Thursday, October 15, 2009

Marketing Strategies Critique: SimplyInvitingCards



Our critique today is for SimplyInvitingCards. The theme is prices and shipping. Please post your feedback in the comments!

5 comments:

  1. Am I the first? Wow!

    Okay, great stuff! I think you've done a lot of things right. First off, your name is, well, simply inviting. Clever and memorable!

    The prices seem good. $5 is a little more than some would charge for a folded card, but not unreasonable at all.

    My favorite area? The purely wicked collection. Nice name, again, and a nice variety of spookily wonderful items!

    One tiny note: overall, the photography is consistently good. One thing I'd like to see is at least one shot that shows the entire piece. The extreme close ups and dramatic angles are great, but I'd like to see one straightforward shot that shows the entire card in your set of five shots. Not a problem with all of them, I just happened to notice on this one: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=31700952

    I had to think a sec about what different items would be in the two categories "celebration" and "everyday" cards, but once it clicked, that worked. If you get quite a few more items in either category (so that your inventory flows onto a second page), then I might suggest breaking it down further.

    Without delving too deeply into your site (I think you'll need Jen for the deep analysis!) I did peek at your profile. I might suggest that you stick with using either first person (I, me, etc) or third person (Jen, she) and go with that -- you kind of switch from I to Jen to we and it's a little disconcerting.

    I took a quick peek at your blog. Some good, engaging posts. If you have time (yeah, like any of us have a lot of time!) I would suggest trying to post a little more regularly and also including some photos -- they can really spark up an article. I'd love to see a photo of Blaster -- this would be worth a thousand words! And rather than just talking about your Simply Wicked Collection, I'd love to see some images of it!

    Anyway, overall, nice work! I think we'll be seeing a lot more of you!

    Molly

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  2. Molly,

    Thanks for the suggestions! I do have one question because I want to make sure I understand a suggestion you made.

    Regarding the item photography, when you say to include at least one photo of my entire creation, I assume it means at least one of the five we can use and not necessarily a main photo here and there? I get what you mean with the tag you're linking to. I'll be more conscientious in selecting photos and review older photos more often - an easy fix!

    I think you're on point with blog photos. As for photos of my dog, I think I'd shut Flickr down permanently if I had share *all* my favorite photos of him. LOL He is a handsome boy!

    Thanks for taking the time. I'll definitely be approaching a several things differently from now on.

    Best,
    Jen S.
    Simply Inviting Cards

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  3. Jen,

    HAh! Okay, limit yourself to ONE picture of the dog. Well, maybe per week....

    Yes, I did mean to do a straight on (possibly boring) shot as one of your additional photos. I love the angled closeups you've been using -- they're really great!

    Thanks for taking my feedback as it was intended!

    (oops, I was wondering why Jen wasn't commenting, as she had such great thoughts earlier, but I only just realized: YOU'RE JEN! Well, howdy!)

    Molly

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  4. Your shipping looks great and reasonable. In my opinion $5 seems like a lot for a greeting card but if you are making sales at that price I would keep them at $5. If you ever want to run a promo I would do something like buy 2 get 1 free or even free shipping. Overall your shop looks great. :)

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  5. Hey :)

    I checked out a few of your items because the one above must have sold :D

    I think your shipping is INCREDIBLY reasonable! Free shipping for Canada and the US?! That's amazing! That would definitely be a winning feature for me if I was looking to purchase from you.

    Also, your card prices are also INCREDIBLY reasonable considering they come with an envelope! Some of them may be a bit under priced but I know that it can be hard to sell greeting cards as many buyers don't realize how much they are worth - they are worth much more than the materials as you know :)

    Over all I think you're doing a great job! Keep with it :)

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