Posted by Today we conclude our Etsy series. I know this has been a long one, and I thank you for coming along with me on this journey of discovery.
By now you’ve researched and selected a high demand niche, sourced some hot products to sell and created a listing swipe file, too.
You’ve also branded your shop, learned how to take high quality photos and now we’re going to cover putting your listings on Etsy so you can start making sales.
The instructions on how to make a listing, add photos and such are right there on Etsy so we’re not going to cover it here. It’s plenty easy to do and odds are if you’ve ever place anything online, you won’t even need the instructions at all.
That’s the easy ‘mechanical’ kind of stuff that anyone can do.
What takes a little more skill is making your listing persuasive. Ideally, we want to tap into people’s emotions to make them desperately want to buy, but at the very least we want to keep them on our listing and in our store for as long as possible. That’s because the longer someone is on our listing or in our store, the more likely they are to buy.
Let’s start with a few simple things you can do to greatly improve your listing…
1: Hit the return key. Just like a sales letter, you want to break down your copy into short, readable bits. One to three sentences per paragraph is fine. If you have one HUGE paragraph, people are less likely to read it.
2: Add sub-titles. If you add subtitles above each paragraph in your description, it makes it easier for the customer to find the info they’re looking for, it makes it more interesting, and again they are more likely to read the entire description.
3: Consider adding bullet points. If this works for your listing, use bullet points. Good bullet points get read and remain memorable.
(If you’re starting to feel like you need to be a copywriter to make great Etsy listings, well… it certainly can help but it is NOT a requirement. Just keep practicing and you’ll get good at this in no time. Plus, if you’re selling something like prints or t-shirts, you’ll be using the same copy for many, many sales. It pays to get it right, and when you do, you can then forget about it.)
4: Answer questions before they are asked. Confused customers do not buy. That’s why you want to anticipate and answer as many of their questions as possible. How big is the item? Is it new or used? Vintage or antique? What are the flaws (if any)? What does the back look like (if applicable)? Is there anything missing? Is there anything special such as a maker’s mark? If it’s clothing, does it run true to size? Give as much info as possible.
5: Encourage them to browse your store. At the bottom of your description, write something like, “Be sure to check out the rest of my prints here” and add your Etsy store link. Because this is an Etsy link, it will be clickable.
6: Add a photo or two of some of your other listings. Take group shots of your products and post those at the end of the photo line up. State in your description that these other items are in your store.
Listing Items
Ideally, you’ll post several listings your first day and then continue to add new listings on a frequent basis. Google likes pages that are updated regularly, and visitors are more likely to favorite your store and come back if they know there’s always new stuff to check out.
You can create product sections to make searching your store easier. For example, a handcraft supply store might have sections titled:
- Acrylic yarn
- Natural fiber yarn
- Hooks and needles
- Instruction books
- Embroidery supplies
- Crewel kits
And so forth
When making your listings, you can offer up to two choices inside the listing. For example, if you’re selling t-shirts, your customer can choose the color of shirt and the size.
Or you can list several similar items and let customers choose which they will purchase. For example, if you sell vintage puzzles, you might put 4 of them on one listing and then offer the options like this:
- 300pc Boy with Dog $14.99
- 500pc Wildlife $19.99
- 750pc Cat $19.99
- 240pc St. Basils $24.99
Sellers do this for a couple of reasons:
First, buyers will sometimes click on a listing with several items just to get a better look at each one.
Second, it can save on the 20 cent listing fees if not all of your items sell in the first 90 days.
Use Your Swipe File to Build Value
Remember that swipe file you were building? It contains listings of products similar to yours. You’re going to take out the best bits from each one and build on those to create value in your own products.
Things that build value:
- Bullet points of the product’s main features and benefits
- Your own personal take on the product – what do you love about it?
- The story or history behind the product. If it’s vintage, sometimes you can research the history of the company that made it, or give a little bio on the artist, or anything that gives some background.
- Detailed description with emotional triggering words. I’ll make a list below.
- The measurements / dimensions of the product.
- Any flaws on used/vintage items
- Using the word “you” as in, “When you walk into your living room and see your Starsky Original painting hanging on your wall, you will feel the pride of ownership because of all the people in the world, you are the only one who owns this one-of-a-kind work of art. And when you spend a moment reflecting on this painting’s beauty, it’s easy to image the peace and tranquility as it washes over you and your worries float away.”
- Call to action, such as: “Click the add to cart button and start your own exclusive collection today!”
- General info that applies to all of your listings such as your secure packaging, fast shipping, optional gift wrapping and so forth. Once you write this you can use it on every listing.
Use other listings in your niche as models, taking the best ideas from each and building your own.
Here’s a brief list of emotional trigger words you can add to your listings to spice them up. You’ll want to make note of any other words you find that will work for your niche and keep a list you can refer back to often.
Stunning
Beautiful
Original
Rare
Vintage
Antique
Stunning
Stylish
New
Imagine
Exclusive
Limited
Temptation
Hidden
Secret
Special
Surprising
Exciting
Unique
Welcome
Only one
Never duplicated
Lifetime
Family
Love
Children
Dream
Health
Sale
Discount
Powerful
Discover
Create
Smart
Bargain
More
Extra
Nostalgic
Latest
Complete
Don’t miss out
Priceless
Collectable
Limited edition
Genuine
Creating Powerful Listing Titles
You want to spend some time on your listing titles because this is essentially the headline for your product. Etsy allows as many as 140 characters for your listing title, but only the first 28 characters will be seen by potential customers before they click on the product.
Ideally your title should contain your best keyword phrase(s). For example, if you’re selling Lion Brand Ferris Wheel Yarn, then those words should be in your title and preferably at the beginning.
And it’s helpful if your title conveys excitement and triggers curiosity and desire.
Notice what’s working for other sellers in your niche to get a better idea of how to write your titles. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel here, just find out what works and emulate that.
Differentiation
If you’re selling anything other than vintage items, you’ll need to find ways to differentiate your products from the competition.
For example, if you sell t-shirts, instead of simply saying your shirts are 100% cotton like everyone else does, you might use words such as custom, inspirational, personalized, organic, sustainably made, pima cotton and so forth.
“Custom made organic 100% fade and stretch resistant pima cotton t-shirts in 12 specially chosen fashion colors.”
While some of that might be true for your competitors’ products as well, if they don’t state it then people won’t know.
Using descriptive words enhance the value and uniqueness of your product making it more desirable and also counteracting price resistance.
Just another t-shirt? The they’re going to shop by price. But the best-looking, most comfortable, longest lasting t-shirt? Price won’t even be much of a factor then.
How to Get More Sales
Essentially there are three ways to make more sales in any business:
- Get more customers
- Get customers to buy more
- Get existing customers to buy again
Etsy gives you three options to encourage customers to purchase more items and to buy more frequently – the discount coupon, reduced shipping and multiple item discounts.
Coupons
With Etsy it’s easy to create coupon codes for your store. You can…
- Give these coupons to existing customers either in the package you send them or shared through messages
- You can promote these coupons on offsite, such as social media
- Offer a coupon discount right on your Etsy store in the shop announcement section.
Etsy does a good job of explaining all of these on its website.
You can create 3 kinds of coupons, too:
- Percent discount which takes a flat percentage off the entire order. You can specify a minimum purchase amount to receive the discount percentage.
- Free shipping, which can be limited to just your own country.
- Fixed dollar amount discount which subtracts a certain amount from an order, such as $5.
Shipping Discounts
One thing Etsy highly encourages sellers to do is offer free shipping on orders of $35 or more. If your items cost less than $35, then this can create more sales of multiple items.
And you can also offer reduced shipping on multiple items. For example, let’s say you sell bars of soap. Shipping for one bar might be $4.00, but any additional bars added to the same order only cost 75 cents each for shipping.
You can also charge shipping just for the first item and let all additional items ship for free. This is a great way to encourage multiple item sales.
Remember to price your items accordingly to compensate for any discount you’re giving.
Shipping Profiles
If you have many products that are the same size and shipping costs, such as skeins of yarn or bars of soap, then you can create a shipping profile for those items. Shipping profiles let you easily and quickly update multiple listings with similar shipping costs.
This is a real time saver when shipping costs go up or you want to run a special on shipping for all similar items in your store.
Bundles of Similar Items
If you sell things that make sense to bundle, do it. For example, maybe you sell 4 prints by the same artist. You make one listing for each print, but then you also make a fifth listing offering all 4 prints at a discount.
Promoting Your Listings within Etsy
You specific keywords and keyword phrases to get your listings found. If you know what you’re customers are searching for, this will be a cinch. For example, if you’re selling prints, your keywords might consist of the subject matter, the artist and words like prints, pictures, wall art and so forth.
You can find out what keywords other sellers are using by looking at their listings. Just enter those keywords into Etsy’s search bar and see what Etsy suggests. You can also enter the same keywords into Google to see what Google suggests, too, to see if you’re on track.
Use Tags to Attract Buyers
Tags are keywords or keyword phrases that you add to your listing to help describe and classify your item. Etsy matches your tags with shoppers’ searches to generate relevant results.
Use keyword phrases of 3 words or more to avoid ranking competition. While hundreds of shops can be competing for a one-word keyword, only a few will be competing for 3 word keyword phrases.
Etsy’s Training
Be sure to use Etsy’s training and participate in Etsy’s forums, too. This is a great way to get questions answered.
Once you’ve built up your Etsy store to bring in a steady stream of business and sales, you’re income should continue to rise each month.
Be sure to stay on top of what’s working with Etsy and also the changes they make, which can sometimes be rather frequent.
And when you’re ready, open a second and third store in different niches.
Try to have at least one store that is all electronic products, meaning you never have to physically ship anything. For example, crochet and knitting patterns can be fabulous for this, as well as digital prints.
You might also consider having an Etsy store that sells t-shirts and mugs, too. These two items are always in demand, especially if you choose artwork and funny sayings that people love. And since you can use a service to create and ship your products, you won’t need to do any shipping yourself.
And there you have it. This has been a lengthy series on making money with Etsy, and frankly there is even more to learn. But the beauty of an Etsy store is you get on the job training as you go, learning not just how to do things but also what works best.
Etsy can provide you with an awesome side income if you’re so inclined, and it’s also a great business for retired folks as well as young people who are going to school and don’t have time for a regular job.
I know of several people who make their entire living off of Etsy. Two of them sell art prints, one of them sells craft items, two of them have t-shirt stores in addition to their primary store and one of them sells vintage jewelry. All of them are making great money and most of all they enjoy what they’re doing, and hopefully you will, too.