Statistics, Analytics and Insights

When I began this blog back in January, I intended it to be, at least partly, a record of my experience of selling my greeting cards online. And I hoped that maybe others who were just embarking on this journey might benefit from reading about my ups and downs and gain some insights into what works and what doesn't. Inevitably, I suppose, I've drifted away from that original intention at times but last week, I made a sale that surprised me and brought me back into a more analytical mode. So, as it's six months since I started out with the PODstores and I've passed the 100 mark as far as sales are concerned, I put on my bean-counter hat, engaged my left-brain and took a closer look at my sales so far. I was looking for some hard facts that might point me in the direction that would most likely bring in sales both in terms of what kind of greeting card (or products) I should spend my all-too-limited time creating and also where the most fruitful marketplace is likely to be.

I'd already established that for me, Greeting Card Universe, brings me more sales that Zazzle, in spite of what appeared to be far more visits to my Zazzle Store.(Using Google Analytics, suggested by Ulla, has confirmed that the 'store visits' counter on Zazzle is wildly inaccurate!) But I wanted to know whether a pattern was emerging about which 'style' of design was most in demand.

First I'd better make it clear that I have no intention of giving up on the 'style' that is 'me' and trying to do something different because it sells better! But I do have quite an assortment of styles that I'm comfortable with and it might be more financially rewarding to concentrate my efforts on the one, or ones, that bring most sales.

Also, I think it's probably a good idea to establish who and where one's market is! A few months ago a friend of a friend, who had worked for a greeting card publisher, had commented that my designs would probably appeal to the 'older age-group' - no great surprise there, given that I'm not so young myself! So it was the sale of one of my age-specific birhday cards for a 30-yr-old through Greeting Card Universe last week that prompted me to look into this question of demographics more closely.

Looking through all my sales to date through Greeting Card Universe, I discovered that more than 25% of them were in the 'Pen and Wash' style that in many ways comes most naturally to me. The few greeting cards that I've sold through Zazzle have also been in this style. And, on the whole, they were either designs for that 'older age group' - or for children, arguably bought by that same 'older age group'!

         

So this recent one clearly bucked the trend!

In second place, with about 20% of sales, were my collages, though I think that 'statistic' was slightly skewed by the large number of sales of my Christmas Snowman Collage -

    

All the other styles were represented by just one or two sales each, with a strong bias towards the floral designs.

     

       

It's a very different picture when it comes to sales through my 'partyplan' venture, Kitchen Table Cards, where sales have been more evenly spread across my various different styles. But my little analysis of my online sales, as well as being useful from the point of view of which medium to take further, maybe goes some way to explain why I sell more through Greeting Card Universe than through Zazzle.

I may be completely wrong here, but my impression is that Zazzle caters for a much younger generation of customer, a generation that is more interested in the 'trendiness' of their T-shirts' logo than anything else. As with my floral mugs, my 'pretty' T-shirts have been favorably commented on by other Zazzlers but haven't been sold. I created this one last week -

'Sweet Peas' Ladies Spaghetti Top by helikettle
Buy t-shirts at Zazzle

- and somebody commented that it 'deserves to do well'. But so far, no interest, which seems a shame. And it leads me to ask whether that 'older age group' is actually shopping for T-shirts at Zazzle. Seems unlikely to me! So am I wasting my time making 'pretty things' for the Zazzle marketplace? I'd like to hear whether other Zazzlers' experiences are at all similar.

Is there anyone out there who succeeds at Zazzle with floral designs?

Meanwhile it's time I was planning some new 'pen and wash' Christmas card designs - with us 'Silver Surfers' in mind....