10 Powerful Ways to Get More Etsy Sales
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You’ve created something awesome and you can’t wait to share it with the world. You’ve launched your new Etsy shop and carefully listed your awesome product on Etsy according to their guidelines and about 20 of your favorite Youtubers. You hit the publish button and wait for the sales to come pouring in. But they don’t. Not even one.
We’ve all been there. High expectations and low results. Take a serious look at how to get more Etsy sales and you’re bound to see an increase. All it takes is a little patience and a lot of trial and error.
What is Etsy?
Etsy is one of the world’s most popular marketplaces and you can find everything from handmade soap to wooden yard signs there. It’s no wonder it attracts so many people from so many industries.
It’s also no surprise that millions of customers visit Etsy daily, looking for inspiration and products. One of the best things about Etsy, at least for business owners, is the built-in traffic that comes with selling on Etsy. It would take months, if not years, to get the kind of traffic and exposure you get on Etsy if you were on your own. With Etsy, it takes only .20 cents per listing to start. It’s an amazing deal, but only if it brings in sales.
If you’re in a bit of a slump, don’t worry. You’re not alone and it’s not too late to turn things around. Try these tips to get more traffic on Etsy and come back to let us know how they worked!
Let’s get into it! I hope you’re fired up and ready to roll up your sleeves. These tips helped me grow a brand new Etsy shop in no time.
With my first Etsy shop I listed a bunch of t-shirts that I thought were cute, without doing any research into the types of t-shirts that actually sold well on Etsy. I was lazy with the listings and I didn’t take the time to add enough attractive photos. I guess you can imagine how successful my shop was.
I made a few sales here and there, but I was disappointed. I didn’t feel any passion for what I was doing so I put the shop on vacation mode while I figured out what to do next. I thought selling on Etsy was supposed to be easy.
I changed the name of the shop and decided to go in an entirely new direction. Once I decided to put in the work it deserved, everything changed.
When I re-opened earlier this year I gained a ton of new followers, who will now see when I post new listings and hundreds of dollars in sales, in my first month. Now, I want you to do the same, or better.
“Why Am I Not Getting More Etsy Sales?”
How many times have you asked yourself this? It’s like waiting for your phone to ring but it never does. It can be a discouraging feeling that makes you want to give up. Fortunately, there can only be a few reasons you’re not getting more Etsy sales.
1. Your Etsy Listing Needs Work
2. Your Design Needs Work
3. Your Marketing Plan Needs Work
That’s all. It has to be one of these three things and we’re going to look at ways to fix them all.
How to Fix Your Etsy Listing to Get More Sales
Etsy listings really do require some work. Consider that this is what potential customers will see when they’re shopping, so you have to do everything you can to get them to visit your shop. Chances are your shop will show up in their search alongside many others. What will make them click on your listing over theirs? If you don’t know, you have some work to do.
No worries, we’ll look at this more in-depth later, but be sure to complete your listing, use great photos, and use keywords that will distinguish you from your competitors.
How to Fix My Design or Product to Get More Etsy Sales
If you are getting lots of visitors to your shop but no sales, the issue could be with your product. Once you’ve taken the steps to optimize your listing you’ll know for sure. If your pictures all look great and you’ve followed the tips I share below, the issue may your offering. I’m not saying your product stinks, I’m saying it’s not being offered in a way that makes them want to purchase it.
Is it priced competitively? Is it offered in a variety of colors/styles? Do you offer free shipping when everyone else in your niche does? Look around Etsy for similar products to see what may be setting your shop apart in a negative way.
Create a Marketing Plan
A marketing plan for Etsy can look like a marketing strategy you’d create for any other business. Etsy does not allow you to contact sellers directly from their marketplace but there are still ways to capture their information.
Think of your Etsy shop as a business and that will change your whole outlook. If you owned a brick and mortar boutique, how would you market your business differently? Use the same techniques that just came to mind and apply them to your Etsy shop. While Etsy does boast millions of users every month, you have to take your business into your own hands and market outside of the marketplace.
Maintaining a separate website or marketplace outside of Etsy is a good idea anyway. An Etsy alternative will allow you security should your Etsy shop ever get shut down for any reason. Don’t put all of your Etsy eggs in one basket if you can help it. We’ll discuss this later as well.
Now that we know how important our listings, product offerings, and marketing are, let’s see how we can get more traffic and sales on Etsy.
Use Digital Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Etsy Business
How To Get More Traffic That Results in Etsy Sales
1. Use Less Competitive Keywords on Your Etsy Listings
If you have never heard of keyword research, let me share with you how important this is. A keyword can be one word or a group of words, used when searching for anything online. Whether it’s a Google search or a search on Etsy, the phrase you enter is considered a keyword.
If you search for mugs on Etsy you will come up with a ton of mugs. Over 2 million actually. Who can compete with that?
However, if you search for mugs for readers, you only see about 4 thousand. I’d much rather compete with those numbers. So if you sell mugs, be as specific as you can without being too specific.
For example, the search “mugs for readers of sci fi” pulled up only 93 listings, which is great. You could totally dominate that niche, but you want to be sure you will have people who will want to buy that before you create an entire shop around that. So you want to narrow down, but not so far that you lose your audience.
Using a tool like Erank or Marmalead are very helpful in this regard. They show you the search volume and competition for whatever keyword you want to use.
2. Use Great Images for More Etsy Visitors
You don’t have to spend lots of money on expensive equipment but you have to use the best photos possible. People on Etsy are drawn to listings by the photos, so if you’re not posting clear photos that show your items in a positive light, you’re doing yourself a disservice.
Etsy allows you to show up to 10 photos, so use all of the spaces. I know it can be hard to do this if your product only has one angle, but you can use different mockup photos, show different variations, and even create graphics containing information about your shop.
The spaces for photos don’t have to just be of the product in the listing. If you have a website for your products use a program like Canva to create an image featuring your website and web address. Don’t waste that space!
3. Complete Your Etsy Listing for More Visitors to Your Shop
One of the most important aspects of your listing is the title. Remember we talked about keywords before? Well, be sure to use relevant keywords in your title. Don’t throw in a bunch for the sake of throwing them in, but if there are two or three keywords that can help people find your item, use them to name it.
For example, if you didn’t use keywords and named a sculpture of a sleeping baby “Beautiful Inspiration for a New Generation”, how many people would find it? Maybe a few would, but you’d get way more traffic if you name it “Sculpture of Sleeping Baby” or “Sleeping Baby Nursery Decor”. Put yourself in the minds of the average Etsy buyer and it’ll become much easier to come up with a good title.
Etsy favors shops with complete listings. Even though it is believed that Etsy doesn’t use the description to rank shop listings, you should still complete it. At the very least use this as your last chance to get a sale.
Maybe your product can be used for multiple purposes, be sure to list them. If your item runs small, use this space to let customers know. Add any information you think is pertinent and helpful.
Also, complete the attributes sections when applicable. If you sell long-sleeved shirts, be sure to show that they are long-sleeved. This will help Etsy know that they should show your listing when someone searches for a long-sleeved shirt.
4. Etsy SEO Tips
You have to use the correct tags to get more visitors to your Etsy shop. Etsy SEO or search optimization is a must. This goes hand-in-hand with the last one. Etsy allows you space to complete 13 tags for each listing. A tag is used to help Etsy match buyers with listings. Each tag should include a term that identifies the listing and is what a buyer would likely type in a search. They’re extremely important.
Tags are a part of the listing but are so important they deserve their own section. When you name your item be sure to use those same keywords in your tags. For the sleeping baby sculpture example, you would use the words sleeping baby, sculpture, nursery decor, etc as tags. You would also add other tags that people may use to search for the item, like ‘baby shower gift’, ‘newborn baby sculpture’, ‘gift for mom’, ‘gift for new mom’, and so on.
The most important point is to never, ever leave a space blank. Even if you can only think of a few, put in something related to your product. If you are out of ideas and use either Erank or Marmalead, they have a feature that will allow you to see the tags used in similar listings.
5. Etsy Free Shipping
Etsy allows sellers to offer attractive goodies like free shipping and discounts on the shop. One of the things that helped me was to designate my shop as one that would allow free shipping if the buyer makes a purchase over $35. I also offer a small discount to anyone who either favorites my shop or makes a purchase. You don’t have to offer a deep discount, anything to get in that person’s inbox to remind them of you.
If you do decide to offer a promotion, be sure to adjust your price accordingly. People are still likely to buy something that costs a little more if they see that there is free shipping.
6. Etsy Promotion
Who doesn’t love a sale? Try a promo to stand out. Etsy allows you to filter your search based on who may be running a sale so why not be included in those results?
Again, don’t devalue your products by offering a buy one get one free sale if it doesn’t make sense, but even a small sale will allow your listing to appear amongst the others who may be running a bigger sale.
7. Promote Your Etsy Shop for Free
Yes, Etsy gets millions of visitors to their website and yes, many of them may be searching for your listings, but what happens if Etsy decides to change its platform to stop allowing listings like yours?
That’s unlikely to happen but protect your business! If you are able to create a website of your own, I suggest you do it. Multiple streams of income don’t hurt either.
If you have a presence on social media, use software like Canva to post listings featuring new, trending, or seasonal items. Use your link to Etsy in your posts or add it to your bio so people can follow you.
If you know anyone with a blog related to your item, reach out and ask if they can add a link with a mention to your product. Maybe offer them a free product in exchange for a review.
8. List Products on Etsy Regularly
Add listings regularly. Don’t let too much time pass without activity in your shop. If you have ten new listings to add for the month, try adding one per day over ten days, rather than adding ten on day one and none for another 29 days. This lets Etsy know you have an active shop.
If you don’t have time to create new listings, go into your older listings, make a few changes, add to it, maybe try new tags and titles, and then republish. This will show Etsy there is activity, even though you’re not listing anything new.
In order to grow your online business, you have to consistently add more products. It doesn’t have to be every day or even every week, just consistently.
9. Sell Less Common Products on Etsy
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See the difference? Just by selling something less common you cut down the competition from 64,000 to 900.
If you’re selling something with lots of competition, try adding a not so common item or niche down. For example, birthday invitations are very popular on Etsy, but there is also lots of competition. Try adding save the date cards, or selling birthday invitations for people turning 100, or for softball aficionados, something that will set you apart from other shops.
Before you set on a niche, do a search on Etsy to see if there are other listings similar to your idea. If you do see related products look at the listings to see if they’re selling. Do people have these items in their carts? Are there sales and reviews? These are good indicators that there is a market for your niche.
I would suggest adding a few items in a new niche to get an idea of how they sell before creating an entire line. Validate the idea first and then scale up with more products.
10. Give Your Etsy Shop a Name That is Related to Your Products
If you use the Etsy app on your phone you will see that shops come up when you conduct a search. For example, if I do a search for key lime pie, I see items with this in the listing title, but I also see shops with the name key lime pie in the title.
If you’re selling puppy clothes and have that in your shop name, you’ll get a leg up over other sellers because your shop name will come up when someone searches for puppy clothes.
If you don’t want to change your shop name, no worries, but if you haven’t named your shop yet or are flexible, think about it. Better yet, try searching for something on the Etsy app to see what I mean! Then decide for yourself.
How To Increase Sales on Etsy
1. Create an Email List to Increase Sales on Etsy
Etsy doesn’t make it easy to build a client list and I’m sure that’s no accident. That doesn’t mean you can’t do it though. You can create a graphic that shares a link to your landing page or website and use that as one of your ten listing photos.
You can create a beautiful landing page with a tool like Convertkit. Select a landing page that you can customize to be consistent with your brand and use that as a way to attract new leads. Here’s how.
Once you create the page, Convertkit will give you a link that you can use to share with your Etsy customers, either in their customer receipt or anywhere in your shop announcements.
Once they click on the link they’ll be taken to your gorgeous, landing page where you can capture their email addresses. Once you have that you can schedule emails to send out individually or automatically. And you can try this with Convertkit free!
Try a High Converting Landing Page With Convertkit
You can also add the information to your shop announcement, listing description, or anywhere else you see fit. The main thing is to let your shop visitors and customers know where else they can reach you. Once you have their emails you can send them regular newsletters or whatever communication you use as a part of your marketing strategy.
2. Pricing Products on Etsy
Price your Esty products competitively. You want to charge so you get what you deserve for your products, but to be competitive you want to price somewhere in the ballpark of other, similar products. T-shirts on Etsy usually sell anywhere between $12.99 and $24.99.
If I listed a $49 t-shirt on Etsy it would probably only sell if there was something special about it. Be sure not to outprice yourself. Check other listings to see where they are and at the very least, be aware of where you fall in that spectrum.
3. Offer Free Shipping to Make More Sales on Etsy
I mentioned it above, Etsy allows you to filter a search using certain criteria, including free shipping. Consider offering free shipping if a buyer purchases a certain amount. Again, be sure to adjust your prices to absorb some or all of the shipping amount so you don’t end up losing money.
Etsy allows you to designate your shop as a shop that participates in free shipping so you will not be left out. Your listings will receive a “free shipping” banner that will help you stand out.
4. Provide Great Customer Service to Your Etsy Customers
Sometimes we get that customer that just can’t be satisfied. But short of that, providing great customer service goes a long way. Shoppers don’t always provide a review or feedback, but that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with asking for one. When you thank a customer for a purchase, just ask them to leave a positive review. If nothing else, you may earn a repeat customer.
5. Pick a Niche for Your Etsy Shop
This isn’t a hard and fast rule of course, but if you sell birthday invitations and handmade potholders, that’s great. It’s just a better shopping experience if someone can come to your shop to see one type of product or a group of products that are logically connected.
If you can make a connection between invitations and potholders, that’s great! (maybe they are all themed around a movie niche or all for teachers). Just let your customers know they found a well-thought-out, professional, cohesive shop.
So, you see, creating a profitable Etsy shop is possible. If you’re able to fix all of the issues related to your listing, product, and marketing plan you are almost guaranteed to make a sale on Etsy. We all have to work to make sure we’re providing a product that Etsy shoppers are looking for. There’s no magic to it, just a basic requirement that we meet the needs of the people we aim to serve.
Have you tried any of these tips? How did they work? Please share your challenges and successes in the comment section below.