The orders are out. The holiday festivals are over and you can finally breathe. Grab your coffee and try to relax.

As you move through the holiday season, take some time before the new year to work on your IndieMe store. January is not only the beginning of a New Year but the start of another busy buying season. Let’s all be ready!

Let’s talk about the first page of your online store. The first page of your store is so important. This is what the buyer sees first and depending on if they like what they see will determine whether they stay and shop or move on to another maker. Make the buyer want to stay and most importantly place an order. Set yourself up to succeed. Here are some items you should work on before the New Year:

Add New Product and label the product as New Work.
Mark the appropriate products as Best Sellers. Buyers are always interested in what sells the best for you and hopefully for them.
Move your seasonal items to the top of the first page of your IndieMe store. For example, start adding spring items or Valentine Day themed products to the top of your first page. Do you make a garden and outdoor items? Move them to the top row. Easter items? Move them to the top. Make sure your store is up to date and in tune to the buying seasons. You want to take the same approach as if you had a brick-and-mortar store. A brick-and-mortar store would not display Christmas ornaments in February.
Work on your keywords! Buyers search by keywords more frequently than other search options. We ran a script for 2022 and from what we learned buyers use very simple words to search. They are very specific like the words below.
Here are the most used keywords of 2022:
- Glass
- pottery
- jewelry
- garden
- wood
- Christmas
- ornament
- ceramic
- earrings
- Judaica
  Make sure you put the obvious words in your keywords. As you can see they search by media a lot. So if you make jewelry, put jewelry as a keyword. Think how a buyer would think when they are looking for specific items for their store. If they need garden items then they are going to search “garden”.
Update your prices. This is a good time to update pricing as you move toward a new year of selling. Think about your costs and a possible increase in prices with your suppliers. Most importantly, make sure your pricing is consistent on all your platforms!
Order some Featured Item ads for 2023, especially if you have loaded new work to your store. Use your new work and lure buyers to your store. Retailers like new work and seek it out on the platform. Remember all Featured Item ads show on the Buyer's home page. When they log in, this is where they go first so make sure you are one of the makers they see.
Does your banner need updating? Do you need to add a banner and logo? These are all important design elements for your storefront. You want to show off your brand and a good way to do that is by having a banner on your store. Make sure your branding is consistent throughout all your platforms, retail and wholesale.
Send out an email at the beginning of 2023 and let your old and new buyers know if you have new work, where you will be exhibiting, and to find you on IndieMe.

We know you are busy. We know this might take some time but we firmly believe it will pay off. This is your business, your baby. This is what you have worked hard for all these years.