APP OF THE MONTH: Etsy

Posted Leave a commentPosted in App of the Month, Business Skills, E-Commerse
Name Etsy
Product Description A specialised selling (e-commerce) platform/online shop tailored to vintage and handmade products and craft supplies.
Availability Through Browser at https://www.etsy.com/ and as an app especially designed for sellers from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store
Key Features Unique items sold by small, independent businesses and individuals worldwide through a secure payment system.

The app consists of:

·         A Dashboard in which you can easily see your Shop Overview and any News and Activity from your shop.

·         A Stats (or analytics) section to see your views and visits along with information of where your traffic is coming from and a list displaying the order of your best performing products.

·         An Orders tab where you can see both open and completed orders

·         Conversations (or messages) where you can talk to other members and customers – a great feature of this is that Etsy will save ‘Snippets’ or your personal commonly used phrases to add to your conversations.

·         A place to view listings, your shop, reviews and finances.

·         The ability to shout out about your shop items across all your Social Media Platforms.

·         Etsy Ads in which you can budget what to spend each day in order to rank higher in both Google and Etsy.

·         Links to educational videos and articles about how to get the best out of your Etsy store.

Prices and Plans The app itself is free.  To list an item on Etsy is $0.20 (which with the current exchange rate is around £0.17).  Your listings will be active on Etsy for 4 months or until that item is sold.  When sold Etsy will take a 5% commission and charge a processing payment of 4% plus £0.20 per transaction.  So, if you sell an item for £10.00 Etsy would receive around £1.27.

They now offer Etsy Plus for £8.30 a month which includes 15 free listings, £4.20 to spend on Etsy Ads, a custom web address, email stock alerts for customers and new personalisation options for your store.

Later in the year they will be launching ‘Etsy Premium’ although pricing plans a full spec are yet to be announced.

Biggest Pro Unlike Amazon and eBay on which you can buy anything and everything Etsy is specifically targeted towards sellers of vintage and handcrafted things meaning this is where designers and makers can find their target audience immediately.
Biggest Con Of course, this can also be a con as there is a lot of competition on Etsy.  There is also no way to ‘patent’ your ideas, so to speak, which means similar designs to yours may appear and there is little you can do about it.

 

APP OF THE MONTH: Hootsuite

Posted Leave a commentPosted in App of the Month, Marketing, Social Media
Name Hootsuite
Product Description This software allows you to manage all your social media platforms in one place quickly and easily!
Availability Through Browser at http://www.hootsuite.com/ and as an app from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store
Key Features Schedule Posts in your own time so your profiles always look active.

Easily find, manage and share content across all your platforms.

Boost all your best posts.

Check all your analytics in one place.

Monitor topics and hashtags relevant to you and see when their activity peaks and troughs.

Assign tasks to others in your team.

Protect your brand with inbuilt security measures.

Learn how to use Hootsuite in their very own cohesive online Academy available for subscribers.

Prices and Plans FREE for the most basic plan which allows you to manage 3 different platforms in each place and limits the amount of scheduling you can do (although it is still a huge amount!)  Handy Tip: They tend to hide their free plan pretty well so when looking at plans simply scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and you’ll see a link to their free plan.  Paid plans for more platforms and users available from anywhere between £25-£520 per month.  Find out more here: https://hootsuite.com/plans/upgrade
Biggest Pro Having all your social media profiles and pages in one place to save you chopping and changing between apps and website.  It really helps you get the best out of your time.
Biggest Con If you have multiple companies running through Hootsuite there is currently no way to easily change between profiles so a bit of a faff involved in constantly logging in and out.  I reckon this will come soon though!