who wanted custom listings and had questions. By the time I finished this, it was late into the deal and I felt like I was scrambling to try and promote the deal any further. This isn't anyone's fault, of course. Who can predict having a sick child? But if possible, I recommend staying glued to the computer for the day.
Overall, when you include all the extras that customers bought, I made over $1000 in one day. The week my shop was featured in Hong Kong's U Magazine, I made a little over $1000 in that one week. I can also clear close to this in one week during October-December, but I've never come close to making anything like this in one day. This is absolutely unreal to me!
Right now Heartsy is free. Eventually, they will start charging a fee for every deal sold. But if I make anything close to that, I'd pay a reasonable fee in a heartbeat. Overall, everyone I dealt with was more than kind. They were easy to deal with and they were excited for me when my deals started selling. All questions/concerns were answered promptly. It was an absolutely awesome experience. The only thing I would change is the lead time for knowing the deal. We discussed the deal back and forth for a few days. I knew on Sunday that the deal would happen for sure on Tuesday. It would have been nice to have closer to a weeks notice. We happened to be in San Antonio for the weekend, so we came home a day early so I could have Monday to list as much stuff as I could that I had finished. Believe me, I'm not complaining. But it would have been nice to have more lead time. I think Heartsy will be able to better schedule as it gets more underway and more people applying to host deals.
I don't know if Heartsy has a list of 'Potential Repeat Sellers' list, but if they do, I hope I'm on it. It's such a genius idea
!!
