It seems that you guys loved my previous post on Maintaining a Successful Etsy Shop & it recently hit me that I never actually talked more briefly about all of my ups and downs on selling your digital & DIY goods through Etsy.

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I opened my Etsy Shop in 2013 and made over 3000 sales since then and now I’m going to share some of the most important things you should consider when starting your first shop:

CHOOSE A NAME

You can change your name as often as you like before you open your shop by going to Your Shop > Shop Name. After you’ve opened your shop, you can change the shop name one time, so make sure you make the right decision. Keep it short & let it represent your products for you. I added a word ‘design’ to my shop’s name as I wanted my customers to know what I’m selling straight for my name. Mash & Peas might sound fun, but it wouldn’t really work if you’re trying to sell classy jewellery.

FIND OUT WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO SELL

So that’s a pretty obvious one. You should come up with a product that actually sells. Take time on this and decide on what you can do best & work on your products. It’s also a great idea to have at least 20+ items in the shop once you get started, so your shop looks professional & full of content. I believe I started with around 10 blog templates on there and didn’t start selling properly until I filled my shop with around 30 listings.

DO YOUR RESEARCH

There are thousands of other creatives trying to push the same product idea on Etsy, so you should make sure to do your research before you get in. If you can’t decide on the price you’d like to charge or are simply not sure what people are buying, simply find a few shops that you can get inspired by. Don’t copy their products or product description, but check out their most recent sales & how well certain products are doing. This can save you loads of time on creating items that sell.

STAY ORIGINAL

It’s alright to look at other people’s work as long as you keep your original idea straight. I could have set my prices down or keep adding hundreds of blog designs to get more sales, but I still prefer quality over quantity. For this reason, I choose to charge more for my items but provide free installation & customer support services. Find out what works for you and don’t just replicate strategy from other sellers.

CREATE BEAUTIFUL GRAPHICS

As in any other online market space, your branding is so important! Make sure you use easy to read fonts on your graphics & use beautiful photography. Your logo is also very important, so make sure it represents your brand at its best. If you’re running a website or blog as well as your ETSY shop, it’s best to keep the branding for them all pretty similar. If you’re looking for the right online tools to create your graphics, I’d suggest you check out Adobe Lightroom + Photoshop, they make it easy for you to create free covers for your products or put some extra text on your images.

TARGET YOUR MARKET

So are you ready to start selling? Let me tell you a simple secret- the great thing about selling on ETSY is that your potential customers are already looking for the stuff that you sell. You don’t have to put so much effort into driving the traffic to your Etsy shop. Go ahead and find a few sellers that might be selling similar products and study their audience. Who are these people? Where they come from? What troubles are they having & how your products can help. You can also check out their ‘Admirers’ and follow them, so they can check out your page too. This might feel spammy, but that’s how I got started. I simply spend a few days and followed thousands of people that I thought could become my customers and many of them got back to me & showed interest in my services or even bought something. There’s no shame in putting yourself out there. Especially if you’re just starting out and desperately need to build your customer base.

THINK ABOUT YOUR SEO

As any other online website, your shop will be searchable through search engines. Of course, only if you use keyword rich descriptions & titles. Make sure to include informative listing names as well as write a brief summary of what your customers will be getting by purchasing your items. It’s best if you use at least 2-3 words for your keywords. So, let’s say I want people looking for blog designs to find my themes. Instead of simply adding ‘blog’, ‘template’, ‘design’, ‘blogger’, ‘WordPress’, I would include something like ‘premade blogger template‘ or ‘modern WordPress theme‘. You really want to be more specific on this one. Think about every single item & brainstorm what keywords might be best. Ask your friends & family around. The more opinions you get- the better.

Read more: 7 Effective SEO Tips For Bloggers.

ETSY search option is also a great way to discover what customers are looking for, simply type in the first word for your item & see what are the most popular searches:

CREATE YOUR ONLINE PRESENCE

What really helped me to become a successful seller on ETSY was actually my presence elsewhere. My clients love following my life on social media & reading my blog. I believe it puts my personality and my business together which really helps my clients trust me. Go ahead & start your blog today in 5 minutes, it’s all that it takes!

PROMOTE

Don’t forget to let your people know about a new shop. Share the link to your social media accounts, e-mail your subscribers or simply mention it on your next friends’ gathering. You should be proud of your new business & learn to accept the criticism in the early stages. Receiving some honest feedback can really help you grow & improve.

Hope you got some useful tips from this post, folks! Don’t let yourself down if your items won’t sell first on the first day or even week. Renewing your items from time to time can help your shop to look active even if it’s not getting any sales, so don’t let them get hidden on the last page and click on that ‘Renew’ button from time to time. If you want this to pay off- you have to stay consistent and keep growing. Just keep working on your products & you will start getting sales in no time!