Wednesday

Reaching International Customers

Second to the U.S., the most hits I get from my etsy shop are from France. Parisians like bug jewelry, who knew? I have other hits from places like Latvia and Romania, which I could honestly not pinpoint on a map for you. (No child left behind in geography class!)  All my shitty cartography skills aside, there is a real thrill in knowing that other people in the world are viewing your products. It's so cool to know people who speak a different language and are from a completely different cultural background are interested in your hand-made American goods.

So, how do you get more international views and thus international customers?
Fish where those exotic little fishies are. 
I think my biggest draw for international views is DeviantArt. There are many excellent professional and aspiring artists on this site, ready to be supportive of you and your awesomeness! It's not hard to get people to pay attention to you on DevArt, while great artists share a bit of their portfolios, there are *many* heart-wrenchingly awful MSPAINT files uploaded to this site and called art.


How else can you connect with people overseas?

Rape and pillage your analytics. Find where your international customers are and learn more about their locale. It can't hurt.

Online art/craft communities such as Crafster, Cut out + Keep, DeviantArt, ect.

Social networks like Twitter (best bet), Facebook and Myspace (I include myspace because I hear people still use it)  - Follow/friend some people from around the world- blogger is also a great place to meet new people from different places.


SEO for overseas- try tagging your items with alternate spellings- jewelry is jewellery in the U.K.

Show some good-old-fashioned Etsy Love to 'foreign' sellers  Poland makes pretty much the best goth/metalhead clothing in the world. 

 Like what they like, make what they're making.- Decoden is JUST NOW getting some kind of popularity here in the states, and even the people wearing it have never heard the term before. Scope out trends in other countries (my favorite is Japan) to see what will be popular in a few years!

 
Good luck, y'all!



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