I opened my Etsy shop in 2011, and I’ll be honest…it was…very bootstrapped together. There is nothing wrong with that, but I wanted to share 9 things that I wish I would have considered and done before opening my Etsy shop.
First of all, I love Etsy, especially for someone that is brand new and has never opened an online shop before because you can really hit the ground running and don’t need very much to start. Etsy has a ton of features that are built in including shop policies you don’t have to write from scratch, the ability to purchase shipping labels, integrated google shopping ads, and more. This makes it really easy and simple to build and run your shop.
That being said, your success on Etsy really depends on how prepared you are, the quality of you products, your branding, and a whole lot more. Here’s a few tips I highly recommend you do before you open shop!
1. Pick a Niche
You may already have this picked out, considering you’re reading this article to sell something in the first place!
However, if you’re a multi-passionate creative that makes a ton of different stuff, I would recommend you decide a general theme or type of product to sell in your shop. Etsy shops tend to perform better when everything is cohesive in some way because it creates stronger branding. People may become confused or overwhelmed if you’re selling everything but the kitchen sink in your shop!
Now, I’m not saying you can’t sell different kinds of products in your shop. BUT it would be beneficial for them to go together somehow. If you are a painter and you sell a variety of items such as prints, t-shirts, enamel pins, etc. then it may help to have a particular theme or style that your products reflect.
You’ll also want to keep in mind Etsy’s policy on what you are allowed to sell when picking your niche: everything must be handmade, vintage, or some sort of craft supply. I highly recommend you read Etsy’s seller policy before you commit to anything.
If you decide to work with a production partner to get t-shirts printed for example, you are able to do that as long as the designs are yours and you disclose that production partner in the items details.
2. Do Market Research
The next important thing you should do is to research the market you’re trying to sell in. You can check out google trends to see how your particular niche is performing. Pinterest trends is also a great place to look.
However, the most important place you should look is on Etsy itself.
Do some searches for the kinds of items you’re planning on selling to see how shops that sell similar items are performing. You’ll be able to see what items are selling and how many overall sales a shop has. When you search for the item, are there a lot of search results that come up? Do the shops that are selling these items have a good amount of sales and/or reviews?
Another tool you can use is erank. This tool has a free and a paid version, but you should be able to do enough initial research with the free version. Erank will allow you to take a look at the search volume and competition of keywords that people use to search for an item.
This will give you a clearer picture of how much of these items your shop could potentially sell. If people aren’t searching for your item on Etsy, you may not be able to sell very many. On the other hand, if you find that the search volume is high and the competition is low, you may have just found yourself a sweet spot. (***You can still sell items that are in a competitive niche, but finding high volume / low competition keywords is ideal!)
3. Get Familiar With The Etsy Handbook
Etsy has created it’s own handbook for sellers and you definitely don’t want to skip out on this. It’s important to become familiar with their policies, but it’s also a really helpful guide that will show you how to find success on Etsy.
I know…reading all of this stuff is ALOT. But the handbook is broken up into different topics and articles so it’s all easily digestible. I suggest starting with the “getting found” section. Etsy has it’s own search algorithm and you’ll want to learn all about their search engine optimization tips so your shop can be found in search.
4. Brainstorm About Branding
I know, I know. Some people will argue with me on this because your shop is on Etsy, which is not entirely customizable. But I think branding is still really important with an Etsy shop.
When you set up your shop, you’ll be able to upload a logo, a shop name, a shop banner, an about section with photos, and of course all of your items! All of these components of your Etsy shop reflect your brand.
I’m not going to do a deep dive in this post about branding, because it’s a rather dense topic, but you definitely want to keep in mind the audience and type of customers you want to attract to buy your items as well as the general look and feel of you want to portray with your shop. You can use free tools like canva to create a logo and starting gathering any pictures of you with your items as well as any photos that tell your brand’s story.
Your brand can develop and evolve over time, but it’s something you should put some time into when you first start.
5. Design and Make Your Products
This is the part you’ve been waiting for! Making your first products. You don’t have to go crazy and have 20 different products in your shop. In fact, having a few is totally fine. Your products will most likely evolve just like your brand will as you go along.
Etsy rewards faster shipping times, so you’ll want to have the item complete and ready to ship out once you open your shop. If you’re selling custom or made to order designs you’ll want to make some sort of prototype that you can photograph to show customers what they will be getting.
6. Test Out, Get Feedback, and Refine Products
You’ll want to test your products out and refine any details that aren’t working or that you don’t like. If you’re working with a production partner, now is the time to order samples to make sure that the product matches up with your expectations. This will give you time to make any edits so that you don’t feel overwhelmed.
Feedback is so important for new products. There are several ways you can go about getting it.
Asking friends and family
If you’re able to show the products in person to your friends or family, it will allow them to use and test out the product more thoroughly. Ask people who will give you honest feedback and any suggestions they may have for improvement.
Selling at a fair or market
It’s helpful to sell items in person because you’re able to gauge how much interest customers have in your products. Pay close attention to any products that customers keep looking at and also keep tabs on what items are selling well.
7. Research Your Competition and Determine Prices
This is a big one and it’s something that I wish I had done when I first started selling on Etsy. Shameful to say, but I treated my Etsy as a not so serious hobby and would pretty much guessed on my prices.
Considerations For Pricing Your Items
- Cost of materials
- Time to make the product – you’ll want to figure out how much your time is worth. This could be an hourly rate.
- Shipping and packaging costs – Etsy rewards sellers who offer free shipping on their products over $35, so you’ll want to determine if you will offer it and factor in the shipping cost in your price.
- What the average price your competitors are selling the item for on Etsy
I’m only scratching the surface of pricing. There is a lot more that goes into it that you can read about here.
Now we’ll be going back to doing a bit of research. You’ll want to use Etsy to take a look at what price points your competition is selling their products. This does not mean you have to sell your items for the exact same price. In fact, there may be people that sell their items for way less than what you’re going to want to sell yours. But I think it helps to take a look at a variety of shops to determine an average amount that the products sell for so that you can keep this in mind when determining your prices.
8. Take Product Photos
Photos are SO important for success on Etsy. Customers are searching products mostly by their picture, and you’ll want to stand out amongst the competition.
The good news is that you don’t need anything fancy for photos. You can use your phone to take high quality pictures these days.
Photography Tips
- Take photos in natural lighting so that the photos reflect the color of your product accurately
- Show the relative size of the product so that customers can easily see what they’ll be getting. You can do this by using a ruler in one of the photos or holding the item. Not everyone reads descriptions unfortunately and it will save you returns and upset customers in the long run.
- Take photos of the product being used. People are more inclined to buy something that is useful or tells a story
9. Open a PO Box
Once you start making sales on Etsy, you’re going to be shipping the items off with your return address on the label. I personally don’t like having my physical home address as the return address so I opened a PO Box. PO boxes are a bit of money up front, but you can pay for the year and feel good knowing that you’re not handing out your home address to everyone!
I hope you found these 9 things to do before opening an Etsy shop helpful and I wish you luck on your brand new shop!