The 3 Steps To Success With An Etsy Business

People are not only doing most of their shopping online these days, but they are also looking for unique products. It seems that all the stores around sell the same mass-produced products. This is why Etsy has gotten to be such a popular marketplace. Not only are you able to shop online from the comfort of your home, but you are able to find many handmade and unique products for gifts, decorate your home or dress in style.

Running an Etsy store is a great way to go if you are a creative type and have an eye for design. There are millions of people on the platform shopping every day. All you need to have a lot of success is a small piece of that pie. However, there are some best practices to follow to make sure that you can see some success. In this article, we will go over what you need to do to have success running an Etsy store.

1 - Figure out your costs

Before you set up your virtual storefront, you have to make sure that you can actually make money. It takes a few calculations and some research to understand if your product can actually make a good enough profit for it to be worth it.

The first thing to work out is going to be the cost of making the product. Think about the materials that you’ll need and then do some research to figure out how much of it you’ll need to make the product. Try to find a source to buy the materials in bulk so you can save some money. Then break it down to a cost per unit for a base.

The next thing to understand is how much the shipping and packaging are going to cost. You can use some online calculators to get the cost of shipping as long as you know the weight of the product and the package for it. Add the cost of the boxes and packing material plus the cost of shipping and add that to the cost of the product.

You’ll also need business supplies to run your operation efficiently so look into buying office supplies online at a good price. The best way to come up with a figure is to calculate how much you’ll need to spend per month and how many units will need to be sold to pay for the supplies.

Add up all of these costs and then divide them up so you can see what it will cost you for one product. You need to then set the price so think of a margin that will make it worth it for the time it takes to make your product.

At this point, you have to then research the price of similar products on Etsy. You can’t go too much higher than what other people are charging unless there is some added value for the products you are making. If you can make a decent profit around the average price then you know you are good to get started.

2 - Build a following

It’s true that there are millions of people who shop on Etsy. In theory this means that you don’t have to do much to start selling and have success. However, it is up to the algorithm if you are able to attract those visitors or not, many will never know that your store exists as they’ll never see it.

That’s why it’s important to drive a lot of traffic to your store from outside of Etsy. The best way to do this is to build up a following on social media. If you do things right, you will not just have a list of followers, but a group of diehard fans of what you do that want to buy your creations.

Pick a social media platform where your ideal customers are hanging out online. You should limit yourself to two of them since there are too many platforms. If you pick the ones where your market is then you don’t need to waste time on platforms that are not your ideal customer.

Post helpful and engaging content that intrigues and excites your followers. Then, once in a while, you can post something promotional to attract people to your storefront on Etsy. If you are having a sale then this is a good time to promote it. Or, if you have added some new items that your followers might be interested in.

3 - Optimize your store

You have to think about your store on Etsy the same as if it were in a mall. This means that you have to have all the elements working together that makes it irresistible for people to come in. This means that the first thing you have to do is take great pictures of your products.

When somebody does a search for the keyword that belongs to your product they will see a list of products. You should jump out at them to make them click to your product page. Then, you should have a lot more pictures from multiple angles so people get an idea of what the product actually looks like.

The product description and tags should also use the right keywords that somebody searching would use. This way your product comes up high in the results. If your description is poor and you don’t use the right tags then nobody is going to see your product when they do a search.

Conclusion

There is no magic bullet that is going to give you a lot of success on Etsy. It involves a lot of small details that you take care of and then things will start working for you.

When you get started, you should be trying to learn all the time. It takes patience and determination to make it work. Make changes a little at a time if things aren’t going and eventually you’ll see some real success.