Can a busy shop have a successful blog? Are there easy, time-saving measures that can be used? The answer is yes! We asked some of the best fabric store blog owners just how they do it and they shared their secrets to make blogging do-able and effective. Broken down into one, two or three-with three…Click to read more >
Using Angles to Add Interest
Social media is a great driver of business to your shop, whether you’re posting on your own website, blogging, or posting on Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest. The key to success with any of these social media outlets is having eyecatching photos—photos that will make your customers click through, comment on, and share with their friends.…Click to read more >
Profiting from Panels
Would you like to have a product in your store that was precut and so irresistible that your customers just had to have one … or more? What if that item was priced between $8 and $12? Could it be that you already have the merchandise but your customers can’t see it and don’t know…Click to read more >
Achieving More Accurate Color with White Balance
It’s a common problem: You neatly arrange a stack of gorgeous new fabrics on a clean white surface, set your camera’s exposure and start shooting. As you peer through the viewfinder, you think how great the fabrics look and how the pictures are really going to show off the beautiful colors of the fabric on…Click to read more >
Increasing Traffic to Your Website
In previous articles, I’ve talked about how to improve your website so people will want to stay awhile and shop; we’ve covered website merchandising, cross merchandising, social merchandising, creating value, and how to manage your reputation so your customers will return again and again. Let’s back up a bit now and think about what we…Click to read more >
Advertising With Facebook Offers
Facebook Offers, a new form of online advertising, may be the closest thing yet to a measurable, ROI-positive ad platform for small retailers. But will it remain that way? If you’re like most small business owners, you need to manage your advertising spending carefully. And if you’re the owner of an online business, you are…Click to read more >
Shedding Light on Exposure
Are you exposed? Despite how it sounds, I’m not talking about how much (or little) you wear in your photos but how light or dark they are. Learning how to set your exposure is a crucial component of good photography anytime, but it’s an absolute necessity during the long, dark days of winter when natural…Click to read more >
Business Building with Blog Tours
If you’ve ventured into the quilting blogosphere, you’ve probably come across the occasional blog tour. Blog tours come in many different forms, but essentially they are a series of posts scheduled on different blogs within a short time period designed to promote something. The most common blog tours are for book releases, as publishers and…Click to read more >
Increasing Your Online Value
Higher sales and more customers – everyone wants this! To achieve this in our stores, we create enticing displays, start new programs, make samples, hold classes and demos, offer solutions, create great customer service, and collect customer testimonials! In order to get higher sales and more customers online, we need to figure out how to…Click to read more >
Investing in Your Shop’s Photos
Crafters are visual creatures, so it’s no wonder that the popularity of websites like Pinterest and Flickr and apps like Instagram continues to grow among the quilting and sewing crowd. After all, what is a blog post without at least one photo? And even with Facebook we’re told to ‘go visual or go home.’ Images…Click to read more >