Sell Art and Crafts on Etsy
What is
Etsy.com?
Etsy is
an online buyer and seller community similar to eBay, but focuses on selling
arts, crafts handmade or vintage items and supplies.
With
around 30 million visitors per month Etsy provides a wonderful platform for
artisans, crafters and creative designers which helps them in spreading their
work to the worldwide audience and grow their business.
Your aim
should be to leverage Etsy’s powerful visitor base to
reach millions of people and sell your products to them without getting into
the hassle of creating your own website, promoting it and handling payment
processing.
Top Etsy
sellers make upto 1 million dollars a year by selling arts, crafts and handmade
items.
If you
take action, you can also be one among them.
Suitable
For -
Artistic
and craftier people who love to envision, design and create their own
items/products.
Skills
Required -
1.
Creative abilities to imagine, think, design and create items which can be sold
online.
2.
Ability to promote your Etsy store using social media channels such as
Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, along with other methods such as blogging,
guest posting, networking.
Time
Required For Creating Your Store On Etsy -
You can
register on Etsy almost instantly.
But while
creating your store you’ll need to craft its title,
get photos of items that you want to sell, write a compelling description,
decide on pricing points.
To
complete the above-mentioned steps it might one or two days.
Tips -
1. Decide
what you are going to sell - Before getting your feet inside Etsy make a list
of items that you think you can create.
Once the
list is ready, go to Etsy and type in keywords to find other sellers who offer
similar items which you are planning to sell.
Discover
what they are selling? how do their products differ from others? What are their
pricing strategies?
Do some
competition analysis and try to find items within your list which will face
less competition.
Based on
your initial research and competition analysis finalize an item which you think
will be more suitable for creating your initial space on Etsy.
2. Select
a name for your store - Once you register an account with Etsy, the first thing
you’ll have to do is to setup
your store. And naming your store is the first step of the setup process.
Select a
name that represents what you want to sell. But don’t waste your time on lingering for finding a perfect name.
Etsy
gives you one more chance to rename your store, so pick a name right away, and
give it more thought later on.
3. Set up
your store - Following are the important steps you’ll need to follow while setting up for the store.
- Create
a logo
Creating
a logo is very important for building a brand and improving credibility.
Make sure
the logo you design is unique and represents the items you want to sell.
If you
don’t have graphic design
skills it’s always better to
outsource the logo designing task to somebody on Fiverr.
Tell them
what you want and let the Fiverr experts do the job for you.
- Take
appealing item photos
Photos
are going to be the first point of contact between your potential customer and
your item.
So you
need to make sure that your item photos do the job catching customer’s eyeballs and convince him/her to read the description.
If they
don’t find item’s photos appealing then they’ll never bother reading your item’s description.
One trick
is to study the photographs of other successful stores who sell similar items
like yours and then replicate their technique.
If
possible try to take photos using a DSLR and use white plain backgrounds.
- Offer
varying price points and sizes
Most of
the successful Etsy sellers offer varying item sizes and prices, this helps
them to attract all levels of buyers.
This
strategy helps them to ensure that there is always something for everyone.
For e.g.
If you sell smaller original pieces at a lower price point, people who cannot
afford to buy large expensive pieces can still buy from you.
In this
way, you’ll cater the needs of both
expensive and budget buyers.
5. Write
compelling description - Your item’s description is the second
most important factor after photos, it does the job of persuading potential customers
to place an order with you.
So make
sure that you write the most compelling item description.
The best
way to start is to study what your competitors have written their description,
study the biggest questions that your potential customer ask.
Take
notes and model your description based on your notes.
Also, try
to answer potential customer’s questions so that they
don’t have any reservations
while placing an order with you.
Also,
communicate important details about your item such as dimensions, the material
used, care to be taken during usage and so on.
6.
Include right tags and keywords - Most of the potential customers will find
your store through search.
So you
need to make sure that you title and description has right keywords
incorporated into them.
To
generate a list of keywords, think about what your potential customer would
type into the search bar to find what you’re selling.
Snoop
into your competitor's title and description to dig out more relevant keywords.
Also,
make a list of relevant keywords that appear in the auto-suggested list of
Etsy's search bar and add them to your listings.
Other
Options To Etsy -
When you
are planning to sell arts and crafts item Etsy should be your first choice of
platform.
But if
you want to expand your reach even further you should consider selling your
arts on the following websites.
Here’s the list of the sites optional to Etsy:
Zibbet.com
HandmadeArtists.com
UncommonGoods.com
AftCra.com
SuperMarketHQ.com
HyenaCart.com
How To
Monetize -
Monetization
is very simple. More people place orders with you more money you make.
Your
customer's rating is going to have a huge impact on improving your sales, brand
buildup and credibility.
So make
sure that you deliver quality items within your promised delivery dates.
Take time
and care while packaging your item so that it doesn’t bend, chip or break in transit.
Try to
cover the cost of packing materials into your shipping charges.
That’s all!
Happy
selling arts and crafts on Etsy.
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