My name is John, we run the Etsy shop CiceroLeather.
Over the past 5.5 years, our Etsy shop has been fortunate enough to have over 43,000 sales.
We made a lot of mistakes along the way and we weren’t successful on Day 1, but we persevered and learned what it takes to build a successful Etsy business.
You ready?
HOW TO BUILD A SUCCESSFUL ETSY BUSINESS (43,000+ SALES)
I recommend you read the whole article (a few times). In case, you get interrupted, make sure to bookmark it now for future reference.
Complete Commitment
Most people don’t truly understand the time and energy that is required to have a successful online business.
If you put in a part-time effort, you will get part-time results.
On the flip side, putting in a full-time effort still doesn’t guarantee you success if you are doing it wrong. This guide is for the people that are ready to take action.
Do each of these steps in order, and you’ll be on the way to a building a thriving business.
Take Action
OK, now its time to take action.
Not tomorrow, now.
This guide does you no good if you don’t take action.
Find a quite place in your home, remove all distractions and let’s turn your Etsy shop into a success.
Use this guide as your blueprint. To be successful at anything, the best course of action is to:
Find yourself a mentor and do exactly what they tell you.
Don’t follow multiple mentors, just pick one and execute.
Self Evaluation
I generally write articles as bluntly as possible. I don’t like to sugar coat things, just to spare your feelings.
Think of this as your own personal Etsy Seller’s Bootcamp.
The most important part of the Self Evaluation is the reality check.
You need to get real. You need to be 100% honest with yourself, or this isn’t going to work.
The Pep Talk
Listen, if you already have an Etsy shop, congratulations. You have taken a step most people never do.
Give yourself a pat on the back. Seriously, most people just talk about doing stuff but you’re different, you took a huge step forward.
Trust me, when your store starts getting sales and you have your 1st ‘viral’ sales explosion, you’re going to love it.
I still remember ours, July 12th, 2013. For those of you who don’t know, we live in Chiang Mai, Thailand, which is about a 12 hour time difference from North America.
We had just installed the Etsy app on our phone so we could receive notifications for convos. We didn’t want to miss a single customer’s question, so we lost a lot of sleep that 1st year.
How to Build a Successful Etsy Business (43,000+ Sales)
Our 1st Viral Sales Explosion
Anyways, during the night (July 12th, 2013), our phone made a ‘cha-ching’ sound, like a cash register, we had just made a sale. Then another ‘cha-ching’, then another, then another… We sold 20+ iPhone wallets that night and fell asleep to beautiful ‘cha-ching’ sounds.
When you start seeing all your hard work paying off, its worth it.
The Big Picture
Etsy is an international website. It brings you customers from all over the world.
This is obviously an excellent thing.
It also brings artisans and sellers from all over the world, i.e., your competition.
You can view this as good and bad.
Good because competition will drive you to be better, work harder and go the extra mile to be successful.
Bad because if you aren’t willing to go the extra mile, someone else will, and they will get the majority(all) of the sales.
Being lazy doesn’t work when you are competing on an International level.
Market Research
You need to research these three things:
Your Niche (your product)
Your Competition
Your Persona
Define your Niche
For starters, you should already know and have a clearly defined niche.
It will help to keep you focused and to help you properly build and develop your brand.
For example, our niche is handmade leather wallets.
Our wallets are supposed to be beat-up, scratch easy, look vintage on day 1.
This is a clearly defined niche. So we wouldn’t do anything or go after customers, that wouldn’t want that exact product.
Do people actually want to buy your products?
There are pros and cons to every niche.
Our product is evergreen.
People are always going to want wallets.
So this is a good thing because we have lots and lots of customers. But evergreen products also come with very high competition.
Fad niches are good while the fad lasts but once interest dries up, so do the sales.
I highly recommend evergreen niches.
Long-tail niches have fewer customers and less competition. If you can dominate a long-tail niche, it’s easier to establish your brand.
Picking a niche is entirely up to you but just make sure, it fulfills a need and that there are people who actually want to buy your product.
How to Build a Successful Etsy Business (43,000+ Sales)
Are your items priced correctly?
Pricing is very, very important to success.
Make sure to spend some time and read this section carefully.
Don’t randomly look at your competition, and price your items $1 cheaper.
I repeat, don’t randomly look at your competition, and price your items $1 cheaper.
Remember Dell computers? Every year, computers got cheaper and cheaper and cheaper because all those PC computer makers were essentially offering the same product, they just keep lowering the price in futile attempts to maintain their market share.
Don’t do this!!
What did they actually accomplish?
They nearly bankrupted themselves and opened the door to let the once bankrupted company, Apple back in.
Pricing is critical! Apple knows this, and you should price your items like Apple, not Dell.
Focus on convincing your customers that your products are fantastic and worth the price you charge. (Branding)
The Etsy shops that take amazing pictures, sell high-quality items and price them accordingly, will survive and thrive.
Your Competition
Who is your competition?
Can you genuinely compete with them?
Is there an area of your niche nobody is doing?
What makes you different?
Knowing your competition is very important.
The landscape of handmade leather wallets on Etsy has changed quite a bit over the last 5 years. Most of the larger shops that existed when we started out have faded away or quit.
Etsy competition is tough. There are going to be rough patches where you might consider giving up.
You have to try (without swearing and breaking your laptop), to view competition as a good thing.
Your top competitors are doing something right. Actually, they’re probably doing everything right.
You have to ‘skyscraper’ what they’re doing right. Skyscrapering means to one-up the competition.
Do they take better pictures than you?
Does their shop looks more professional than yours?
Do they offer upgradeable services?
The list goes on and on.
Analyze your competition. Make a list of all the things they do right.
Then, make those same changes to your shop. Even better, go the extra step further.
Can you truly compete with them?
If you have amazing products, forget about the competition.
I love our wallets. I’m truly proud of them.
I know other companies make $200 wallets, or even $1000 wallets but that’s not what I do.
We make awesome wallets, that are affordable and that put smiles on people’s faces.
If you have awesome products, forget about the competition.
There will be customers who like your product, that believe in your brand.
Is there an area of your niche that nobody is doing?
Look around and try to be original.
But most of all, listen to your customers.
The majority of the items and services I sell today were customer’s requests and ideas.
Not my ideas, my customers’ ideas.
“Hey, do you guys make a money clip wallets?”
No we don’t but we could, do you want us to make you one?
Presto! A new product line is born.
How to Build a Successful Etsy Business (43,000+ Sales)
What makes you different?
I guess this goes hand in hand with the last point. And definitely, we will cover it more in the branding section later on.
Before you start your business, it’s essential to know what is going to make you different, aka. Differentiators.
The more things that set you apart from your competition, the better but also, its going to reinforce your brand image.
Try to dig deeper than the typical answer, “We make and sell a quality product.”
When we started out, nobody was personalizing wallets. So, we stepped in and fulfilled a need.
Your Persona
How is your shop, yourself and your product perceived by others?
If you make amazing products but take crappy pictures, what do you think people are going to do?
Trust me, customers don’t read listings.
Customers aren’t going to say, “Hey, I think this guy makes amazing products, but he just has crappy pictures, maybe I’ll just ignore the pictures and give him a try anyways.”
You’re dreaming!
People buy pictures, not products.
I repeat.
People buy pictures, not products.
People share pictures, not item descriptions.
People love sharing beautiful pictures on Pinterest, give them something awesome to share.
Your shop, yourself and your product, have to tell a story. People want to know who you are, what your creative process is. They want and need to trust you before they are going to buy from you.
Getting Advice from Others
I think self-evaluations have to be done by yourself. (Thank you Captain Obvious)
If you have to get advice from someone else, don’t ask your friends and family.
Friends and family sugar coat things.
Also, your friends and family quite often don’t want you to succeed or are scared for you to succeed. Or scared for you to fail. Or, they aren’t entrepreneurs themselves, so they view the world differently.
You need to make decisions for yourself.
Be honest, be blunt, get serious.
If your products aren’t selling, there is a reason why.
Don’t lie to yourself.
Instead, figure out why they aren’t selling.
Why Etsy?
Do you understand what Etsy is to you?
The benefits?
There are two basic internet marketing concepts, everyone should 100% understand.
Traffic
Sales Funnel
I’ll explain and tell this to anyone that will listen, even my mother.
If you are selling something, you need to understand these two concepts.
Let’s use the classic lemonade stand for our example.
Traffic
We need people to see our lemonade stand. Same with all storefronts, brick and mortar type businesses, location is vital.
Great location brings lots of ‘organic’ traffic. People are walking and driving by.
So, you should place your lemonade stand on a busy corner. (not hidden in your backyard)
If you are a super-star lemonade stand owner, you could also print flyers, and post them around the neighborhood.
You could have your little brother directly distribute the flyers to people, etc.
Sales Funnel
Once people are standing in front of your lemonade stand, with money in hand, you need to convince them to buy.
Your lemonade (your product) needs to look yummy and appetizing.
The seller needs to smile and be welcoming and polite. (customer service)
Everything possible needs to be done, to convert the ‘traffic’ into sales.
Also known as conversions.
So why Etsy then?
The key benefit of having an Etsy shop is traffic.
In my lemonade stand example, you spent a lot of time and maybe money, getting people to find your lemonade stand.
What if you didn’t have to do this step. (or at least spend a lot less time on traffic generation)
With all that extra time, you could have worked harder on your Sales Funnel.
You could have also sold some cookies and doubled your sales.
Etsy sends you all the traffic you will ever need.
How do I get Etsy to send me customers?
Ahhh, the golden question.
Let’s discuss one more key concept first and then I will explain how to get Etsy to send you traffic.
How are Traffic and your Sales Funnel Related?
For many business models, the traffic and sales funnel are not related at all.
With your lemonade stand, your traffic was generated by putting the stand on a busy corner and by printing flyers.
Your sales (sales funnel) were generated by having yummy lemonade and friendly customer service.
In this scenario, your traffic and sales funnel have no direct relationship.
They are independent of each other.
Let’s use Google Pay per Click ads, as another example.
Your Traffic is generated by paying for customers, i.e., you pay per click.
Sales Funnel – once they get to your webpage, you need to convince them to buy. i.e.,with beautiful pictures, attractive pricing, enticing copy write, etc.
So with PPC advertising, Traffic and Sales Funnel have a limited relationship, mostly independent of each other.
How are Etsy’s Traffic and Sales Funnel Related?
How do you get Etsy to send you, customers?
How do you get traffic?
The answer is simple:
Have the best Sales Funnel in your niche
Etsy’s traffic and sales funnel is directly related.
Etsy wants sales too, right?
If your items sell well, Etsy will give them better and better exposure on their website.
The more exposure you get, the more traffic you get.
Again, if your items sell well (convert), Etsy gets really happy and sends you even more traffic.
And the snowball effect has begun.
Conversions >> more exposure >> more traffic >> more conversions >> more exposure >> more traffic >> and on and on it goes.
The key to keep this going is to keep improving your Sales Funnel.
Please say it out loud:
“I need to keep improving my sales funnel if I want to be successful on Etsy!”
Yes, I make it sound easy.
Nothing is easy. Hard work is always key to success, especially on Etsy.
Your competition will see your success and mimic it.
You have to keep fighting for your traffic, don’t let up.
Its smart to have multiple products that convert well. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
With our shop, we’ll see an item do really well for 2 weeks, and then ‘poof’, the traffic dries up.
Let’s talk more about the Sales Funnel.
Sales Funnel
As we have already hammered home, getting customers to your Etsy shop is directly related to having an excellent Sales Funnel.
If you make your shop awesome, the traffic will come, the sales will happen, you will be successful.
It doesn’t happen overnight, but if you follow this guide, it will happen.
Take awesome pictures
Use Keyword rich titles and tags.
List your items in the correct category.
Write accurate, complete product descriptions.
Write a complete About Us page.
Write complete, clear store policies (use the Etsy provided template)
Professional logo
Professional banner
Use your featured items, display your best-converting items here.
Properly set customers’ expectations
Answer convos quickly and very politely
When a customer comes to your homepage (front page), they should instantly know what you are selling.
They should be impressed.
Take pride in your store. Don’t skip anything.
Do your best in everything you do.
Customers notice the small things.
In this next section, we’re going to cover two main topics:
Sales Conversions
The Exact Necessary Steps you Need to take to Improve your Etsy Shop’s Sales Funnel
Sales Conversions
Sales conversions are simple.
It’s a mathematical ratio, sales divided by views. To make it look more readable times it by 100 and turn it into a percentage.
For example, I’ll randomly pick a wallet from my shop and look at the 30-day stats.
OK. Take the sales and divide them by the views. 10/752= 0.013297
This is an ugly useless number. Times it by 100 and turn it into a percentage. 0.013297 * 100 = 1.329% or just 1.33%
So, this listing over the last 30 days, converted 1.33% of the traffic that viewed it. Not too bad.
Our shop personally aims to have >1% conversions. (The larger the number, the better)
Why do we need to know this?
Knowing your store’s sales conversions is very powerful and can quickly give you valuable information on areas that need improvement and areas that are excelling.
Areas that Need Improvement
If a listing is below 1% sales conversions, you need to figure out why.
Pictures are bad
Pictures are incomplete, certain key details are not shown
No consumer demand for the product
The list can go on and on. But you need to figure it out.
Sometimes you just have to de-list the item and focus your attention on the good listings that are converting.
How to Build a Successful Etsy Business (43,000+ Sales)
Your Ego
Don’t let your ego make decisions.
If the sales conversions are low, you have problems, plain and simple.
The numbers can really help you fix a problem you didn’t notice.
Only a very tiny percentage of your customers will message you and ask questions about a product.
(Note: these customers are close to buying, close the sale!)
The majority of people will look and if something turns them off, they move on.
Even the smallest of details, possibly just one small change, could be the difference between making lots of sales or zippo.
When customers do message you, listen to what they are saying.
If customers keep asking if you make something in black (and you currently don’t), maybe consider making it in black.
If they are asking for black, give them black!
Again, don’t let your ego get in the way of your success.
Give your customers what they are asking for. The messages they send you might generate a new idea that turns your shop into a money-making machine.
Areas of Excellence
If a listing is kicking some major butt, >2-3% conversions, you want to continue to focus your attention on it, get it more views, get it more exposure.
Make sure your best listings are in your featured items row. For those of you who haven’t discovered the featured items row, Etsy allows you to ‘pin’ 4 listings to the top of your store. You do this by clicking the star in the listing manager for the listing you wanted ‘featured’.
These are the listings, you want to promote with Etsy advertising. If a listing is converting, you want to get as much traffic to it as possible.
Consider outside (of Etsy) traffic sources. Again, your focus is to get as much traffic to these high converting listings as possible.
Get traffic to your Best Converting Items
The numbers don’t lie. People are viewing the product and they are buying, so if you have some time, work to send more traffic to these listings.
Make use of Pinterest. Make some awesome pins for these listings.
Write this down, i’ts on the test later, use Pinterest.
If you going to contact a blogger (or review website), make sure they reviewing these high converting items.
OK, let’s move on.
Etsy Success Sales Funnel
In the last chapter, we discussed how getting customers to your Etsy shop is directly related to having an amazing Sales Funnel.
It’s true. Very, very true.
If you make your shop awesome, the traffic will come, the sales will happen, you will build a successful Etsy shop.
It doesn’t happen overnight, but if you follow this guide, it will happen.
What are exact steps needed to make your Etsy shop into a Super Duper Sales Machine?
Take awesome pictures
We’ll go into this more detail in the next section, I’ll just reiterate one thing for now.
Focus most of your spare time on improving your product photos.
Do whatever it takes to make your pictures stand out from the crowd.
The shop with the best pictures will get all the sales, so make sure that shop is your shop.
Use Keyword rich titles and tags
A keyword rich title is paramount. The title is much more important than tags.
List your items in the correct category
Etsy seems to consistently make changes to the search algorithm, so you are going to want to stay vigilant and make sure your items are staying near the top of the search results.
Listing your items in the correct category is very important.
Etsy made an update in 2015 that we didn’t pay attention to, and we lost a lot of our search because our items we’re now in the wrong category.
I’d advise you to check your ‘keywords’, the keywords that send you the most traffic, every couple of weeks.
Also, make sure to vary your titles and tags for each item.
You don’t want to use only the popular keywords.
Try using keywords that aren’t as popular for some of your listings, this way you can catch some of the long-tail keyword traffic.
Write accurate, complete product descriptions.
If you can write short and complete descriptions, perfect.
Shorter the better.
Our shop’s descriptions use to be short but have grown over time.
Customers don’t like reading. Short descriptions are better, just make sure they are complete.
If a critical detail is missing, you will lose a lot of sales. Listen to your customer’s messages and feedback. i.e., If they keep asking about the thread, then maybe you need to put more information about the ‘thread’ in the listing.
Remember, only a small percentage of your customers will ask questions. The majority, will just move on and buy from someone else.
Write a complete About Us page.
Many Etsy shop owners skip the About Us section altogether.
Don’t be that person. The About Us page is an essential part of a successful Etsy business. Customers want to know who they are buying from.
This is the place where you get to tell your story and connect with your customers.
And it’s not just customers that read the About Us page.
Bloggers and review websites will also want to learn more about you.
Getting featured on websites like Create and Thrive, gets you great exposure, traffic, and backlinks.
If you don’t like writing about yourself, get a friend to write this page.
In my past life, the consulting firm I worked for, had all the employees write each other’s resumes, not their own.
It was a great idea. The person that wrote my resume made me sound ten times better than I ever would have.
Make sure to check back once in a while (every 6 months or so) and keep the page up to date.
I also like to use this section to add more content to your shop. I’ve added an FAQ to our About Us page.
Write complete, clear store policies
Again, most of your customers won’t ever read your store policies but for the ones that do, make sure they are complete and up to date.
How to Build a Successful Etsy Business (43,000+ Sales)
Professional logo & banner
Its hard to find affordable graphic designers. If you discover one, make sure you hang onto them. (save their contact information)
They very valuable and will be needed many times as your business grows.
If you personally have the skills, making the logo and banner yourself is cost-effective, but please make sure the end result looks awesome and fits in with your branding and target audience.
In the end, it’s better not to have a banner, than to have one that looks crappy. The shop owner picture should be your smiling face, not your dog or some other random image.
Use your featured items row, display your best-converting items here.
I talked about this earlier in the article. Make sure to utilize the featured items row.
Think with me for a second. (Google Analytics is useful for this next step)
What is the path customers take when finding your shop?
One popular route is this; they find a listing through search, they look at it, they become interested in your shop, then they either exit or they click and go to your shop homepage.
Presto! What do they see? Your banner and featured items row.
This is the moment where you need to impress them.
Use the featured item’s row.
Make sure your best-converting items are here.
Properly set customers’ expectations
When a customer comes to your homepage (front page), they should instantly know what you are selling.
They should be impressed.
Take pride in your store.
Don’t skip anything. Do your best in everything you do.
Customers notice the small things and so should you.
Product Photography
In all honesty, product photography could easily be #1 on this list, but I just wanted to make sure you understood the importance of the previous steps as they aren’t mentioned too often in other Etsy success guides.
One of the keys to a successful Sales Funnel is amazing pictures.
To accomplish this, you need to have access to proper camera equipment.
Don’t use an iPhone.
Buy, rent or borrow a camera/cameraman worthy of excellent product photography.
If I only had $1,000 to start my business, I will spend $1,000 dollar on a camera and product lens.
This is actually a true story. We spent our very last $1000 on a camera and lens because we knew it was a necessary investment we had to make.
Make high-quality product photographs, not just photos, but product photos.
Proper product photography shows clear images of your product and its features.
Clean up distractions in the background and make sure the images show off your product and its features.
People shopping online buy pictures, not products.
Take your time. Do not rush listings and pictures.
There shouldn’t be even one ugly image in your store or within your listings. i.e., A listing’s 5th picture should be as beautiful as the listing’s first picture.
I can hear some of you asking the question, what about using my friend, the photographer, to take my photos.
Take the advice of a veteran, you don’t want to rely on someone else when it comes to pictures.
This is something you have to own. You don’t need to become an expert photographer, but make sure you use high-quality equipment that you own and always have access to.
In the beginning, I literally put the camera on auto focus and just took thousands of pictures. I figured if I took enough, 5 of them should look good.
Here is an example Etsy shop that takes product photography very seriously. (using our advice)
They take all of their own photos and have developed a consistent style that becomes part of their branding.
If you model your shop to look like theirs, you’ll be in good shape.
Build a Brand
For a small business, the concept of Branding might seem a little overwhelming. On Day 1 of your business, you don’t have to have a million dollar logo and front page newspaper ads.
You do need to have a professional looking logo and a name that reflects your position in your niche.
Your brand needs to appeal to your target audience.
Your style, your pictures, your logo, your product, all need to be a cohesive unit.
Branding instills trust and value in your product and quite often is the tiebreaker between a sale versus a no sale.
Here is my must-have starter list for branding an Etsy shop:
Professional looking logo & banner that accurately reflects your product
Develop a consistent photography style (i.e., same background, same angles, same lighting)
Utilize Packaging – It’s a chance to remind your customers that you’re a brand capable of delivering a good product with a fantastic presentation. It’s your first physical interaction with a potential repeat customer.
Be Authentic
Find a way to make yourself unique. Adding a personal touch goes a long way to show you care and are genuinely proud of your product.
Most of all, be authentic. Don’t try to be something you are not.
As your business grows, find other ways to reinforce your brand.
And remember to stay true to your brand. Again be authentic.
When you make future business decisions, make sure to consider how those decisions will impact your branding.
Customer Feedback
Ahhh, the dreaded 1-star review. They make the blood boil!!
Customer feedback is vital to the success of your business. But most importantly, it’s your reaction to it, that is truly vital to the success of your business.
Listen carefully and follow these exact steps when you receive a 1-star review.
Read the review.
Walk away, and do something else for 1 hour.
Re-read the review.
Walk away, go exercise.
Re-read the review.
Now be objective. How are other customers going to react to this review? What is the 1-star reviewer’s true reason for leaving the bad review?
Don’t leave a public response!
I repeat, don’t leave a public response.
Leaving a public response is generally (almost always) a lose/lose situation.
Everybody is entitled to their opinion. Most of the time, the customer just wants their money back.
There are far too many situations for me to give you solutions for each and every one, but generally, you should very politely contact the customer and try to resolve it privately.
Most customers will remove the 1-star review if you ask them too.
In the extreme cases, where I believe the customer is just a very negative person, I don’t contact them.
Constructive Criticism – Don’t ignore it.
Lots of times, a 1-star, 2-star, or 3-star review can be the best thing that happens to your business.
Listen to your customers. Maybe you are doing something wrong.
Remember, they are your customers and if they aren’t liking something.
Fix it.
Remember: Your reaction to your customers’ feedback is vital to the success of your business.
Customer Service
As your Etsy shop grows, you will receive more and more inquiries from your customers.
3 Steps for Excellent Customer Service
Answer your customers very politely and with proper English.
Answer quickly, don’t make them wait.
Ask for the sale – answer their questions and then ask them if they would like you to make them a private listing or explain to them how to add it to their cart and checkout.
Help them Checkout
Lots of customers get stuck trying to check out. There are still many, many people that the online shopping experience is new to them and they have troubles making purchases. Help them!
Excellent customer service can push your brand past your competition and can give you great word-of-mouth referrals.
It can also be another venue for customer feedback. Most importantly, it can help seal a deal.
Etsy Search Engine Optimization
Listen, there are snake charmers out there who want you to believe Etsy search is complicated, it’s not.
Getting Your Listings Found by Customers
The title of your listing is the most important metric for Etsy’s Search Engine. The correct category and tags are secondary.
Search for the keyword you wish to rank for. Open the items which are ranking on page 1, write similar titles, use the same tags and place your item in the same category. That’s it.
If your Sales Funnel has been optimized and your shop/listings are converting, your internal Etsy search/category rankings will be higher, as Etsy wants to give more views to listings which sell.
Again you don’t need tools or paid advice.
Don’t take advice from people who don’t even have Etsy shops (or low sales).
Social Media
Remember people shopping online, don’t buy products, they buy pictures.
Let’s share beautiful pictures and make money.
Focus on social media that relies on photos such as:
1. Pinterest
2. Instagram
Facebook is necessary and useful for branding and for offering deals and giveaways, but until you are a super-duper internet marketing guru, I’d save your time and money and focus all your efforts on using the picture focused social platforms.
Pin Baby Pin
If I only could pick one (and to this day) only use one, its always going to be Pinterest.
Promoted Listings
Promoted Listings are a must.
Maybe not when you’re first starting out unless you are confident you know which items people are going to be buying.
Promoted listings are much more useful once you know which of your items are the top converters.
Very Important Configurations
Never use Automate bid. Only use Customize bid.
Turn off ‘Advertise new listings automatically.’
Go Slow
Don’t go crazy with promoted listings at first.
My top tips for beginners, add only your feature items, bid very low (10 or 15 cents per click) and take it day by day.
Gather Results
You want to monitor your results. Hopefully, you have some listings where the cost of advertising is only 20% of the Revenue generated. As you discover your best listings, slowly increase your advertising budget, focusing on your winners.
Focus and Execute
If you are still reading this article, you are obviously interested in learning how to create a successful Etsy business.
The internet is packed full of information. For most of us, it is too much information.
If you want to be successful, you have to learn how to focus and execute.
Stop reading how-to articles. Stop watching how-to videos.
Don’t buy any courses or tools!
I just laid out everything you need to know to successfully build an Etsy shop, for free!
The rest of the article is just bonus stuff that you can do to improve your sales and branding.
Realize your Dreams
Winners only see their dreams and do whatever it takes to realize them.
Losers only see what is stopping them, what obstacles stand in the way.
Contact Bloggers & Review Websites
Etsy will bring you all the traffic your shop needs, if you have an amazing sales funnel and an excellent product.
Bringing in outside traffic to your listings, shouldn’t be ignored, it’s just not your 1st priority.
Sharing your products on Pinterest will bring you some nice extra traffic, especially during the holiday season.
Blogger Outreach
Sources that often gets forgotten are bloggers and review websites.
This article put us on the map.
Adam from Gearmoose.com asked if we wanted to have our wallet featured on his website.
Even though Gearmoose.com wasn’t a large website (at the time), free publicity should never be turned down. (you should actively seek it out)
What happened next changed our lives.
That article was syndicated by 10+ other much bigger websites.
The traffic and sales we received from this one blog post generated $8k in sales over the next 2 weeks. Thank you, Adam.
Email Marketing
This tip is a game changer, and I wish we had discovered it sooner, like on Day 1!
The funny thing is, nobody else seems to know about it or at least they aren’t sharing this excellent tip: AWeber Etsy Integration.
AWeber-Etsy Integration
Do it now. Customers have to option to join your mailing list.
These are not leads, these are customers that have already purchased from your store.
You need to be able to reach them in the future, to drive future sales, social shares, etc.
Building an email list is critical for all online businesses. The sooner you start, the better!
Etsy Success Resources
Here are some other helpful resources:
CraftCount – use it to find successful sellers in your niche, don’t copy, study.
Etsy Announces Major Changes – insightful and intelligent blog posts
Don’t Follow False Gurus
Remember, there are lots of people willing to give you advice. Make sure they know what they are talking about.
Its an easy litmus test.
Go Check out their Shop
Do they have sales?
Would you buy from their shop?
Is their shop even open?
I wish everyone the best of luck in accomplishing your goals and building your own successful Etsy shop.
How to Build a Successful Etsy Business (43,000+ Sales)
Thanks for reading the article.
Please feel free to share it if you think its been helpful and share worthy!! And always follow the Blog to keep up with the tips on leather and leather wallets we share for you.
Read more: 5 IMPORTANT WAYS TO IMPROVE ETSY SALE
I recommend you read the whole article (a few times). In case, you get interrupted, make sure to bookmark it now for future reference.
Complete Commitment
Most people don’t truly understand the time and energy that is required to have a successful online business.
If you put in a part-time effort, you will get part-time results.
On the flip side, putting in a full-time effort still doesn’t guarantee you success if you are doing it wrong. This guide is for the people that are ready to take action.
Do each of these steps in order, and you’ll be on the way to a building a thriving business.
Take Action
OK, now its time to take action.
Not tomorrow, now.
This guide does you no good if you don’t take action.
Find a quite place in your home, remove all distractions and let’s turn your Etsy shop into a success.
Use this guide as your blueprint. To be successful at anything, the best course of action is to:
Find yourself a mentor and do exactly what they tell you.
Don’t follow multiple mentors, just pick one and execute.
Self Evaluation
I generally write articles as bluntly as possible. I don’t like to sugar coat things, just to spare your feelings.
Think of this as your own personal Etsy Seller’s Bootcamp.
The most important part of the Self Evaluation is the reality check.
You need to get real. You need to be 100% honest with yourself, or this isn’t going to work.
The Pep Talk
Listen, if you already have an Etsy shop, congratulations. You have taken a step most people never do.
Give yourself a pat on the back. Seriously, most people just talk about doing stuff but you’re different, you took a huge step forward.
Trust me, when your store starts getting sales and you have your 1st ‘viral’ sales explosion, you’re going to love it.
I still remember ours, July 12th, 2013. For those of you who don’t know, we live in Chiang Mai, Thailand, which is about a 12 hour time difference from North America.
We had just installed the Etsy app on our phone so we could receive notifications for convos. We didn’t want to miss a single customer’s question, so we lost a lot of sleep that 1st year.
How to Build a Successful Etsy Business (43,000+ Sales)
Our 1st Viral Sales Explosion
Anyways, during the night (July 12th, 2013), our phone made a ‘cha-ching’ sound, like a cash register, we had just made a sale. Then another ‘cha-ching’, then another, then another… We sold 20+ iPhone wallets that night and fell asleep to beautiful ‘cha-ching’ sounds.
When you start seeing all your hard work paying off, its worth it.
The Big Picture
Etsy is an international website. It brings you customers from all over the world.
This is obviously an excellent thing.
It also brings artisans and sellers from all over the world, i.e., your competition.
You can view this as good and bad.
Good because competition will drive you to be better, work harder and go the extra mile to be successful.
Bad because if you aren’t willing to go the extra mile, someone else will, and they will get the majority(all) of the sales.
Being lazy doesn’t work when you are competing on an International level.
Market Research
You need to research these three things:
Your Niche (your product)
Your Competition
Your Persona
Define your Niche
For starters, you should already know and have a clearly defined niche.
It will help to keep you focused and to help you properly build and develop your brand.
For example, our niche is handmade leather wallets.
Our wallets are supposed to be beat-up, scratch easy, look vintage on day 1.
This is a clearly defined niche. So we wouldn’t do anything or go after customers, that wouldn’t want that exact product.
Do people actually want to buy your products?
There are pros and cons to every niche.
Our product is evergreen.
People are always going to want wallets.
So this is a good thing because we have lots and lots of customers. But evergreen products also come with very high competition.
Fad niches are good while the fad lasts but once interest dries up, so do the sales.
I highly recommend evergreen niches.
Long-tail niches have fewer customers and less competition. If you can dominate a long-tail niche, it’s easier to establish your brand.
Picking a niche is entirely up to you but just make sure, it fulfills a need and that there are people who actually want to buy your product.
How to Build a Successful Etsy Business (43,000+ Sales)Are your items priced correctly?
Pricing is very, very important to success.
Make sure to spend some time and read this section carefully.
Don’t randomly look at your competition, and price your items $1 cheaper.
I repeat, don’t randomly look at your competition, and price your items $1 cheaper.
Remember Dell computers? Every year, computers got cheaper and cheaper and cheaper because all those PC computer makers were essentially offering the same product, they just keep lowering the price in futile attempts to maintain their market share.
Don’t do this!!
What did they actually accomplish?
They nearly bankrupted themselves and opened the door to let the once bankrupted company, Apple back in.
Pricing is critical! Apple knows this, and you should price your items like Apple, not Dell.
Focus on convincing your customers that your products are fantastic and worth the price you charge. (Branding)
The Etsy shops that take amazing pictures, sell high-quality items and price them accordingly, will survive and thrive.
Your Competition
Who is your competition?
Can you genuinely compete with them?
Is there an area of your niche nobody is doing?
What makes you different?
Knowing your competition is very important.
The landscape of handmade leather wallets on Etsy has changed quite a bit over the last 5 years. Most of the larger shops that existed when we started out have faded away or quit.
Etsy competition is tough. There are going to be rough patches where you might consider giving up.
You have to try (without swearing and breaking your laptop), to view competition as a good thing.
Your top competitors are doing something right. Actually, they’re probably doing everything right.
You have to ‘skyscraper’ what they’re doing right. Skyscrapering means to one-up the competition.
Do they take better pictures than you?
Does their shop looks more professional than yours?
Do they offer upgradeable services?
The list goes on and on.
Analyze your competition. Make a list of all the things they do right.
Then, make those same changes to your shop. Even better, go the extra step further.
Can you truly compete with them?
If you have amazing products, forget about the competition.
I love our wallets. I’m truly proud of them.
I know other companies make $200 wallets, or even $1000 wallets but that’s not what I do.
We make awesome wallets, that are affordable and that put smiles on people’s faces.
If you have awesome products, forget about the competition.
There will be customers who like your product, that believe in your brand.
Is there an area of your niche that nobody is doing?
Look around and try to be original.
But most of all, listen to your customers.
The majority of the items and services I sell today were customer’s requests and ideas.
Not my ideas, my customers’ ideas.
“Hey, do you guys make a money clip wallets?”
No we don’t but we could, do you want us to make you one?
Presto! A new product line is born.
How to Build a Successful Etsy Business (43,000+ Sales)What makes you different?
I guess this goes hand in hand with the last point. And definitely, we will cover it more in the branding section later on.
Before you start your business, it’s essential to know what is going to make you different, aka. Differentiators.
The more things that set you apart from your competition, the better but also, its going to reinforce your brand image.
Try to dig deeper than the typical answer, “We make and sell a quality product.”
When we started out, nobody was personalizing wallets. So, we stepped in and fulfilled a need.
Your Persona
How is your shop, yourself and your product perceived by others?
If you make amazing products but take crappy pictures, what do you think people are going to do?
Trust me, customers don’t read listings.
Customers aren’t going to say, “Hey, I think this guy makes amazing products, but he just has crappy pictures, maybe I’ll just ignore the pictures and give him a try anyways.”
You’re dreaming!
People buy pictures, not products.
I repeat.
People buy pictures, not products.
People share pictures, not item descriptions.
People love sharing beautiful pictures on Pinterest, give them something awesome to share.
Your shop, yourself and your product, have to tell a story. People want to know who you are, what your creative process is. They want and need to trust you before they are going to buy from you.
Getting Advice from Others
I think self-evaluations have to be done by yourself. (Thank you Captain Obvious)
If you have to get advice from someone else, don’t ask your friends and family.
Friends and family sugar coat things.
Also, your friends and family quite often don’t want you to succeed or are scared for you to succeed. Or scared for you to fail. Or, they aren’t entrepreneurs themselves, so they view the world differently.
You need to make decisions for yourself.
Be honest, be blunt, get serious.
If your products aren’t selling, there is a reason why.
Don’t lie to yourself.
Instead, figure out why they aren’t selling.
Why Etsy?
Do you understand what Etsy is to you?
The benefits?
There are two basic internet marketing concepts, everyone should 100% understand.
Traffic
Sales Funnel
I’ll explain and tell this to anyone that will listen, even my mother.
If you are selling something, you need to understand these two concepts.
Let’s use the classic lemonade stand for our example.
Traffic
We need people to see our lemonade stand. Same with all storefronts, brick and mortar type businesses, location is vital.
Great location brings lots of ‘organic’ traffic. People are walking and driving by.
So, you should place your lemonade stand on a busy corner. (not hidden in your backyard)
If you are a super-star lemonade stand owner, you could also print flyers, and post them around the neighborhood.
You could have your little brother directly distribute the flyers to people, etc.
Sales Funnel
Once people are standing in front of your lemonade stand, with money in hand, you need to convince them to buy.
Your lemonade (your product) needs to look yummy and appetizing.
The seller needs to smile and be welcoming and polite. (customer service)
Everything possible needs to be done, to convert the ‘traffic’ into sales.
Also known as conversions.
So why Etsy then?
The key benefit of having an Etsy shop is traffic.
In my lemonade stand example, you spent a lot of time and maybe money, getting people to find your lemonade stand.
What if you didn’t have to do this step. (or at least spend a lot less time on traffic generation)
With all that extra time, you could have worked harder on your Sales Funnel.
You could have also sold some cookies and doubled your sales.
Etsy sends you all the traffic you will ever need.
How do I get Etsy to send me customers?
Ahhh, the golden question.
Let’s discuss one more key concept first and then I will explain how to get Etsy to send you traffic.
How are Traffic and your Sales Funnel Related?
For many business models, the traffic and sales funnel are not related at all.
With your lemonade stand, your traffic was generated by putting the stand on a busy corner and by printing flyers.
Your sales (sales funnel) were generated by having yummy lemonade and friendly customer service.
In this scenario, your traffic and sales funnel have no direct relationship.
They are independent of each other.
Let’s use Google Pay per Click ads, as another example.
Your Traffic is generated by paying for customers, i.e., you pay per click.
Sales Funnel – once they get to your webpage, you need to convince them to buy. i.e.,with beautiful pictures, attractive pricing, enticing copy write, etc.
So with PPC advertising, Traffic and Sales Funnel have a limited relationship, mostly independent of each other.
How are Etsy’s Traffic and Sales Funnel Related?
How do you get Etsy to send you, customers?
How do you get traffic?
The answer is simple:
Have the best Sales Funnel in your niche
Etsy’s traffic and sales funnel is directly related.
Etsy wants sales too, right?
If your items sell well, Etsy will give them better and better exposure on their website.
The more exposure you get, the more traffic you get.
Again, if your items sell well (convert), Etsy gets really happy and sends you even more traffic.
And the snowball effect has begun.
Conversions >> more exposure >> more traffic >> more conversions >> more exposure >> more traffic >> and on and on it goes.
The key to keep this going is to keep improving your Sales Funnel.
Please say it out loud:
“I need to keep improving my sales funnel if I want to be successful on Etsy!”
Yes, I make it sound easy.
Nothing is easy. Hard work is always key to success, especially on Etsy.
Your competition will see your success and mimic it.
You have to keep fighting for your traffic, don’t let up.
Its smart to have multiple products that convert well. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
With our shop, we’ll see an item do really well for 2 weeks, and then ‘poof’, the traffic dries up.
Let’s talk more about the Sales Funnel.
Sales Funnel
As we have already hammered home, getting customers to your Etsy shop is directly related to having an excellent Sales Funnel.
If you make your shop awesome, the traffic will come, the sales will happen, you will be successful.
It doesn’t happen overnight, but if you follow this guide, it will happen.
Take awesome pictures
Use Keyword rich titles and tags.
List your items in the correct category.
Write accurate, complete product descriptions.
Write a complete About Us page.
Write complete, clear store policies (use the Etsy provided template)
Professional logo
Professional banner
Use your featured items, display your best-converting items here.
Properly set customers’ expectations
Answer convos quickly and very politely
When a customer comes to your homepage (front page), they should instantly know what you are selling.
They should be impressed.
Take pride in your store. Don’t skip anything.
Do your best in everything you do.
Customers notice the small things.
In this next section, we’re going to cover two main topics:
Sales Conversions
The Exact Necessary Steps you Need to take to Improve your Etsy Shop’s Sales Funnel
Sales Conversions
Sales conversions are simple.
It’s a mathematical ratio, sales divided by views. To make it look more readable times it by 100 and turn it into a percentage.
For example, I’ll randomly pick a wallet from my shop and look at the 30-day stats.
OK. Take the sales and divide them by the views. 10/752= 0.013297
This is an ugly useless number. Times it by 100 and turn it into a percentage. 0.013297 * 100 = 1.329% or just 1.33%
So, this listing over the last 30 days, converted 1.33% of the traffic that viewed it. Not too bad.
Our shop personally aims to have >1% conversions. (The larger the number, the better)
Why do we need to know this?
Knowing your store’s sales conversions is very powerful and can quickly give you valuable information on areas that need improvement and areas that are excelling.
Areas that Need Improvement
If a listing is below 1% sales conversions, you need to figure out why.
Pictures are bad
Pictures are incomplete, certain key details are not shown
No consumer demand for the product
The list can go on and on. But you need to figure it out.
Sometimes you just have to de-list the item and focus your attention on the good listings that are converting.
How to Build a Successful Etsy Business (43,000+ Sales)Your Ego
Don’t let your ego make decisions.
If the sales conversions are low, you have problems, plain and simple.
The numbers can really help you fix a problem you didn’t notice.
Only a very tiny percentage of your customers will message you and ask questions about a product.
(Note: these customers are close to buying, close the sale!)
The majority of people will look and if something turns them off, they move on.
Even the smallest of details, possibly just one small change, could be the difference between making lots of sales or zippo.
When customers do message you, listen to what they are saying.
If customers keep asking if you make something in black (and you currently don’t), maybe consider making it in black.
If they are asking for black, give them black!
Again, don’t let your ego get in the way of your success.
Give your customers what they are asking for. The messages they send you might generate a new idea that turns your shop into a money-making machine.
Areas of Excellence
If a listing is kicking some major butt, >2-3% conversions, you want to continue to focus your attention on it, get it more views, get it more exposure.
Make sure your best listings are in your featured items row. For those of you who haven’t discovered the featured items row, Etsy allows you to ‘pin’ 4 listings to the top of your store. You do this by clicking the star in the listing manager for the listing you wanted ‘featured’.
These are the listings, you want to promote with Etsy advertising. If a listing is converting, you want to get as much traffic to it as possible.
Consider outside (of Etsy) traffic sources. Again, your focus is to get as much traffic to these high converting listings as possible.
Get traffic to your Best Converting Items
The numbers don’t lie. People are viewing the product and they are buying, so if you have some time, work to send more traffic to these listings.
Make use of Pinterest. Make some awesome pins for these listings.
Write this down, i’ts on the test later, use Pinterest.
If you going to contact a blogger (or review website), make sure they reviewing these high converting items.
OK, let’s move on.
Etsy Success Sales Funnel
In the last chapter, we discussed how getting customers to your Etsy shop is directly related to having an amazing Sales Funnel.
It’s true. Very, very true.
If you make your shop awesome, the traffic will come, the sales will happen, you will build a successful Etsy shop.
It doesn’t happen overnight, but if you follow this guide, it will happen.
What are exact steps needed to make your Etsy shop into a Super Duper Sales Machine?
Take awesome pictures
We’ll go into this more detail in the next section, I’ll just reiterate one thing for now.
Focus most of your spare time on improving your product photos.
Do whatever it takes to make your pictures stand out from the crowd.
The shop with the best pictures will get all the sales, so make sure that shop is your shop.
Use Keyword rich titles and tags
A keyword rich title is paramount. The title is much more important than tags.
List your items in the correct category
Etsy seems to consistently make changes to the search algorithm, so you are going to want to stay vigilant and make sure your items are staying near the top of the search results.
Listing your items in the correct category is very important.
Etsy made an update in 2015 that we didn’t pay attention to, and we lost a lot of our search because our items we’re now in the wrong category.
I’d advise you to check your ‘keywords’, the keywords that send you the most traffic, every couple of weeks.
Also, make sure to vary your titles and tags for each item.
You don’t want to use only the popular keywords.
Try using keywords that aren’t as popular for some of your listings, this way you can catch some of the long-tail keyword traffic.
Write accurate, complete product descriptions.
If you can write short and complete descriptions, perfect.
Shorter the better.
Our shop’s descriptions use to be short but have grown over time.
Customers don’t like reading. Short descriptions are better, just make sure they are complete.
If a critical detail is missing, you will lose a lot of sales. Listen to your customer’s messages and feedback. i.e., If they keep asking about the thread, then maybe you need to put more information about the ‘thread’ in the listing.
Remember, only a small percentage of your customers will ask questions. The majority, will just move on and buy from someone else.
Write a complete About Us page.
Many Etsy shop owners skip the About Us section altogether.
Don’t be that person. The About Us page is an essential part of a successful Etsy business. Customers want to know who they are buying from.
This is the place where you get to tell your story and connect with your customers.
And it’s not just customers that read the About Us page.
Bloggers and review websites will also want to learn more about you.
Getting featured on websites like Create and Thrive, gets you great exposure, traffic, and backlinks.
If you don’t like writing about yourself, get a friend to write this page.
In my past life, the consulting firm I worked for, had all the employees write each other’s resumes, not their own.
It was a great idea. The person that wrote my resume made me sound ten times better than I ever would have.
Make sure to check back once in a while (every 6 months or so) and keep the page up to date.
I also like to use this section to add more content to your shop. I’ve added an FAQ to our About Us page.
Write complete, clear store policies
Again, most of your customers won’t ever read your store policies but for the ones that do, make sure they are complete and up to date.
How to Build a Successful Etsy Business (43,000+ Sales)Professional logo & banner
Its hard to find affordable graphic designers. If you discover one, make sure you hang onto them. (save their contact information)
They very valuable and will be needed many times as your business grows.
If you personally have the skills, making the logo and banner yourself is cost-effective, but please make sure the end result looks awesome and fits in with your branding and target audience.
In the end, it’s better not to have a banner, than to have one that looks crappy. The shop owner picture should be your smiling face, not your dog or some other random image.
Use your featured items row, display your best-converting items here.
I talked about this earlier in the article. Make sure to utilize the featured items row.
Think with me for a second. (Google Analytics is useful for this next step)
What is the path customers take when finding your shop?
One popular route is this; they find a listing through search, they look at it, they become interested in your shop, then they either exit or they click and go to your shop homepage.
Presto! What do they see? Your banner and featured items row.
This is the moment where you need to impress them.
Use the featured item’s row.
Make sure your best-converting items are here.
Properly set customers’ expectations
When a customer comes to your homepage (front page), they should instantly know what you are selling.
They should be impressed.
Take pride in your store.
Don’t skip anything. Do your best in everything you do.
Customers notice the small things and so should you.
Product Photography
In all honesty, product photography could easily be #1 on this list, but I just wanted to make sure you understood the importance of the previous steps as they aren’t mentioned too often in other Etsy success guides.
One of the keys to a successful Sales Funnel is amazing pictures.
To accomplish this, you need to have access to proper camera equipment.
Don’t use an iPhone.
Buy, rent or borrow a camera/cameraman worthy of excellent product photography.
If I only had $1,000 to start my business, I will spend $1,000 dollar on a camera and product lens.
This is actually a true story. We spent our very last $1000 on a camera and lens because we knew it was a necessary investment we had to make.
Make high-quality product photographs, not just photos, but product photos.
Proper product photography shows clear images of your product and its features.
Clean up distractions in the background and make sure the images show off your product and its features.
People shopping online buy pictures, not products.
Take your time. Do not rush listings and pictures.
There shouldn’t be even one ugly image in your store or within your listings. i.e., A listing’s 5th picture should be as beautiful as the listing’s first picture.
I can hear some of you asking the question, what about using my friend, the photographer, to take my photos.
Take the advice of a veteran, you don’t want to rely on someone else when it comes to pictures.
This is something you have to own. You don’t need to become an expert photographer, but make sure you use high-quality equipment that you own and always have access to.
In the beginning, I literally put the camera on auto focus and just took thousands of pictures. I figured if I took enough, 5 of them should look good.
Here is an example Etsy shop that takes product photography very seriously. (using our advice)
They take all of their own photos and have developed a consistent style that becomes part of their branding.
If you model your shop to look like theirs, you’ll be in good shape.
Build a Brand
For a small business, the concept of Branding might seem a little overwhelming. On Day 1 of your business, you don’t have to have a million dollar logo and front page newspaper ads.
You do need to have a professional looking logo and a name that reflects your position in your niche.
Your brand needs to appeal to your target audience.
Your style, your pictures, your logo, your product, all need to be a cohesive unit.
Branding instills trust and value in your product and quite often is the tiebreaker between a sale versus a no sale.
Here is my must-have starter list for branding an Etsy shop:
Professional looking logo & banner that accurately reflects your product
Develop a consistent photography style (i.e., same background, same angles, same lighting)
Utilize Packaging – It’s a chance to remind your customers that you’re a brand capable of delivering a good product with a fantastic presentation. It’s your first physical interaction with a potential repeat customer.
Be Authentic
Find a way to make yourself unique. Adding a personal touch goes a long way to show you care and are genuinely proud of your product.
Most of all, be authentic. Don’t try to be something you are not.
As your business grows, find other ways to reinforce your brand.
And remember to stay true to your brand. Again be authentic.
When you make future business decisions, make sure to consider how those decisions will impact your branding.
Customer Feedback
Ahhh, the dreaded 1-star review. They make the blood boil!!
Customer feedback is vital to the success of your business. But most importantly, it’s your reaction to it, that is truly vital to the success of your business.
Listen carefully and follow these exact steps when you receive a 1-star review.
Read the review.
Walk away, and do something else for 1 hour.
Re-read the review.
Walk away, go exercise.
Re-read the review.
Now be objective. How are other customers going to react to this review? What is the 1-star reviewer’s true reason for leaving the bad review?
Don’t leave a public response!
I repeat, don’t leave a public response.
Leaving a public response is generally (almost always) a lose/lose situation.
Everybody is entitled to their opinion. Most of the time, the customer just wants their money back.
There are far too many situations for me to give you solutions for each and every one, but generally, you should very politely contact the customer and try to resolve it privately.
Most customers will remove the 1-star review if you ask them too.
In the extreme cases, where I believe the customer is just a very negative person, I don’t contact them.
Constructive Criticism – Don’t ignore it.
Lots of times, a 1-star, 2-star, or 3-star review can be the best thing that happens to your business.
Listen to your customers. Maybe you are doing something wrong.
Remember, they are your customers and if they aren’t liking something.
Fix it.
Remember: Your reaction to your customers’ feedback is vital to the success of your business.
Customer Service
As your Etsy shop grows, you will receive more and more inquiries from your customers.
3 Steps for Excellent Customer Service
Answer your customers very politely and with proper English.
Answer quickly, don’t make them wait.
Ask for the sale – answer their questions and then ask them if they would like you to make them a private listing or explain to them how to add it to their cart and checkout.
Help them Checkout
Lots of customers get stuck trying to check out. There are still many, many people that the online shopping experience is new to them and they have troubles making purchases. Help them!
Excellent customer service can push your brand past your competition and can give you great word-of-mouth referrals.
It can also be another venue for customer feedback. Most importantly, it can help seal a deal.
Etsy Search Engine Optimization
Listen, there are snake charmers out there who want you to believe Etsy search is complicated, it’s not.
Getting Your Listings Found by Customers
The title of your listing is the most important metric for Etsy’s Search Engine. The correct category and tags are secondary.
Search for the keyword you wish to rank for. Open the items which are ranking on page 1, write similar titles, use the same tags and place your item in the same category. That’s it.
If your Sales Funnel has been optimized and your shop/listings are converting, your internal Etsy search/category rankings will be higher, as Etsy wants to give more views to listings which sell.
Again you don’t need tools or paid advice.
Don’t take advice from people who don’t even have Etsy shops (or low sales).
Social Media
Remember people shopping online, don’t buy products, they buy pictures.
Let’s share beautiful pictures and make money.
Focus on social media that relies on photos such as:
1. Pinterest
2. Instagram
Facebook is necessary and useful for branding and for offering deals and giveaways, but until you are a super-duper internet marketing guru, I’d save your time and money and focus all your efforts on using the picture focused social platforms.
Pin Baby Pin
If I only could pick one (and to this day) only use one, its always going to be Pinterest.
Promoted Listings
Promoted Listings are a must.
Maybe not when you’re first starting out unless you are confident you know which items people are going to be buying.
Promoted listings are much more useful once you know which of your items are the top converters.
Very Important Configurations
Never use Automate bid. Only use Customize bid.
Turn off ‘Advertise new listings automatically.’
Go Slow
Don’t go crazy with promoted listings at first.
My top tips for beginners, add only your feature items, bid very low (10 or 15 cents per click) and take it day by day.
Gather Results
You want to monitor your results. Hopefully, you have some listings where the cost of advertising is only 20% of the Revenue generated. As you discover your best listings, slowly increase your advertising budget, focusing on your winners.
Focus and Execute
If you are still reading this article, you are obviously interested in learning how to create a successful Etsy business.
The internet is packed full of information. For most of us, it is too much information.
If you want to be successful, you have to learn how to focus and execute.
Stop reading how-to articles. Stop watching how-to videos.
Don’t buy any courses or tools!
I just laid out everything you need to know to successfully build an Etsy shop, for free!
The rest of the article is just bonus stuff that you can do to improve your sales and branding.
Realize your Dreams
Winners only see their dreams and do whatever it takes to realize them.
Losers only see what is stopping them, what obstacles stand in the way.
Contact Bloggers & Review Websites
Etsy will bring you all the traffic your shop needs, if you have an amazing sales funnel and an excellent product.
Bringing in outside traffic to your listings, shouldn’t be ignored, it’s just not your 1st priority.
Sharing your products on Pinterest will bring you some nice extra traffic, especially during the holiday season.
Blogger Outreach
Sources that often gets forgotten are bloggers and review websites.
This article put us on the map.
Adam from Gearmoose.com asked if we wanted to have our wallet featured on his website.
Even though Gearmoose.com wasn’t a large website (at the time), free publicity should never be turned down. (you should actively seek it out)
What happened next changed our lives.
That article was syndicated by 10+ other much bigger websites.
The traffic and sales we received from this one blog post generated $8k in sales over the next 2 weeks. Thank you, Adam.
Email Marketing
This tip is a game changer, and I wish we had discovered it sooner, like on Day 1!
The funny thing is, nobody else seems to know about it or at least they aren’t sharing this excellent tip: AWeber Etsy Integration.
AWeber-Etsy Integration
Do it now. Customers have to option to join your mailing list.
These are not leads, these are customers that have already purchased from your store.
You need to be able to reach them in the future, to drive future sales, social shares, etc.
Building an email list is critical for all online businesses. The sooner you start, the better!
Etsy Success Resources
Here are some other helpful resources:
CraftCount – use it to find successful sellers in your niche, don’t copy, study.
Etsy Announces Major Changes – insightful and intelligent blog posts
Don’t Follow False Gurus
Remember, there are lots of people willing to give you advice. Make sure they know what they are talking about.
Its an easy litmus test.
Go Check out their Shop
Do they have sales?
Would you buy from their shop?
Is their shop even open?
I wish everyone the best of luck in accomplishing your goals and building your own successful Etsy shop.
How to Build a Successful Etsy Business (43,000+ Sales)Thanks for reading the article.
Please feel free to share it if you think its been helpful and share worthy!! And always follow the Blog to keep up with the tips on leather and leather wallets we share for you.
Read more: 5 IMPORTANT WAYS TO IMPROVE ETSY SALE
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