Monday, March 28, 2011

My Entire Heartsy Experience, Part 2 + Free Organization Spreadsheet

Part 2, if you'd like to read part 1, click here.

My deal started around 11am EST and ran for approximately 12 hours. Now I see that they've upped the time a bit and start way earlier. Soon after my shop was featured I started to get sales. You have to choose 'other' in your shipping options to be able to accept the Heartsy certificates. The customers should put the certificate # as well as the amount. If the customer went over their certificate amount ($50 in my case) I invoiced them via PayPal using the email address in their Etsy account. Most people should pay you immediately; I think only one person took a few days to get payment to me.

After your deal is completely over, Heartsy will send the entire amount of money for the number of certificates you sold to your PayPal account. *Remember, you will incur fees here too!*

I actually used a spreadsheet to help me organize everything. I kept track of what each person bought, certificate #, fees paid, how much was due, etc. ((If you'd like to download the spreadsheet, click here)) It helped me see how much I was dishing out as well as what came in. Also, it was much easier to see who owed me money (after the certificate cost) so I could invoice them and I eventually could extrapolate the data to break down into statistics.

MY Statistics (via Google Analytics):
852 total visits
783 unique visits
5148 page views
6.04 avg. page views
3:15 avg. time on site
23.83% bounce rate
15.96% new visits

MY Monetary Statistics:
The Good:
Average amount OVER certificate amount: $6.31 (not really that good imo)
Certificates sold: 25(x$20) = $500 immediately sent to my PayPal account

The Bad:
Etsy Fees: -$41
PayPal Fees: -$23
Shipping: -$69 (and most of my items are quite light! If your items are heavier, this will be much higher!)
---------------------
Total Costs: -$132


Edit: Now I didn't put up the value of all my items, what I would have gotten if I sold them retail, etc. I do not calculate the per item costs of each of the items I make because it's just too difficult to calculate each piece of fabric, interfacing, zippers, snaps, etc. that I use per bag. I can, however, tell you that the retail value of the items that sold (with shipping) totaled $1100, so the percentage really ended being closer to 50% than the 60% off certificate (for the 21 out of 25 certificates that have been redeemed.)

I don't know how many potential customers I may get in the future because of their purchases via Heartsy or even Recently Sold Items on Time Machine 2.

Part 3 - My personal thoughts on Heartsy, who I think would do best and how to price your deal.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, great info....do you also want to add in your cost for materials? At the end of the day how much do you think you made in profit? Maybe it's more relevant to get the exposure....great posts!:-)

Mary

Meghan said...

I honestly don't calculate per item cost because it's just too difficult to calculate each piece of fabric, interfacing, zippers, snaps, etc. that I use per bag.

I can, however, tell you that the retail value of the items that sold (with shipping) totaled $1100, so the percentage really ended being closer to 50% than the 60% off certificate.

rosepetalsjewelry said...

Great post. I was very impressed with the exposure. I've been on etsy for 1 1/2yr+ and all toll have not reached those numbers. I know it can be expensive but advertising is expensive. I look forward to part 3. Thank you.

zenhen said...

excellent thank you for sharing!

mOytOyz said...

"You have to choose 'other' in your shipping options to be able to accept the Heartsy certificates. The customers should put the certificate # as well as the amount." I dont really understand this part. Would I need to create a new shipping option named "other" on etsy? or is this on heartsy?
As for the certificate number, where would the customers put the certificate number?
im such a noob :P Thanks a lot.

Meghan said...

Moytoyz - go to My Account (on etsy) -> Shipping & payment -> Payment Methods -> choose 'other'

tangente said...

Hi Meghan,
Love your posts on Heartsy. I'm doing a deal on Monday. Would you be able to email me your spreadsheet? I tried to download from the link your povided but I keep getting an error message.

Thanks
Cathy
cathy_748@hotmail.com
www.tangente.etsy.com

tangente said...

Oh never mind. It finally worked. Thanks :)

Gina Thomas said...

another great post, really educational. i appreciated these tips as they were things I hadn't thought about-etsy fees and paypal fees! :)gina

Gina Thomas said...

also, how do you find out your unique page views? I can't figure this out and it is driving me bananas.
Thanks for your help! :)gina

Meghan said...

You need to have google analytical set up with your shop to get any type of info. Once it's set up you can go in there and set the date or dates that you need to check.

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