Guest post from Shannon of Scrapits
Like many stay-at-home moms who are trying to live within a budget, I have tried different ways to supplement my husband’s income while being at home with my children.
I’ve found that there are a lot of opportunities to make money online, especially since I have a product to sell. The products I sell are paper and digital products crafted by me and I have tried selling them on eBay without much success. But several years ago I heard about Etsy, an online marketplace for crafters, and decided to give it a try.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t have much success with Etsy at first either. Slowly but surely my sales have grown and I have learned a few tricks about what it takes to boost Etsy sales.
Here are the top ten tips I suggest to increase your bottom line:
1. Find Your Niche.
There are several categories on Etsy that are completely saturated, and if you try selling in one of them it may be rather tough to get sales going.
What makes your product stand out? How is it different from the other 20,000 results generated from an Etsy search?
Think about every detail of your product and how it’s specific to your target audience. Use this information when creating your titles and description.
2. Offer the Same Item In Two Different Categories
I sell “Day You Were Born” pages and started them out in the Scrapbooking section selling them as Premade Scrapbook Pages. I soon realized that by taking some information out, I could also sell them as “Day You Were Married” pages and offered them as anniversary gifts. This is my most popular item!
Get creative and ask others opinions on how you can sell your products from a different angle.
3. Use Different Tags Than Words Included In Your Title.
Besides using keywords in your title, you can also include “tags” or other keywords at the bottom of your listing. Your listings can be found if a keyword is a tag and not in the actual title, so use different descriptive words as tags that you used in your title. This gives your listing more search results and more opportunities for sales!
4. Offer a Freebie
I offer a free digital product from my store to anyone who shares one of my listings on Facebook or Pinterest. This is effective, inexpensive advertising.
5. Offer More Items
The more items you have listed in your Etsy shop, the more you are going to sell. This goes back to my second tip — think of ways you can tweak an item to make it a completely different listing.
6. Invite Users To Share With Their Friends
Etsy includes Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter icons with each listing. Be sure to enable these and encourage your customers to share with their friends.
7. Promote Through Fiverr.com
I’ve purchased a few gigs on Fiverr.com that were only $5 that brought decent results. If you are going to pay for advertising, I suggest you try Fiverr.com’s Online Marketing gigs.
BlogMentions and Social Marketing are my favorites.
8. Use Better Pictures
A picture is worth a thousand words. If you can capture your product with a nice background that is pleasing to the eye you will get more customers.
9. Answer Questions Quickly
I’ve lost out on a couple of sales because I didn’t quickly reply to emails. Because some of my products are digital, I can make them up and email them right away. I sometimes get requests from customers who need their item NOW and when I quickly respond I usually make a sale.
10. Create A Facebook Page For Your Etsy Shop
This is something I haven’t completed yet, but I’m working on it and know it will improve sales!
If you persistently implement the tips I just shared in promoting your Etsy store, you will see results!
Shannon is a stay-at-home mom married to her best friend. Together they are raising six kids. You can find her Etsy shop here.
Cheryl says
Thanks for all the wonderful tips! You have left me with motivation and a few new ideas, I hope that will spring my shop forward with where I ultimately want be, a crafting stay at home mommy!
http://www.etsy.com/shop/nostalgicbabies
Gorica says
I just started my Etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/striksandmix about a month ago and have not made any sales.
I will use your tips. I hope that my sales will be better.
Matt Sweeny says
Thanks for this, we have our Etsy store at https://www.etsy.com/shop/WisconsinBrewingHops where we offer hops for beer fans needing hops for wedding decorations and the like. Cheers
Phallin @Four Sisters Farm Soap Co. says
Thank you so much for these tips!!! I would have to agree that answering questions as quickly as possible is so important for a sale!!!
Phallin @Four Sisters Farm Soap Co. says
I’ll also add that I have only been actively selling my soap for one year on Etsy and in just 13 months I have hit 995 sales. I think that getting over 100 items in your shop and having awesome SEO (title and tags) make a huge difference.
April @ A Simple Life says
Per #2 – Get creative and ask others opinions on how you can sell your products from a different angle.
If anyone would be willing to review my daughter’s site and provide feedback, I would be grateful.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/LoveBySarah?ref=si_shop
Crystal says
I just got an email to talk more about Etsy teams.
Here is my shop link: https://www.etsy.com/shop/PersonalizedaMAZEing
First off I have been on Etsy for almost 2years. It started really slow, this year I have already tripled my sales from LY in just 5 mths. The minute I started on Etsy teams it was like the angels had sung. With a marketing background I knew how important it was to get my product out their and get seen.
Basically joining Etsy teams helps you build your shops search opportunity. It is an amazing Marketing tool and if you spend the time and do it right it will help your product and your shop get followers, sales, and easier to find in customer searches.
Etsy teams:
1) Almost anyone can join an Etsy team. You do this by going to the left hand side at top of Etsy page. Click Community the scroll down to teams. You will see a list of teams. Most you have to ask to join an admin will approve you.
2) On the teams they have threads for you to follow. For example heart the item of a shop above you.(meaning favorite the heart Icon) The more hearts you get on an item will cause that item to move up in the Search engines.
3) Great support system. If you have concerns or need feedback about your shop their is a very active community their to help.
4) Find a team to meet your needs. They have local ones, instagram ones, jewelry ones, Facebook ones. The list goes on and on.
April @ A Simple Life says
This was so helpful! Maybe you should start a “secrets to Etsy success” blog:-)
Crystal says
I have thought about it. I have a group I created and wrote an Etsy Document and help launch some shops. It is all about timing for me right now.
Crystal says
I will take a peek.
D says
If you have an Etsy shop or are thinking about starting one, just be aware and comply with trademark laws. We have a saying at Etsy, “Don’t mess with the Mouse.” That means you CANNOT create and market anything with recognizable characters like from Frozen or making Minion hats. It’s tempting to jump on the coattails because people want to buy it, but any references and likeness to well-known characters is against the law unless you have licensing permission from the parent companies. It’s also not fair to those of us abiding by the rules.
You also MUST comply with CPSIA and FTC labeling laws, which is why you don’t see as many things for kids at craft shows anymore. Do your homework.
Crystal says
Great tips. Not sure about tags and title. Etsy just changed their search ads they have said to use same title and tags. I will say when I switched to this method my views increased from 100 views on average to 175 views. I make a very good in come on Etsy love it biggest thing is to find what you like to do, do not under price your items, be patient. Also, be active on etsy teams an in the community of Etsy . Hope I did not step on any toes this I a just my opinion.
April @ A Simple Life says
Would you be willing to tell us more about the Etsy Teams and how they work?
Beth Gawlowicz says
Love the idea about offering a freebie if they share your listing on Facebook or somewhere. I am slowly building my sales in my Esty shop too. This year I’ve already done as much as I did last year–and it’ s only May.
Thank you for the tips. If anyone needs a baby shower announcement or birthday invitation–check out my shop.
http://etsy.me/OKNu5G
Heather says
I commented once, but I also want to add the pinterest is a great tool for promoting as well! I have found it very useful.
Heather says
Great ideas! Many of your points I have found to be useful as I have built and continue to grow my etsy shop, I create personalized pillows. I also have had success promoting with blogs, on occasion. I feel that while it may not produce instant revenue, it does get your product out there for people to see and plants the seed for them to remember you when they are needing something unique and special.
I do have a question about your use if fiverr, I would like to know more about what you did and how it worked for you. Thanks for your post! ~ heather @FeatherHen
Monica @ RescuedinTime says
Thanks for sharing your Etsy tips – I am always looking for ways to improve my sales and marketing and love reading fresh ideas. Never thought to use Fiverr.com for marketing!
Johanna from Joy2Sew says
I enjoyed reading your article about how to sell on Etsy. Sometimes it is hot or miss, but my friend and I have been doing great selling on Etsy!
My friend, Joy, from Joy2Sew has an Etsy shop where she sells stencils and original PDF pattern designs from the movie Frozen. We have been having amazing sales with the original pattern design by Joy along with my digital pattern designs create for one the best dresses out there on Etsy.
Please check us out and make a dress for the little girls in your life that love Princess Anna or Elsa in your life!!
https://www.etsy.com/shop/joy2sew
Reagan says
How would do you list custom orders on etsy? I started out with a Facebook page that has been pretty good but hard because there isn’t an easy way to pay and then started an etsy beginning of this year and haven’t sold anything from it yet. I know I don’t have enough products listed and also like you said finding a place is hard because I crochet and there are so many different shops. About how long did out take to actually start making some money? I’m definitely going to try to do more of these things to see if I can get some sales! Thank you for the tips.
Lauren @ Mommy's Getting Strong says
Reagan,
For me it took about 8-9 months before I was REALLY making money with Etsy. I was doing a couple hundred a month before then, but around the 9 month mark it really took off for me. This was also around the time that I had 75-100 listings for sale, which helps for visibility and promotion. People like to see shops with lots of options.
For custom items, I made sure that I had the “custom order” button on the side of the shop (I can’t remember exactly how to do that, but I think there is a clickbox somewhere that you click saying that you will accept custom orders from that listing). I also made sure that in every listing description I put that if you wanted something different, different font, different colors, etc I would be more than happy to make a custom item for you. I did highly customizable items (applique kid’s items) so it was easy for me to customize it.
I hope that helps!
Reagan ( Rea Rea's Crochet ) says
Thank you! I knew I needed to list a lot more and more often. That’s a bit daunting to get 100 listing up but I’d love to make a few hundred dollars a month, that sounds great 🙂 Thank you for the tips and I’ll have look up the custom order button. I’m wondering if it’d be better to direct all of my sales through etsy. Like if someone orders on Facebook make a listing for them to buy from instead. I need to figure out how to link my etsy and Facebook too, I wish I was better with computers, I get lost easily… thats really sad being 25 and having a computer pretty much my whole life. Oh well hopefully I can get it all figured out!
Angela (Colour and Cotton) says
I just started my Etsy shop about a month ago and have made two sales, which have really given me the motivation to do more! It’s always a little thrill when someone pays you for something you’ve made.
I’ve really been focusing on learning a lot from users at the forums, reading up on SEO, etc. Thank you so much for the compilation of tips!
Lauren @ Mommy's Getting Strong says
I have also had an etsy store (for about a year and a half) and it is interesting to me that you say that you should use DIFFERENT tags in the bottom than the title because everything I read about increasing search visibility always said to use the same ones so that it will come up higher in the results. I don’t know if that is true or not, but I always did it and had good results.
I’d add to this list:
Don’t underprice your items. Cheap items make it seem to the consumer like they are not as well made
Have good descriptions
Offer custom items
And the biggest thing I found that DIDN’T work to increase sales: coupon codes. It seemed like the only people that used them were people that I knew (like friends) who would’ve bought anyway.
Great article! Etsy can be an interesting place to be working, but the barriers for entry are very low so it is a great place to start if people are looking to grow their hobby into something more.