front page exposure!

What a week! A few days ago I had an item featured in a front page treasury on Etsy, then last night my treasury "storybookland" made it there. Both are firsts that have eluded me this first year in business on Etsy. Having items and treasuries you've curated make it to Etsy's home page is pretty much the holy grail of Etsy shop owners. Why? Besides being featured in a major publication or blog, it's the biggest way to drive traffic to your shop. Shoppers land on that opening page, see items, and start clicking.

Since these two events happened so close together, I was able to compare apples to apples to see what is better: and item feature or a treasury feature. Hands down, it's having an item featured. And being on the front page in any form beats renewing items often which is what I was doing a lot of in early to mid December. Click on the Google Analytics graph above to see what I mean.

Ironically though, it was the constant renewing in December that resulted in actual sales. That's December versus January for you!