EB Friday Hotlist: Tools4Etsy

Tools4Etsy markets itself as a helpful site for buyers, sellers, and developers alike.  The site offers tons of different features, but I'm going to talk about the ones I think are most useful here (and ones that don't require me to download Microsoft Silverlight...if you visit the site and don't have it, you'll see what I mean.)

Tag Wars:

This feature is a little confusing to me but I'm going to try to explain it as clearly as I can.  The Tag Wars feature allows you to compare two tags to see which tag is used more often in listings.  You can select the results to show up based on relevancy, average views per day, popularity, or probability.  I selected two tags, "adjustable" and "one size fits all" and compared the two based on relevancy.  The results show that "adjustable" is used on over 50,000 listings while "one size fits all" is only used on 906 listings.  According to the blurb at the bottom of the page (my interpretation of it), Tools4Etsy would recommend you use the tag "adjustable" over "one size fits all" because it's more commonly used and therefore more commonly searched for.  I think.  It's best if you go to the site and read the information for yourself, because like I said I found it quite confusing.  You also get tag and material tag clouds under both of the tags you pitted against each other.  The tag clouds you get are based on which search you're using (relevancy, average views, etc.)  When you hover over the words in the cloud, statistics are displayed.  I do not understand based on what's written what these statistics mean, but if you can figure them out, perhaps it is useful.

Gift Guides:

Love or hate the gift guides and Etsy finds, you can find them all on Tools4Etsy.  The left sidebar lists all of the available guides, making for rather easy and user-friendly navigation:

I know that a lot of sellers resent the gift guides and for good reason.  Many times the same sellers are featured over and over and smaller, less popular but equally talented shop owners don't get to have the same promotional perks.  I don't know why this happens - maybe those who pick the featured items on Etsy do it by accident, maybe it's by design, or (most likely) it's somewhere in the middle ground.  At any rate, it doesn't hurt to examine the photos of the shops who do get featured and see what they're doing right.  Contact with fellow sellers and the shops of your competition should always be treated as an opportunity to learn.  

(There is also a featured seller feature on the site where you can see all past featured sellers.  This is something NOT available on Etsy and can be an additional source of information about people who Etsy sees as successful and worth showcasing to the community.)

Incomprehensible Computer Stuff:

By incomprehensible, I mean to the layperson like me who knows how to operate a computer and navigate the internet but doesn't know squat about codes and computer languages and technological jargon.  For someone more sophisticated than me, this area looks like a gold mine.  Tools4Etsy provides an Etsy Screensaver (need Silverlight to use it though), instructions on how to build your own Etsy search page, and some developer libraries.  If this sounds interesting to you, be sure to check it out!

Tools4Etsy seems to have some interesting features if you know how to use them.  Check out their website and see if they have anything you can use to improve the way you handle your shop.  

Have anything to add or clarify about Tools4Etsy or their features?  Let me know in the comments!

Until next time,

Elle