Post Christmas Productivity

For many handmade shop owners it can be tough to get through the quite time that comes after the Christmas rush. But low sales doesn’t have to be a bad thing! I asked a few of my favourite handmade sellers how they manage their post christmas time productively.

Checkout their great insights below. Click their pretty pics to check out their stores.

Antje of Pasinga
If sales are down it’s time to refresh and to be creative.
Spring cleaning for the shop. There is always something to do better this year and now is the time to incorporate the new. I will add new tags, new descriptions and there are new online trading rules to comply with.
However the best about this ‘quite’ time to me is that it is my creative time where I work on new designs and creations.

Find Pasinga on Facebook
Check out Pasinga on Instagram

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Claire from Small World Dreams
This is my second year selling my bags on Etsy and first year on my website.  The lull after Christmas last year was just awful and did not pick up for me till April.  This year, I decided to make use of the time to create my new designs for the coming year, learn more about social media marketing, by tackling instagram to my advantage and most importantly, to get on top of the dreaded bookwork.  

Find Small World Dreams on Facebook
Check out Small World Dreams on Instagram

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Laurie of Yellow Tree Store
Use your quiet times productively by taking the opportunity of extra time to take some behind the scenes photos or short videos of works in progress to share on social media. Customers love to the see the work going on behind the scenes and these things can be quite time consuming to put together and hard to fit in when you are trying to keep up with orders. Having some breathing space after Christmas is also a good time to get back to have some fun and work on new ideas without pressure, some of my best selling items are things that came about just from having a mess around in the studio.

Find Yellow Tree Store on Instagram
Laurie has a really FAB insta feed. Make sure you check it out!
Find Yellow Tree Store on Facebook

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Farrah from Light and Ladder
It’s a time to refocus, set intentions, be grateful for all the events of the previous year. To be able to look forward with vision, a renewed sense of creativity and a complete sense of gratitude from where you came.
It’s a time to be grounded, to sketch, make and discover what newness is to excite you.

Check out the beautiful Light and Ladder goodies!

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Bea Bellingham
The start of the year is the perfect time to plan, plan, plan. The business plan and calendar I set up in January keep me on track for the whole year. I try to keep it simple, realistic and time specific.

Check out Bea on Instagram

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Ashlee of Ash Jewelry
The beginning of the new year is a great time to reexamine your collection since you have a full year of sales records to look over including the data from the holiday rush. What are your best sellers and which pieces are stagnant? Are there any commonalities between your most popular pieces? Or any among your less popular items? Do you see any trends that could help to direct you as you are designing new products?

Find Ash Jewelry on Instagram

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Some great tips right! Here’s a little summery… 
– Plan plan plan. Use your quiet time to make plans for the year.
– Take this time to refresh your listings. Could you use better tags? Take some fresh photos? New keywords?
– Use this time to develop new products and designs.
– Improve your social media marketing.
– Create some kick ass content for your social media channels. People love a bit of behind the scenes action.
-Rather than being down about a lack of sales, reflect on the amazing things you were able to achieve in the past year.
– Review your sales last year. Any themes? Popular items you could expand on?
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Big thanks to the great makers that took the time to write a little something for this post.
I really hope this post help to inspire other sellers to make the most of this peaceful time.

Do you have any helpful tips for other handmade sellers?
How do you use your post Christmas period productively?