I’ve tried to create online listings for jewellery for at least a decade. I go back and forth between using a turnkey marketplace like Etsy or Zibbet and hosting a store on my own domain with the help of, say, WooCommerce or ZenCart. I’d try one, then the other, sometimes both at once (I am sure there are half-finished online shops with my name on them all over the internet). Back and forth and half-assed, that’s me! Turnkey places have the traffic and the existing audience, while my own domain gives me control and lets me track conversions. It’s so hard to pick which is priority! And OK I still haven’t REALLY decided, but Etsy is the site that I already have running with my tutorials, and it has followers and users, so that’s where I’m settling in for now.
Meantime, I’ve never felt that I had the photo thing done correctly. I tried a floppity jillion different setups – camera, lighting, lightbox, outside, etc – and I’ve been getting inconsistent results every dang time; nothing you could call a coherent look.
Today, I think I cracked the code! A combination of scrapbook papers, distressed wood, the proper camera and lighting setup, and a bunch of random props gave me sets of photos like this:
Which, if not perfect (the straight-on photos need work), is at the very least a bunch of items that are obviously from the same store! When you thumbnail all the main photos together, they turn into this gorgeous thing:
Bestill my heart!! I’ve been smug about these pictures all day, and sharing them with EVERYONE I see online. And now I’m sharing them with you!
While I’m at it: you may as well check out my Etsy Shop for these items, right?
More listings to come, and soon.