Tuesday, March 29, 2011

My Entire Heartsy Experience, Part 3

Read part 1 here
Read part 2 + download the free organizer here

Would I do it again?
With my bags and sewn items, I doubt that I would do it again. I barely made 50%, which for wholesale is fine, but not handmade wholesale (IMO.) Sewn goods take SO much time to make plus the cost of materials and electricity for my sewing machine and iron. I have a low profit margin on my bags and that could be because people don't want to pay a lot for bags and/or my bags are priced low. I can't say which it is as we all struggle with pricing.

Now, with my jewelry shop, I have a different opinion. I know Heartsy would be worth it for the sheer fact that my profit margin is much higher. Plus, it takes a fraction of the time to make an average piece of jewelry than it does to make even a small bag.

Money aside, though, I'm glad I did it for exposure of my shop alone. I have yet to see a bag shop be featured (I have seen some sewn accessories, but not bags and purses.) I had tons of views and 25 people buy my certificate. Even if someone did not buy a certificate because they could not afford it at the time, maybe they hearted my shop (I had 15 new shop hearts) and will be back in the future. Only time will tell I guess.

Think you might want to apply?
In my opinion, the best items to be featured are those that have a higher profit margin and those that are light to ship. Some things that I think would work best are jewelry, art prints, accessories, needlepoint (art?), spices/teas, patterns, paper goods, and maybe some vintage.

Items that would be good for advertisement but not really profits would be heavier items or those that are very time consuming. It would be rough for pottery, bath and body, candles, books, clothing, bags, and baked goods/food.

Pricing
Now, if you've decided that you want to apply, I do have some advice for pricing. Heartsy requires a minimum of 50% off. Now, they will accept you with that but they might not pick you for their Daily Deal, rather their Featured Deals at the bottom of the page.

Okay, for pricing. Say the average cost of one of your items is $15 plus $3 shipping, you would not want to do something like $19 for $40. You would not want to do this because people would end up buying just two of your items (plus shipping) which would total $36. To them it would be worth it to pay the $19 to get $36 worth of merchandise for free rather than going over that amount or coming back to redeem their $4.

Instead, you may want to do $5 for $12 so they HAVE to pay some money (it would help with shipping a LOT) or something like $24 for $50 to get them to spend over the amount. They may even want to get gifts for someone and something for themselves, therefore spending more than the certificate.

My Purchasing Stats
I've purchased 4 heartsy certificates so far, 1 of which I have not used. Out of the three I have used, only one was under the amount ($50) certificate simply because I could not find anything else that I wanted. The other two certificates I did go over the amount, by just a little bit though. It was not on purpose, it was just because that *happened* to be what exactly what I wanted. I would assume this would be similar for sales in any shop.

If I left anything out or if you have any other questions, feel free to ask! I will try to get back to you asap!

2 comments:

Gina Thomas said...

again, super helpful. :)gina

Jennifer M. said...

Very helpful series! I just read all three of your posts about Heartsy. I'm currently considering doing Heartsy actually. I made it through the voting and was just emailed that I can start negotiating my deal now! It all sounds do exciting, but I know I need to do the math first. My gut tells me the exposure for my shop will be great, but I'm trying to do my due diligence here and research everything fully before committing to anything!

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