When I launched my tool, A heart means…, to help Etsy sellers compare their item’s favorites to price points, I got some surprising responses along the lines of:

Favorites don’t matter that much.

Only sellers favorite things.

So … Do your Etsy shop favorites matter?

My answer:

Of course they do!

Your Etsy shop favorites are your customers (or potential customers) talking to you — telling you what they like, what they want.

With Etsy circles and social media, your shop favorites are the ones that your customer’s friends are seeing. They are helping you reach a larger audience.

Comparing your shop favorites to your sales, can help you make business decisions about what you should make, what you should promote, and what your prices should be. Tweet this!

Let’s get this out of the way: Buyers absolutely favorite things.

I’m not sure how this idea that sellers only favorite stuff (and only for treasuries?) came about, but I’ve heard it a few times. It’s left me puzzled.

I’ve mostly been an Etsy buyer (when not helping my sister sell on Etsy or manning her craft fair booths) and I favorite A LOT. I also check out what the people in my Etsy circle are favoriting on a regular basis. My favorites also get posted to Facebook.

Here’s my most recent favorites:

Your customers are talking to you. Are you listening?

It’s true that you can’t know exactly why someone favorited one of your items. Was it because they want to purchase or want to put it in a treasury or just because? Any way you cut it, though, they took a little bit of effort for your item.

Because you can’t know what a single favorite means, try not to analyze each favorite individually. However, your favorites as a whole are worth taking note of. You should particularly pay attention to:

type

price

color

Attract new customers!

Favorites show up in streams and get shared. They are the items that clearly catch people’s eye. Purchases … well, they get shared when someone see’s the buyer use them. Etsy favorites are social, which means they are great for attracting new customers.

Use your most favorited items in:

Ads — these are the perfect images to use as part of ads.

Your Etsy banner

Your Etsy About page

Blog posts

On facebook

Tweets

Giveaways

Position in the front of your booth at craft fairs

The more you know …

Anyone remember those public service ads — “The more you know. Ding dong ding.”? Annnyway, …

It’s true that favorites are not the same as sales. You shouldn’t be basing your product choices on solely your favorites. You shouldn’t be basing your product choices on any one thing at all! Obviously, sales are way way important. But other data can help you sell more, create new products that you know will do well, and attract new customers. Etsy shop favorites is one piece of that data.

Think about how the most favorited items and the most sold items compare. Think about why they are similar or different. Consider:

The numbers. Is an item that’s favorited a lot also getting a lot of sales?

Price. Check out A heart means… to compare your favorites to your price points and number of listed items.

Type and color.

Season. Do certain items get favorited or sold more during different times of the year? Are certain items more attractive as gifts? What could you do to encourage purchasing them as gifts?

What do you think?

Head over to my Squidoo lense to tell me what you think.

Or leave a comment below.