Etsy is a boutique online marketplace that markets itself as a friendly place for small sellers selling homemade products (& big sellers that pretend to be small).
Their fees combined with strict rules against duplicate listings has helped them protect their market from the oversaturated, spammy feeling that Amazon & eBay seem to have at times.
As a result, the type of buyer it attracts appears to be willing to spend a little extra as long as both the product & seller appear fit the"Etsy mold".
By that, I'm referring to how your product is displayed on a listing screen.
If you look at a product listing, Etsy prominently features the shop & the shop's rating at the top of the product listing, often making it the first thing a buyer sees.
Underneath the listing images, a short product description is displayed, but it gets truncated to about ~5 lines of text. After that, the Shop's reviews are displayed.
A short analysis of an Etsy listing with a critical eye shows that a primary on a shop's ability to establish a rapport & trust with it's customers, in addition to the product listing being quality.
Is Etsy Worth It?
Etsy's online marketplace saw an increase of 5.4 million customers in 2018 - an increase of +17%!
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Source: Etsy 2018 Year in Review
As sellers, we need to take notice when buyers flock to different places.
If Etsy's 17% growth year over year is an indicator of buyer tendencies moving forward, then we should capitalize on that potential and open an Etsy shop with our best products today.
Donald Wilson, founder of Gearbubble, recently said this about what an opportunity Etsy presents:
- Far less competition than Amazon
- Easier and cheaper to scale. (simple ads, $1-$5/day budget is all you need)
- Incredible SEO - Etsy has incredibly strong SEO - stronger than any on-demand platform in existence. If you want fast and free traffic Etsy will snag it right from Google for you.
- "Simply put, Etsy is absolutely crushing it for our sellers ...You should be leveraging that traffic."
I didn't take Etsy seriously for FAR too long, so learn from my mistake & open your Etsy shop right now!
Optimizing Your Etsy Shop
This assumes you've already opened your seller account by going to Etsy & clicking the "Sell on Etsy" account, then filling out the required information.
Once the seller account is officially up and running, you'll need to create a shop. Don't sleep on the importance of giving off a professional, but also friendly small business vibe.
Here are some tips on how to do that:
- Click your "Shop Manager" icon in the top right corner
- Click your shop name under "Sales Channels" on the left-hand vertical side bar. If it's not there, create your shop
Shop: Banner
Click the header of your shop which should launch the "Choose banner style" prompt. Select "Big Banner".
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Check out the website Pexels.com for royalty free images that are allowed for both commercial & non-commercial use. Read more about their license here.
I searched for the word "comfort" and saw multiple images that would make great options for a nice friendly/cozy welcoming image for an Etsy shop.
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Select an image, download it in high res (for free), and upload it to Etsy as your banner (they let you crop it after upload).
Shop: Profile Image
Like any online profile, you're going to need an avatar. I don't use my personal picture. Instead, I used Pexels again and found a nice stock photo model that looked friendly.
I searched for "positive" and thought this could be a nice profile image:
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Some people like to use pictures of their dogs too.
Shop: Owner
If you couldn't already guess, I also recommend using Pexels to find a profile pic that represents you as the shop owner.
I searched for "smiling person" and found a bunch of great options:
Pexels for smiling person">
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I also recommend filing out the City, so that your shop can show up in local search results, as well as filling out the About Us.
Feel free to copy+paste this in:
Hey there!
My name is [NAME], and I LOVE designing things that will put a smile on my customers faces :)
If there's anything I can do for you, don't hesitate to reach out & I'll get back to you as soon as possible.
Thanks,
[NAME]
Shop: About Section
I took the time to add a video + photos when I opened my first shop (that was shut down).
Following that, I think it's best NOT to fill these out, as they will likely garner more attention from the Etsy content team.
You want to stay off their radar, so I recommend against doing things that might result in a human manually reviewing your shop.
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Shop: Members
I have my personal profile listed as the "Owner" of the shop.
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Here's a blurb you can copy for your "About" portion:
Welcome to my shop! I absolutely love drawing, whether it's with a pen and paper or on my computer. Artistic expression has always been a big part of my life, and I can't believe that today, my Etsy shop has given me the opportunity to do it for a living - it's a dream come true! Please reach out to me if you have any questions & thank you for stopping by :)
Shop: Policies
If I remember correctly, Etsy provides a template for Shipping / Payment Options / Returns & Changes. Here's what I'm using for each:
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As for privacy policy, I'm not using one. If you choose to, Etsy does provide reference material on how to write privacy policies.
Shop: More Information
Similar to my reasons for leaving the About section blank, I opted not to fill out the "More Information" portion of my shop that includes a section for a FAQ & seller details.
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Additional Notes
Etsy will publicly display some data points, like the year your shop was opened, how many sales you've made, and your reviews.
Like most eCommerce platforms, you want to establish yourself as a trustworthy merchant by by garnering positive customer feedback, so the sooner you start the better!
Etsy Shop + Printful Production Partner
Assuming you have already connected your Printful to your Etsy account, there's only a few optimizations left to perform.
Otherwise, click the Printful logo below, set up an account, and connect it to Etsy - it should only take ~10 minutes.
Check out an earlier post where I go over the Printful integration workflow to post a new listing to your Etsy account.
Before publishing your listing to Etsy, find the Production Partners section & add one for Printful.
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Here's the information I used for entering Printful as my production partner:
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- Production partner: Printful
- Location: Chatsworth, CA
- About production partner:
I couldn't function without Printful. In their role as a production partner, they print, pack, & ship out orders from their California production/fulfillment center, allowing me to focus on what I'm best at - designing top-notch products that my customers will love! - About your partnership:
- I don't have the technical ability or equipment to make it entirely by myself
- I design everything myself
- They do everything for me
If you also use Gearbubble to fulfill orders, you can use the exact same information except change Location to "Las Vegas, NV".
Then, whenever you submit a product to your store, remember to click the checkbox for the corresponding production partner:
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Etsy Account Suspended?
The story of my first account:
Opening an Etsy shop is a straightforward process. While there's no application or wait period, they do have a rather strict content team that will review new shops & not hesitate to shut them down if they don't see it as a good fit.
They go out of their way to protect their image as a boutique online store, and no seller is too big to ban.
When I first opened my shop (with no intentions of selling dropshipped print on demand items), I listed a product that I had stocked in my parents basement and planned to sell through my website that I started in college that gets around 300K hits/month.
Ultimately, it was a great learning experience but a failure nonetheless. The product didn't sell well on Amazon, nor did it sell through my website, and on top of that it got my Etsy account closed because they decided it wasn't a good fit for their audience.
This is the email I received from Etsy notifying me of my account closure:
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As you can see, there's little to no justification from their end. Also, don't bother trying to appeal it - trust me, they don't care to reinstate you.
The story of my second account:
The story of how my second Etsy account got banned is a short one.
Every seller account requires keeping a credit card on file. I used the same credit card on my second account that I did on my first, so their automated detection easily sniffed it out and closed it down.
If you're looking to open a new Etsy shop after a previous ban, Google "Etsy stealth account".
Etsy 2018 Year In Review
Today Etsy sent it's seller a 2018 year in review email, where they share both seller-specific analytics, as well as some valuable data from Etsy's marketplace.
As the majority of my sales for the year came from t-shirts & hats, they gave me an insight into what else buyers were looking for within the Clothing category:
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From the picture, we can see some popular queries that were typed by buyers into Etsy's search:
- vintage clothing
- lingerie
- shirts
- gucci shirt
- tommy hilfiger
- teacher shirts
- baby girl coming home outfit
Unfortunately we weren't given any scope here, so I have no way of knowing if these were popular terms over the year, or just recently leading up to the holidays.
They also highlighted an increase in international sales:
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This is funny timing, because I recently found the map within the seller dashboard they shows you your buyers locations around the globe & wrote about it in my November 2018 income report.
Here was my snapshot of my map for the year:
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The point of me sharing that wasn't to brag about my international sales, rather I wanted to highlight that your online shop is visible to both a domestic and international audience!
Plus with the Printful integration, you can easily fulfill orders to Europe without having to pay shipping from the United States as they have a fulfillment center in Riga, Latvia.
Additional "Official" Resources
Etsy highlighted a few resources & tools that they published earlier in the year that were intended to benefit & educate sellers:
- The Ultimate Guide to Etsy Search
- Free Targeted Offers (helps increase conversion rate by targeting peopel who add to cart or favorite your items)
- Search Analytics
