I signed up for MakerPlace in early January of this year with a very small selection (about 20 of my one-of-a-kind pendant necklaces with free shipping), with very low expectations because I am in an over-saturated market, but just to see how it goes.
Thus far I haven’t sold anything, and I have no favorites. What bothers me the most is that I have no way of telling what I do wrong, or what if anything I do right. The search terms used that I get from the reports are very confusing, and most don’t even apply to what I sell, or are a very generic one word. The search terms (all time, 30 days and 7 days) are way higher than the number displayed as listing views.
I am glad to see that some sellers are having good results here, so clearly the platform has a future and it is up to me to make it work. My question for you all is how to figure out the reports, can I learn something useful from them or don’t bother, because I am flying blind here.
Thank you much, and happy sales to all, wherever you may sell!
I have had nearly 400 sales so far, many repeats from a long running carousel promotion. That stopped and now Michael’s seems to be running ads a lot on Google.
I will say that I have a tough time on all venues with OOAKS unless they are priced way below what I think they are worth. I also wonder if a venue’s algorithm excludes promoting an item with one or low quantity. Does not make a lot of sense promoting with expensive advertising for one item looking for just the right buyer. In terms of promoting OOAKs, I have had best luck on a high traffic site like Amazon with a dedicated page on my brand storefront labeled “special offers”. That seems to get more eyeballs than just relying on throwing it into the “cavernous” mix of Amazon. If you figure out how to market your OOAKs on Makerplace, at least you don’t have to pay the long tail listing fees on Etsy.
Makerplace stats and reports are very lacking so I don’t have much to add there.
At this point the reports/stats are almost meaningless for me. Today I took a look and I had quite a few keywords for Valentines and Easter but I haven’t sold any of those things.
I leave OOAK items for my website and promote those to my social media followers.
I have only had 25 sales on MP so lots of room for growth, but they are almost all for my higher-priced pendants so revenue-wise MP is beating out Etsy this year so far. I have 98 listings active and will keep adding more as I’m able.
I’ve had 53 sales so far, but almost $4k so I’m quite happy and really hope it continues - it’s great as a supplemental source.
I think their search is starting to catch up. Until now I’ve just been flying blind, building listings as I normally would and I just use keywords that I’d use elsewhere. The search didn’t really match for awhile, but now it’s starting to.
Of course, my biggest one right now is ‘Spring Decor’ and I don’t have that in a single listing - which makes me think it might also show what brought people to MakerPlace at all, and not specifically to my listing? I really haven’t a clue.
I think it’s not just the phrase/term but the individual word that matters also.
So I think if someone search for “Spring Decor”, and your item has either “Spring” or “Decor” in title/keyword etc, that might get it included in the search result. That by itself could be enough for that word/phrase to be counted as the number in “Your Top Search Keyword” without the searcher actually clicked to see your item.
For the past 7 days, my “Top Search Keyword” shows 89, but the “Listing views” is only 37, so not all (maybe not at all) the keyword search resulted in buyer clicking to view my items, and the listing views I did receive might have nothing to do with Keyword search.
During November / December one of my biggest keywords was “diamond art” and I do have a diamond pattern light switch cover and use the term wall art in my titles so I think yeah I suppose “diamond pattern wall art” means I’m relevant for “Diamond art” but maybe just because not many people are selling Diamond art?
It’s disappeared though, now my biggest is boho decor
But is it leading to sales? Not likely. Most of what I sell is a cat light switch cover but no one seems to be searching for cats or light switch cover because those don’t show up in my keyword list (or probably they do just with us only having access to the top “10 keywords” is really not helpful at all.
I really would like to see the FULL list of what people came into my shop searching for.