#etsy advice

[delappdesignsbyl]

The Ultimate Etsy Startup Checklist

Starting an Etsy shop is exciting — until you realize how many things you have to figure out first. Shop names, product photos, listings, shipping, SEO, pricing, fees… it can quickly feel overwhelming before you even publish your first product. The good news? You don’t need to figure everything out on your own. This step-by-step Etsy startup checklist will walk you through exactly what to do…

The Ultimate Etsy Startup Checklist

[monstersandmaw]

So I'm considering selling some of my stuff on Etsy (I do resin) and was wondering if you had any tips?

Depends on what kind of tips you're after? If it's marketing, I can't help you... I only have 'sharing links on Tumblr and hoping someone likes my stuff enough to click off-site and take a look'...

Otherwise, clear and professional looking pictures of what you're selling, include the sizing in the description, be open to making certain changes for people (if it's jewellery for example, say you can do alternative ear wires for those with metal sensitivities or something, if that's an option for you), and maybe look at some recent advice videos on SEO stuff for Etsy on YouTube (I'm out of date now).

Lemme know if there was something specific you were after and I'll try and help though :)

Edit: as was pointed out in the notes, the various platform fees suck and they take a HUGE chunk out of your earnings. You also have to pay to list things which hurts so much if you don't sell the listing. I used Ko-fi shop for a while but typing out all the customs forms and stuff for shipping labels to America and other countries was so painful...

[pandorama-art]

Hi pandora! I'm having a difficult time with setting up my new etsy shop. What company do you go to for producing your prints, pins, stationery, etc? (It's alright if you don't want to disclose that though). And do you have any advice from experience with etsy?, thank you for your sweet art!

Hi Berry!! I'm always happy to help, no worries. After trying out a million print services and not being satisfied with the quality, I finally just bought my own printer and print on demand. It's an Epson EcoTank ET-2720 and I feed it with some high quality Hahnemühle paper. I'm pretty satisfied with the quality, and printing on demand means I don't have to have a huge stock of prints that may or may not sell well.

Pins I actually also make myself (I'm just realizing that all this might not be very helpful to you since I diy most my products. Oops sorry). My friend has a Badgematic machine and we meet over tea in her studio to make pins every once in a while.

My stationary is one of the few things I don't make myself, I usually order it from some local companies that make promotional merchandise for businesses and choose the smallest quantity. Since I don't believe you need the highest quality paper for a little notepad that's meant to be used to write your grocery list on :-) I've been trying out different companies for those, there's always gonna be a bit of trial and error.

Oh and I order my vinyl stickers from Sticker App! Very good quality, though I have yet to sell out of a design haha.

My Etsy advice in general is to try and streamline the process of making new listings as much as possible, cause for me that was always the most annoying part. When I started out I built myself a lightbox to take product photos in and tried to make every product description unique. Nowadays I use mock ups for prints and mostly copy and paste a description with like 1 unique sentence for every product. Makes it all so much easier and less time intensive haha

Another thing that I've found to help is to have a large range of products in different price categories. Big fancy prints are great, every greater when someone can buy a cute little pin for only a few dollars to go with their new print :-) also just a large range of products is very good too, I would try to aim for at least 15 products for a start? If that's possible for you, no worries if not.

Lastly, just remember that these are only my experiences. If you find that the copy shop down the street make great quality prints, go for it and order from them! Different things may just work better for you than for me. Also, you are only one person and it's alright to take it slow before committing to buy a huge fancy printer, etc. Start where you can, there's already so much pressure on artists to sell everything they make and do marketing and branding and whatnot. Don't aim to be perfect, it's alright to just sell some art to nice people :-)

Hope this helped a little bit! I'm always happy to talk some more or answer specific questions you may have <3

[companioncrafts]

Hey im working on my own crochet bussiness and want to know if you habe any advice anon as i dont want this attached to my main

Hi Anon! 👋There are many things I can tell you, but I'll cut it down to basics for the sake of not creating a huge wall of text. Item Displays & PIcs! 📸 Consider this; what kind of crochet items are you making? Clothes, plushies, hats/scarves??? Depending on what you're making you want to make sure you capture your details! If you're making clothes or anything wearable make sure you use pictures that can help show off how it looks like on a person. This gives your base more of a more accurate representation of how it falls on the body, rather than a folded 2d flat-looking item. Plushies or amigurumi are a bit easier to display but again, you need to make sure you show the size, materials, and its main features clearly! (*^▽^*) And please, NO FLASH ever on product pictures. You can start by looking at other display examples online Marketplace or your own Website? 🖥 I only have experience selling online so that's the only advice I can give you. I've always stuck with Etsy, but many people feel like it's seller fees are sometimes too much. But I feel like it's worth it bc I like having the middleman where Etsy adds an extra layer of protection (just in case someone tries to scam you （；´д｀）Etsy will work on the case and usually side with the seller.) It's a good way to start getting the feel of selling items on an automatic system. You can also set up your own website, it'll offset the Etsy seller fees, but it will require you to be a bit more diligent and on top of your products, info, and you'll have to buy your own labels/set them up yourself, get your own license to sell - it is up to you to decide. Social Media and Audience Building 🤗 Social Media managing is very difficult. Popular social media sites are built on an algorithm that most of the time hurts small businesses. 😭 You'll see influencers or well-known artists usually on the Explore page because they already have a large interaction/follower base. For this reason alone, you must WORK to keep engagement; learn to play and adapt to EACH social media algorithm. If there's a trend going on, learn to adapt your work to that trend. Use the appropriate tags to keep your work relevant, you just can't to spam hashtags and expect to get popular. People will go to posts that are alluring or have some kind of eye-catching quality, hence why pictures have to be clear - it wouldn't hurt to try to learn some basic image editing skills to enhance your posts. At the end of the day don't let this get you down, it is possible to build your base but it will not happen overnight unless by some miracle you somehow go viral. Last but not least; get to know your follower base! I've actually loved interacting with my followers. They're all a bunch of sweet people that deserve love for their works; remember the same energy you put out, is the same kind of energy you will receive. Apart from that - save your receipts you can deduct your materials and anything you use relevant to your small business from your taxes. And yes, keep a financial log of your sales, you still need to do you taxes for small businesses

[opinionsbythetruckload]

i’m thinking about opening an etsy shop to sell mostly small embroidery items. i know there’s a million articles and yt videos with tips and stuff, but i’m just wondering if my mutuals have any advice or insights. thanks!!

[etsytips]

Reblog/Like this post if you run an Etsy-Shop!

Just launched this resource-blog by and for Etsy-sellers on Tumblr!

[monstersandmaw]

Do you have any advice for someone who is starting out with an Etsy shop? I specifically am doing a lot of modeling clay jewelry but I also plan to sell some beaded stuff and maybe some of the masks I made.

I don’t, sadly. I’m in the same boat. I use kofi and I get almost no traffic because it’s not a searchable platform. People have to know the link, and I refuse to spam my followers over and over with shop related posts...

There are loads of videos on YouTube though, so hopefully something will stand out there. If you’re fortunate enough to be in the US then most of them will be relevant to you. If you’re in the UK or elsewhere then a lot of it won’t be.

[monstersandmaw]

Do you have any advice for someone starting out with an Etsy shop? I make jewelry with modeling clay and recently started working with uv resin. Thanks in advance!

I've been asked this about Etsy before, and I can't find my original answer (thanks Tumblr 'search' function). Anyway, I can't give you any advice that you can't find via YouTube because I don't yet have an Etsy shop. Well, I do, but it's empty and I've never listed anything on it. I'd suggest looking on YouTube because a lot more 'how to' videos have cropped up recently due to people starting online businesses during the pandemic.

Good luck!