Two are Better than One

My Etsy shop is open. So, together with my home site, I now have two jewelry selling venues on the internet.

While reading the Etsy instructions and rules regarding the setting up and use of a shop I ran across this notice: "You may not post links/URLs to other venues where you have the same items for sale that are listed in your Etsy shop. This may include your personal website if there are items for sale." Holy Cow! I definitely would be posting my personal link so this would mean I would need to make new designs. And I had already re-photographed the jewelry on my site in a more Etsy style. It looked like doubling shops would double the work.

But this story has a happy ending. As I began organizing the Etsy shop positive aspects of having two shops became evident.

1. Reproducible jewelry can be displayed on both sites by changing metals. For example, my personal site has a small selection of bronze pendants and rings, which I am now making in sterling or fine silver, at basically the same cost, for my Etsy store.

2. I had, and still have, too many very similar items on the home site. Now I can move the redundancies to the Etsy shop.

3. When my personal site was set up I did not fully understand the importance of text and it's role for SEO. As I move jewelry to the Etsy shop I rewrite and lengthen the text. With minor modifications I can also use this richer text for similar jewelry still on the original site.

4. My personal site is largely organized by the technique used in making the jewelry: embedded, foldforming, etc. The Etsy shop jewelry listings are divided in sections: rings, pendants, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, etc. I think that this double form of listing will give more opportunities for my jewelry to be visible in search results.

5. As space opens up on my personal website I can begin to insert newer work. This possibility has stimulated the creative process and exciting new pendants, rings and bead-pendants have been made or are in-progress.

I have no idea how successful the Etsy shop will be. For now I have been pleasantly surprised by the discovery of the many possible synergies between my two on-line jewelry shops. So yes, two are better than one.