I've always been looking on the ground & finding rocks. I started when I was 9 one summer my Dad worked as a ranger in Yellowstone. As a teenager I got a tumbler & then a Sears Gem Maker & made cabs. I lost momentum but got back into collecting when I was 39.
I moved from Cupertino, Calif to Cedar City, Utah 4 years ago & live in an area full of beautiful agates, jaspers, & you name it. Now I'm cutting & polishing cabochons & am the president of a 2 1/2 year old rock club in town. I even made my own 10 wheel cabbing machine - http://andy321.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=hmequip&action=display&thread=42508
I've got an etsy store - http://www.etsy.com/shop/AgateCabachon where I sell my cabs to jewelers. Sales are going way too slow because I don't have much more than my forum siganture linking to my etsy store. I'm setting up a website - http://www.desertgemsjewelry.com, but it's not up & running yet.
My wife & I have just learned to wire wrap & I've done a small weekend show at Silver Reef, UT which is a former Silver mining town with a museum/gift shop. I did 2 months of Saturday Markets at Tuacahn near St. George, UT in the fall. Foot traffic was very low at both of those, but I had a few sales, enough to tell me that with a larger attendance, I could be successful.
I got a canopy, made some table skirts & am getting displays & developing a "brand". I'm cutting rocks almost daily & wrapping. Next is to photograph the booth & jewelry so I can apply to shows bigger than the local ones I've done. I missed getting into the Arizona shows that go on all winter, but hope to get into some Bay Area shows I used to walk when I lived there.
Sorry, I don't have any photos to show except the few cabs I've got in my etsy store. If you see this a while after I wrote it, the links I've provided will have more to show off.
Wish me success!
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Replies
Hi Lynn, Welcome to Art Fair Insiders. As you can tell already this is a great site for obtaining wonderful and helpful information along with making new contacts and friends. Looked at your esty site and loved your work. The stones are beautiful. So happy to have you join us here. Keep us updated and yes, I will wish you success. Take care,
Sabrina
your cabs are amazings, Lynn!
I'm perfecting my wrapping skills, so I'm sure I'll return to your to purchase some day.
www.jeannesgems.etsy.com
Jeanne,
Your etsy link is dead. Should it be, or did you just type it wrong?
http://www.etsy.com/shop/AgateCabachon
Guess I was a bit brain dead at that hour of the morning...
www.gemsbyjeannemarie.etsy.com
Hi - Would you like some help getting your Etsy shop moving more? First, you're not tagging your cabs correctly. They shouldn't get listed under jewelry since they aren't actually jewelry, yet! Don't tag with what your item can be used for or could become, only what it is. You need to be listing in the top category of 'supplies', you'll be asked if it's handmade by you (yes!), then choose 'cabochon' as your sub category to show up better when jewelers browse. After that tag with anything you can think of to describe the stone - stone name, alternative names, colors, patterns, shape, small/med/large, lapidary, handcut..... your tags are what will get you found in Etsy's searches. And being in the right category will get you found by browsers looking for what you are selling.
Also, if you've got them, list them.... try to get at least 20 items in your shop. It broadens your exposure to list an item or two each day until you reach that number and lets people see what you have to offer plus it encourages multiple purchases. I know when I shop for rocks I like to get 5 or more items from one shop at a time...
Hope this helps - and if you've got any other questions feel free to shoot me a convo on etsy http://www.etsy.com/shop/spiceoflifedesigns
Also - you might want to hook up with some other lapidary folks in the teams - the etsians Lapidarious and cabbingrough come to mind as being super helpful. :)
Megan
Megan, How important are categories? I put myself in the buyer's shoes & figured they'd use search terms such as cabochon, agate, jasper, etc. so I put those words in the title. I put whatever I thought would help in the tags section. Then there's the materials section. I don't know how all three (title, tags, & materials) work in relation to the person searching.
Even so, I made the category change you suggested. I see that you've had 126 sales in 3 years, and your items are higher ticket than mine. I guess you must be doing something right (in addition to making nice jewelry).
Categories/tags are super important on Etsy. The first three tags (cat, sub cat, sub sub cat or 1 inputed tag) are what get fed into google shopping (not google search, that's a different monster!) Also, with the recent changes to Etsy's internal search, you will need to have the same words duplicated in your tags and title in order to be found in the 'smarter' search. The more descriptive your title can be - Handcut Cosmo Agate Cabochon Freeform 30mm by 42mm Great Plumes - the better (use the preview tool while listing to see what the link via google will look like and if the main info is what you see). And use all those again in your tags - so supplies, cabochon, handmade, plume agate, cosmo agate, freeform, lapidary, stone, teardrop, tear drop, black, milky white (color descriptors are OK - like navy blue, tomato red), pale lavender purple, you can also throw in your shop name and or your name if you think people might search for you that way either via etsy or on google.
If you put things like pendant or jewelry into your tags - the people looking for a finished pendant will see your cab and think - huh? It messes up the accuracy of search results and keeps people from finding what they are looking for - does that make sense?
Great advice, Meghan!
Thank you