EB Friday Hotlist: Cr8tivity

Before I get down to the site review, I should let you all know that I'm leaving ArtFire.  My account is going to be downgraded towards the end of the month and I plan to remove my items from there.  The majority of them have already been moved to Etsy.  I did not make this decision lightly, and my long time readers know I was in the ArtFire corner for a long time.  I'm actually really sad about this.  However, I can no longer justify having three separate shops open and ArtFire simply has not brought me the same traffic that Etsy has.  I also have more of a sense of community on Etsy now and I've got friends and teammates that are helping me in every way possible.  Since it costs me $12/month regardless of whether or not I do anything with my shop, I've decided to give it up for now and focus on Etsy and Zibbet.  I hope that the increased focus, especially on my Etsy shop, will allow my jewelry and accessories to have more exposure.  My sincerest thanks to my customers and ArtFire friends for everything and I hope you'll continue to connect with me on the blog, on Twitter, and on Facebook.
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Now for this week's review!  I found Cr8tivity on the forums recently and it is a must know site for Etsians.  Here are the main features I love from them:

* Shop Hearts and Statistics:  Pretty much every site out there designed to help Etsians has some form of statistical monitoring, but Cr8tivity does it in a unique way.  Cr8tivity allows you to see the profile and shop of the people who've hearted you right from the hearts page on the site.  It also indicates whether the person is a buyer only or a seller and where they're from (if they've listed their location on Etsy).

Remember, it's SPAM to convo someone just for hearting you!

This information can be useful though because you can see what type of buyer your site attracts and figure out what your target market should be.  In addition to shop hearts, you can see your individual item hearts as well.  This information is useful because you can see what items and photos people are attracted to the most and adjust the rest of your inventory and/or your photos accordingly.

The statistics page has graphs and charts that show the distribution of items in your shop and the amount of positive vs. negative feedback you have.   It also uses a graph to show you when your shop was hearted:

* PDF Flyer Generator: This is by far the coolest feature available on the site.  If you don't have Photoshop/desktop publishing skills, pay attention because I haven't seen this done anywhere else yet.  You can create product flyers right from the site by entering in the Etsy information.  You don't have to upload any photos - they pull the ones from your Etsy shop.  Just select the product from the drop-down menu that lists everything you have available and download in PDF or MS Word format.  If you don't want to pay for flyers or wait for a professional printer, this is a really cool, simple way to get some promotional materials prepared for stapling to posts, tacking on bulletin boards, and sticking on door mats.  Outside advertising is crucial for the Etsy seller that doesn't already have a huge customer base and this tool helps you do that a little bit easier.

* Inventory Exporter: Since Cr8tivity already pulls all the information from your Etsy shop to make the other features work, they've decided to offer a way for you to download that information easily for your own use.  Inventory Helper creates an MS Excel spreadsheet with the names of your items, date listed, whether or not the product is active, the listing ID, the price, date listed, and so much more.  Think about how convenient this would be to have around craft show time!  You can download the spreadsheet and print it out, quickly price your items for your table, and mark off products as you sell them so you know which ones to delete (if one of a kind items like mine) when you get back and reactivate your shop from vacation mode.  Inventory Helper makes this so much easier than before.

I highly recommend checking out Cr8tivity and exploring its growing set of features, including the ability to tweet and Facebook items right from the site.  Let me know what you think of it in the comments!

Until next time,
Elle