Selling on Etsy Tips: What I’ve Learned After Making 2,000+ Sales

I opened my Etsy store in March 2019 and since then I have racked up over 2,000 sales. I specialise in printable digital downloads but I have sold physical items in the past. I have definitely made a few mistakes a long the way and would love to share my knowledge to help you avoid the same pitfalls. If you are new to selling on Etsy, tips like the ones below should help you get your shop off to a great start:

Do your research before jumping in

Work out if there is a demand for your products. If there are already products like yours being sold on Etsy, how will you make yours stand out? For an example, there are tens of thousands of jewellery listings on Etsy so you will struggle to get noticed unless you drill down and specialise in a niche.

If, on the contrary, there are no other listings that are like your product then either one of two things is true… 1) you have discovered an amazing new market that no one has tapped into yet and you’re onto a winner… 2) or there is no demand for your product. To work out which of these two possibilities is correct, you will need to do some market research. Perhaps a good place to start is to ask for opinions on your social networks.

Fully work out the cost of your products

One of your aims as an Etsy seller will of course be to make money. It’s important not to under-price your products. Make sure that the final sales price factors in each and every cost that you incur plus whatever profit per item you are happy with. Costs that you must include are: raw materials, packaging costs, postage costs and Etsy fees.

Carefully consider your packaging

It’s important to spend time considering your packaging before investing in, say, cardboard boxes. My top tip would be to package your products in the smallest box that they will fit it, this is great for several reasons: postage should be cheaper, the item will be safer as there is less room for it to rattle around in during the postage process and also the carbon footprint is smaller. There are many suppliers of packaging out there so shop around.  Packaging Chimp is a good place to start when considering your options. You might be tempted to go for the cheapest packaging options but from my experience, buyers on Etsy tend to be more eco-aware than the average buyer and tend to be attracted to listings with eco-friendly packaging.

Keywords are crucial

You get to add up to 13 keywords for each product, you should definitely use every single one of these. Put yourself in the shoes of your potential buyers and think what search terms they would use. You can also look at your competitors’ listings to get ideas.

Pack a punch with the first few words of your product title

Whilst Etsy gives you 140 characters to enable you to have long, descriptive titles, it’s important to get the most important words in first as the first four or five words are the only ones people will see whilst browsing listings. The full title will only reveal itself if the buyer clicks on the full listing.

Take great photos

Your photos will be the buyers first thing they look at and it’s true what they say, you only get one chance to make a good impression. Take your photos in daylight and be conscious of shadows and what’s in the background. Include several photos from various angles – the Etsy listings tool actually gives you some suggestions the types of photos to upload. Depending on the type of product you are selling you may find mock up templates useful.

I hope these selling on Etsy tips have been helpful – best of luck!