Transcripts
1. Hello & Welcome!: There are 7.5 million sellers on Etsy, and some of
them are killing it. They are in the top
1%. Some of them are really struggling and wondering if they'll ever
get their first sale. So many of them are in the
middle - getting some sales, but not as many as
they would like. I have been every single
one of those sellers, and I'm going to tell
you all about it. Selling on Etsy
allowed me to create my first business
over ten years ago. Now I've been fully
self-employed for over eight years and
I absolutely love it. If I can help you get closer to your dreams, I'm all about that. But let's back up a little bit. If you're not
familiar with Etsy, Etsy is an online marketplace
where independent makers, designers, and collectors can sell handmade and vintage items. It launched in 2005. And if you're not
familiar with me, Hi, I'm Kelley Bren Burke. I have had a winding
career path, including bookstore manager, jewelry designer,
and Etsy shop owner, digital artist and
online educator. After over 14,000 sales on Etsy, I thought I was
pretty knowledgeable. But for this class, I went back, and I started
at the basics. I immersed myself in everything Etsy. I read the Etsy
Seller Handbook. I binged so many podcasts
about selling on Etsy. I was shocked to learn that
there was so much more for me to learn about
maximizing sales on Etsy. This class is for all levels, from Etsy pros to those that are just curious
about selling on Etsy. I'm going to tell
you about the pros and the cons of selling on Etsy. You'll learn how to conduct market research in your
own category on Etsy. You’ll look at who else
is selling products like yours, and you'll find ways
to stand out from the crowd in Etsy. Market research is absolutely critical
for anyone who's interested in being
a business owner. You'll verify the demand for
what you're selling before spending valuable time
and money creating, listing, and marketing
your products. This class is the first of a series of classes
I'm creating about selling on Etsy. If you'd like to be among the first to
hear about the next one, follow me on Skillshare. Up next: you'll get some great
resources with this course, including a workbook to
guide you through doing market research for
your own Etsy shop. I'll tell you all about it in the next lesson.
I'll see you there.
2. Project & Resources: Welcome back. Let's talk about the resources that
are waiting for you under the Project
and Resources tab. You'll find a workbook
to guide you through market research
for your own shop. This workbook will help you understand who is selling
products similar to yours on Etsy and prompt you to find ways to stand
out from the crowd. With product research, you'll
set yourself up for success by understanding your
customers' wants and needs. But wait, there's more. I also created a class
reference guide for you. This guide has important links
to the Etsy Seller Handbook, pop quizzes,
definitions, and more. Whenever you see this icon, you'll know that this info is saved in the class
reference guide for you. Since this class is aimed at
Etsy sellers of all levels, you're welcome to share any
aspect of your Etsy journey. As a class project, you could share a photo of
your progress in the class workbook or a
screenshot of your Etsy shop. Basically, anything
Etsy related. Please take a moment to look at other students' class projects. You can learn from
each other and cheer each other on. Who knows? Maybe you can connect
with someone who will become your new Etsy Bestie. Ready to take the first step? Go to the Class
Project and Resources tab and download one or
both of the workbooks. I will see you in the next
lesson where it is story time. I'm going to tell you all
about my experience on Etsy. I'll see you there.
3. My Experience on Etsy: Welcome back. In
the last lesson, we've reviewed the class
project and resources. In this lesson,
I'm going to tell you about my experience on Etsy. This is my Etsy
Shop, Gems by Kelley. It is story time. I've had a winding career path that includes bookstore manager, jewelry designer,
Etsy shop owner, digital artist, and
online educator. I was a store manager at Barnes and Noble
Bookstores for 20 years. I started making jewelry
as a hobby in 2006. I'm in the middle.
If you zoom in, you can see I'm wearing one of my handmade necklaces here. Making jewelry was the first real creative outlet in my life. I became obsessed with creating, and my handmade jewelry
started piling up. I tried selling in person. I even set up a table in front of a gift shop
with my sister one weekend. I got a few sales. I knew about Etsy, but I thought I wasn't
cool enough or techie enough to sell on
Etsy. Spoiler alert: You don't need to be cool
or techie to sell on Etsy. But those were my self-
limiting beliefs. I stayed at the bookstore. I loved working
at the bookstore. in the beginning. I loved
books and bookish people. But I was becoming increasingly unhappy in that
corporate environment. I allowed dogs in my bookstore, so that was a bright spot. This is my dog, Gracie. Fast forward to 2008, I met my husband-
to-be that year. He's a talented cook, so we
used the dining room table in our condo for dining
instead of beading. By 2013, I'd pretty much given
up on making and selling jewelry. Until I wanted new earrings to wear
my friend's wedding. I browsed the earrings
in my hair salon, and I thought: "I could
make them way cheaper." I did. Then I was obsessed again, creating handmade
earrings like a madwoman. Seven years after I started
making handmade jewelry, I opened my Gems by
Kelley Etsy shop. In the beginning, I
just sold earrings. Some kind friends
purchased earrings from my Etsy shop and
wrote lovely reviews. That was awesome, but I really wanted the validation of
a sale from a stranger. So I waited. Days went by, then weeks. It took
a month and a half. Thank you, dear Lizzie from
the UK. Here's my shop eight months after opening. I had 107 sales, and I'd estimate about
$4,000 in gross sales. Which would be about $2,000 in net profit for about
1,000 hours of work. for a wage of about $2 an hour. But I was hooked. I love this quote
from Lori Greiner of Shark Tank: "Entrepreneurs are willing to work
80 hours a week to avoid working 40 hours a week." I couldn't agree more. Let's take a quick break. In the next lesson I'll tell you about the biggest
risk of my life.
4. The Biggest Risk of My Life : Welcome back. You want to hear about the biggest
risk of my life? No, it wasn't a
jewelry photo shoot, but that was a big deal, too. In 2015, I quit my 20-
year career at Barnes and Noble to devote all my time
to growing my Etsy shop. Gems by Kelley was
two years old at the time. That risk paid off. This is my shop now. I'm
proud to say that I've had almost 14,000
jewelry sales on Etsy. Gems by Kelley is in the
top 1% of all Etsy shops. It has exceeded $650,000
in total revenue. Gems is consistently
an Etsy Star Seller, which means it meets or exceeds
Etsy's highest standards. I taught myself how
to do all of this. I like to say I got
my doctorate in business at the
University of Google. If I can do it, you can too. I'm going to spill all
of my secrets to you. I'm going to do this because
I absolutely love being self- employed and working from home with my dog and
husband helping me out. Having my own businesses
has transformed my life. If you want that, I want
you to have that, too. My shop has evolved
over ten years. I started making earrings and then I switched to
beaded bracelets. My photography improved as well. I also did a few photo shoots with a professional
photographer. My friend Megan modeled for me. I preferred making beaded
bracelets to earrings. I noticed customers often bought multiple bracelets
to layer. At my peak, I had a large inventory of about 300 items. That felt
unmanageable over time. I niched down. Now I have
about 125 items in my shop. Pearl and gemstone bracelets
are my best sellers. Pearls aren't my
personal favorite, but I discovered it was a
niche with great potential. Here's My Gems by
Kelley trajectory since 2013. In 2020, my yearly revenue exceeded $100,000 annually
for the first time. That was seven years
after I opened. Remember, I made jewelry for seven years before
I opened my shop. Here's the thing
with revenue though - it's not my net income, which is what I was left with
after I paid for supplies, payroll for my two very
part time assistants, taxes and Etsy fees. Not to mention my time. I still work at least
64 hours a week. Gems by Kelley sales
dipped in 2022. The pandemic boost in
online sales was over, and I was devoting more time to digital art and teaching
courses online. Let's pop back to
2017 for a second. In 2017, I opened a second
Etsy shop for digital art. This shop was a side hustle while I was focusing on gems
and teaching online courses. I work on it very
inconsistently. To date, that shop's
total revenue is almost $9,000. Like jewelry, art is a very saturated
market on Etsy. During my peak years
in my art shop, I was selling custom
building portraits. Etsy is great for selling custom
and personalized items. However, creating
personalized items isn't as efficient as selling the same product
over and over again, like pearl bracelets. Many personalized items
are time intensive, so you need to charge a lot
to get a decent hourly wage. The moral of my Etsy story is that Etsy is like a lot of things. You get what you put into it. It's not a get-
rich-quick scheme. You need to stick with it to recoup your
investment over time. The bulk of the rewards
typically come later. In the meantime, it requires a lot of persistence
and flexibility. You don't know where you'll
end up until you begin. I started as a
jewelry designer and now my focus is teaching
online courses. I love this quote. "The best time to plant a tree
was 20 years ago. The second best time
is now." Just one more: "Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will
take to accomplish it. The time will pass
anyway." Before we go: Here's another way of
looking at my evolution: my work spaces evolved too. Let's wrap up our story time. I will see you in the
next lesson where we discuss the pros and
the cons of selling on Etsy.
5. Pros & Cons of Selling on Etsy: Welcome back. In
the last lesson, I shared about my
experience selling on Etsy. During this lesson, we will
explore pros and cons between selling on Etsy versus
selling on your own website. There is one major benefit
to selling on Etsy. And there is one major drawback. Having a shop on Etsy is like having a store in
the Mall of America. It's the largest mall in the
United States at more than 5.6 million square feet. The Mall of America draws 40
million visitors each year. But Etsy draws more. In order for this to be a
more accurate comparison, the Mall of America
would need to more than double its' annual visitors. Etsy has 95.1 million buyers annually versus 40
million in the Mall of America. Just a quick reminder: whenever you see that
blue heart click icon, that means that this information is in the class
workbook for you. The annual gross
merchandise sales on Etsy are $13.3 billion. This information
comes directly from the Etsy Investor Relations Report. When you launch
your own website, it's like having a store at
the end of a deserted road. Customers aren't as likely
to stumble on your shop like they could on on Etsy or
in the Mall of America. You are responsible for driving your traffic to your website. Common ways of driving
traffic would include social media and your
email newsletter. So the main Etsy
pro is that there are is lots of traffic and
potential customers. And now we are going to have
a pop quiz - just for fun. This will also be linked
in your class workbook, so you can do the quiz there
if you printed it out. Otherwise you can just
follow along here. Okay. First question: How many results come up
when you search "jewelry" on Etsy? #1: Over 50,000 results? #2: Over 100,000 results? #3: Over 5 million results? Or
#4: Over 25 million results. Just a quick note
about this quiz. Etsy sellers choose what
countries they will ship to. For this quiz, we're searching shops that
will ship to the US. Okay? The answer to our
first question is #4. If you search jewelry on Etsy, you will find over
25 million results. Okay? Next question. How many results come up
when you search "art" on Etsy? Is it #1: Over 50,000 results? #2: Over 100,000 results?
#3: Over 5 million results? Or #4: Over 25 million results. And the answer is #4. Again, you get over
25 million results when you search "art" on Etsy. The main pro for
Etsy is that again, there is lots of traffic
and potential customers. The main con for
Etsy is that there is lots of competition
in many categories. Throughout the class,
we are going to be defining some terms for you. And those definitions will also be linked in
your class workbook. The first one is
saturated market. When there is an
excess of a product compared to the number
of potential buyers, businesses can find themselves in a competition for customers. This can limit the growth of opportunities for new
or existing businesses. Market saturation
typically happens when multiple businesses in the same industry fulfill
a similar purpose. Many people would consider both art and jewelry
saturated markets on Etsy. Put simply, that means that the supply exceeds the demand. Our next definition is
for the word "niche". Niche can be pronounced
either neesh or nich. Both are accurate.
Throughout the class, you will probably
hear me switching my pronunciation randomly
back between niche and niche. For our purposes, a niche is a specialized segment
of the market for a particular kind of
product or service. I love this quote
from Pat Flynn. It starts, "There's
riches in the niches, but the fortune is
in the follow up." Okay, let's take a quick break. I will see you in
the next lesson, where we'll explore the first
way to stand out on Etsy: Make it weird.
6. Make it Weird : Welcome back. In the
last lesson we discussed the pros and cons of
having a shop on Etsy. In this lesson, we're
going to explore the first way to stand out
on Etsy: Make it weird. But first, let's do
a quick overview of the Top Level
Categories on Etsy. Etsy's Top Level Categories
include Art and collectibles, Clothing, Home and living,
Jewelry and Weddings. This info is in the
Etsy Seller Handbook, which you can find online. It's a great resource
about everything Etsy. It's also linked for you
in the class workbook. When you look at the
category information in the Etsy Handbook, you'll see that each
Top Level Category has smaller subcategories. For example, Art has subcategories including
Illustration, Painting, Photography,
and Sculpture. Now that we've seen
the big picture, let's look at some of the weird things that
you can buy on Etsy. Yes, it's time for another
pop quiz - just for fun. Round one. What
can you buy on Etsy? #1: Frog earrings
with custom hats. #2: Taxidermy mice enacting the iconic dance
scene in "Dirty Dancing". #3: A baby onesie with
realistic tattoo sleeves. #4: Chocolate lollipops
shaped like dentures. #5: All of the above, Or #6: None of the above. I may be dating myself with
the "Dirty Dancing" reference. If you're not familiar - it's a movie from 1987. It's about young love with lots of dancing and
a great soundtrack. We'll hear more about
"Dirty Dancing" a bit later. Okay, back to question one. If you guessed #5: All of the above,
you're correct. Ready for round two?
What can you buy on Etsy? #1: Hand-knitted
dissected frog wall art. #2: Hand crocheted
clown cross body bag. #3: A candle shaped
like a Croc shoe. #4: enuine rattlesnake
vertebrae, earrings, #5: All of the above, or #6: None of the above. The answer is #5:
All of the above. We'll look at some of
these listings in a sec. But first, I wanted to explain why we're talking
about these weird Etsy listings. In order to stand out in a
crowded marketplace, it helps to make your
offerings weird. For example, if you knit, you could create a
listing for a scarf on Etsy. That scarf would be one of over 35,000 hand-knit scarves
available to buy on Etsy. Or you could use your
skills to make something really unique, like
dissected frog wall art. Speaking of dissected
frog art, yes, you can buy dissected
frog wall art on Etsy. Wouldn't this be a great
gift for a biology teacher? Unlike most scarves, it has a high price point at $150 USD. I pulled out some details
about this item and shop. Knowing where to find these details will help
you when you're doing market research for
listings within your own niche. For example, there
are only four left of this frog art and two people already have
one in their cart. Highlighting this
information makes the item seem scarce and sought after, in hopes that you want to buy it right away so
you don't miss out. This item has over 25 reviews, so it's sold multiple times. I'm guessing the seller
will make many more than the four that
are listed currently. But again, listing
fewer than what's truly available gives
a sense of scarcity. I do this in my own shop. Although it seems
counterintuitive to share how you make your items,
this is really smart. There are 99 reviews for this knitting pattern.
In my jewelry shop. 24% of purchases receive
reviews. Using that percentage. this pattern may have
brought this shop $6,174. That's passive income. The shop would have to sell over 41 pieces of frog wall
art to get the same revenue. Let's talk about passive income. I love passive income. Examples of passive
income include selling digital downloads and creating online courses like this one. You actively create the content, but the revenue
comes in passively for years to come.
It's different from running a standard
product-based shop on Etsy. When someone orders
the framed frog art, the seller has to make and
ship a new piece every time. When someone buys the digital
download knitting pattern, the most the seller will need to do is answer any questions that arise. And there is no cost
other than the Etsy fees. Let's take a quick break. When we come back,
we're going to look at more weird Etsy listings.
7. More Weird Etsy Listings: Welcome back to more
weird Etsy listings Because I interacted
with the frog art, the Etsy algorithm decided
that I like frogs. Because of that,
more frog listings leapt up into my search, like these frog earrings
with custom hats. Look at all of
those little hats. Talk about frog hats
for all occasions. Party hats, crowns, santa hats, cowboy hats and more. This shop is a Star
Seller shop on Etsy. Star Seller is a program
that Etsy introduced in 2021. This is what Etsy says about
the Star Seller program. The Star Seller
program is a way for Etsy to reward shops
that consistently offer an excellent
customer experience in the areas that we know
are important to buyers. #1: Responding to
messages quickly. #2: Shipping on
time with tracking, and #3: High average
review ratings. On the first of each month, we determined if you've
earned Star Seller by looking back at the
last three months of your shop's performance. To become a Star Seller, your shop needs to make
at least five sales worth $300 within the
three-month review period. Again, that's from the
Etsy Handbook and it is linked for you in
your class workbook. The frog earring listing is
also an Etsy Bestseller. Pro tip: If you hover over one of the
peach Bestseller badges, you'll see this item has had a high sales volume over
the past six months. Moving on from frogs to mice. Yes, you can buy mice reenacting a scene
from "Dirty dancing". I was chatting
with friends about all the quirky things
I found on Etsy. I couldn't believe how many
people wanted to buy them. These Dirty Dancing mice were one of the
most coveted items. Pro tip: market research on Etsy can turn into
shopping real quick. I made at least three
impulse purchases while I was creating this class. But back to the mice, this listing costs $204. This shop has had almost
7,500 sales since 2019, the date of their first review. Speaking of Dirty Dancing, Etsy has over 1,000 items inspired by the
movie Dirty Dancing. This is the dance move the taxidermy mice
were re enacting. Just in case you
want Dirty Dancing leggings, Etsy has them. Okay! On to the next weird item. Yes, you can buy chocolate lollipops shaped
like dentures on Etsy. This listing says that these dentures make
great party favors for a dentist or for an
over-the-hill party theme. Okay. Another rapid
change of topic. Yes, you can buy earrings with genuine
rattlesnake vertebrae. Why buy plain old
earrings when you can buy earrings with genuine
rattlesnake vertebrae? These earrings are
an Etsy Bestseller in a Star Seller's shop. There are 112 reviews
for this item, which is over half of
the total shop reviews. And there is a matching
necklace available. Moral of the story: in
a crowded marketplace, being weird is a great
way to stand out. I want to go over one more
thing from the Etsy Handbook real quick before we wrap
up our weird lesson. But make sure you stay
tuned until the end of this lesson to see more of the
weird listings I found on Etsy. Okay, back to the Handbook. You may be wondering how
Etsy defines "handmade". Here's info from the
Etsy Seller Handbook. "Handmade on Etsy is a spectrum. On one hand we have
makers - sellers, who are literally making their items with their
own hands or tools. On the other hand,
we have designers - sellers who design their
items but rely entirely on outside assistants
or another business to help physically produce them. Many handmade sellers fall in
the middle of the spectrum because they are both making
and designing their items." In the listings we saw, some
were made by maker/designer hybrids, like the taxidermy mice and the rattlesnake
vertebrae jewelry. Others had outside assistance, like the Dirty Dancing leggings. Shops using outside assistance must disclose that
within their listings. For example, the name and the location of the
manufacture is seen here. Using production partners often means a more passive income. It looks like this seller designs the pattern
for the leggings that another company will make
and ship. As promised, here's photos of more
weird Etsy listings. And they are also all linked for you in
your class workbook. Time for a quick break.
I will see you in the next lesson where we explore the second
way to stand out on Etsy: Make it specific.
8. Make it Specific: Welcome back. In
the last lesson, we discussed the first
way to stand out on Etsy: Make it weird. In this lesson,
we're going to look at the second way
to stand out on Etsy: Make it specific. But first, are you ready for another
pop quiz? Let's go. What can you buy on Etsy? #1: Coasters made of
broken skateboards. #2: A candle that says "Smells like Future
Electrician Apprentice". #3: A recycled
retro polyester bikini covered with mushrooms
who have eyes. #4: A board book for
babies about tattoos. #5: All of the above. #6: None of the above. If you guessed #5: All of the above,
you're correct. Let's look at the first listing. Yes, you can buy coasters made of broken
skateboards on Etsy. I love these coasters. There's actually lots
of products made with recycled skateboards on Etsy, including some
colorful wall art. These coasters are
labeled Etsy's Pick. If you're wondering
what Etsy's Pick means: when you hover over the
peach Etsy's Pick label, you'll see Etsy's Picks
are hand selected by our style experts to
highlight items from shops that have shown quality,
reliability, and style. Next, let's talk about why it pays to make your
listings specific. Have you ever been shopping, and you happen
across something so specific that one of your friends pops into
your mind instantly? If you're anything like
me, you put that item in the cart real quick and ship
it right to your friend. For example, the broken
skateboard coasters would be a perfect gift for your friend who loves skateboarding and environmentally
responsible products. Let's move from skateboards
to board books. Yes, you can buy a book for
babies about tattoos on Etsy. This book is an Etsy Bestseller, and it says at the
top that there's been 20 plus views in
the last 24 hours. That's another way that Etsy will create a sense of urgency, hoping that people will be moved to buy the
book right away. I threw a baby shower
from one of my friends. She's a bookstore manager. She married a tattoo artist, and no surprise, she and her husband
have lots of tattoos. If I would have seen this
before her baby shower, I would have bought it so fast. I saw an interesting keyword in the tattoo book
listing title. It was "edgy baby present". Of course, I search for more gifts for edgy
babies on Etsy. That's how I found the baby, onesie with the tattoo sleeves
from the last lesson. So cute. I can't get over
it. I don't have kids. But if I would have, I
would have definitely hoped for an edgy baby. Moving on from edgy babies
to gifty candles. Yes, you can buy a
candle that's labeled "Smells Like a Future
Electrician's Apprentice". This shop is a Star
Seller shop with over 5,100 sales since their
first review in 2020. Other candles include
gifts for future animator, occupational therapist,
future clinical psychologist, and lots more highly specific
careers and occasions. When you buy one
of these candles, you get to pick from one of six pretty standard
candle scents. The candle doesn't actually smell like a nervous
new employee. Let's talk about some more
ways to make it specific. Astrology signs are a great
way to make it specific. This listing is one
of many listings on Etsy that feature
specific star signs. This item is an Etsy' Pick
and it is a Star Seller shop. Even more specifically,
you could create products with
specific birth dates, like these custom candles. These candles are
in 20 plus carts. There are 215 reviews
for this item and 358 reviews for this shop. You can see that this candle is getting the bulk of the
sales for this shop. Creating products using birth stones is another way
to make it specific. If you look at the
top of this listing, you'll see that it says, "In demand: Four people bought
this in the last 24 hours". Or you could create
a product that features multiple birth flowers. These pendants are
custom made to feature multiple birth flowers. These have sold a lot. They are in 20 plus carts, and there's over 200
reviews for this item. And the shop overall has
almost 73,000 reviews. Or you could create products
featuring State Flowers. This print features the
California State Flower and it is a digital download print. That is passive
income for this shop. Moral of the story: in
a crowded marketplace, Make it specific to
stand out. Before we go, Here's more ways Etsy sellers
are making it specific. Let's take a quick break. I'll see you in the next lesson. It's all about the third
way to stand out on Etsy: Make it personalized.
9. Make it Personalized: Welcome back. In
the last lessons, we discussed two ways
to stand out on Etsy: Make it weird, and
Make it specific. In this lesson, we're going to explore the third way
to stand out on Etsy: Make it personalized.
Guess what? Yes, it's time for
another pop quiz. Just one quiz here. So let's see if you
can get it right. What can you buy on Etsy? #1: A custom portrait of your family as
Simpsons' characters. #2: A necklace with a QR
code for your business. #3: A custom
painting of your car. #4: A portrait of the place
you had your first date. #5: All of the above or #6: None of the above.
If you guessed #5, All of the above,
you are correct. Okay. I tried to throw in a
wrong answer for that quiz. I thought: I'm going
to surprise them all! Keep them on their toes. I tried really hard to find something that wasn't able
to be personalized on Etsy, but it seems you can personalize absolutely
anything on Etsy. Exhibit A: Personalized
potato chip bags. Personalized items are at the
top of the search filters on Etsy. They're Etsy's
bread and butter. The other top filters, "free shipping" and "on sale" are
also very important to Etsy. We'll talk about that in a
future class about pricing. Let's look at our first
personalized listing. Yes, you can buy a portrait of your
family as the Simpsons. This listing is an
Etsy Bestseller in a Star Seller's shop. The reason I'm pointing out these details is
that it will help you when you're doing
category research for your own shop. On to the next custom item. Yes, you can buy a necklace with a QR code for your business. I can just imagine someone
at a networking event encouraging everyone to scan
their pendant to connect. Moving on from pendants to cars: Yes, you can buy a custom
painting of your car or truck. There are a lot of options for personalized portraits on Etsy. I thought that this
was an interesting one, and it turns out a popular one. Thirteen people bought this listing in
the last 24 hours. Yes, you can get
a custom portrait of the location of
your first date. I offered custom home and business portraits in my art
Etsy shop back in the day. They weren't nearly
as nice as this one, but I did do pretty well
with that business. I did first date
portraits like this one, and I marketed home
portraits to realtors. Here are some of my home
and business portraits. I definitely had some issues
with perspective and depth, but people liked them. However, I wanted to pursue
more passive income. I started teaching
online classes instead. Okay. Do you want to know how bad my first home
portraits were? It literally pains me to look at these and
to show them to you. But I want to prove to you
that you don't have to be anywhere near perfect
to start selling on Etsy. I love this quote from
comedian Sarah Silverman. "If you don't look at your
old stuff and cringe, you're not growing." Moral of the story: in a
crowded marketplace, Make it personalized
to stand out. Stick around for the next
slides where you can see more personalized items
from Etsy for inspiration. Here we go. Let's take a quick break. I'll see you in the next lesson, which is about the
fourth way to stand out on Etsy: Make it giftable.
10. Make it Giftable: Welcome back. In
the last lesson, we discussed the third
way to stand out on Etsy: Make it personalized. In this lesson, we're going
to explore the fourth way to stand out on Etsy:
Make it giftable. As I was creating
this class, Etsy introduced gift mode. Etsy CEO Josh Silverman wrote
this in Etsy News. "Our vision is to create a gift shopping experience that supercharges everyone's
gift giving potential. Today, I'm excited to announce
the launch of Gift Mode, an interactive hub for
gifting that combines AI and human curation to help shoppers
find the perfect present." This is currently the
top of Etsy's home page. It highlights very
specific gift recipients like the Zen Seeker, the Knitter, the Basketball
Fan, and many more. When you click the
black Shop Now button, you'll see a page like this with specific gift recipients
including Partner, Myself, The Whole
Family, Neighbor. If you tap the next
question button, you'll see a page that details specific recipients
and occasions. There are also prompts to choose what the gift
recipient is into, such as Pets, Music, and Games. As sellers, this gives us a
wealth of information about how we can present
our items as gifts. Let's look at some of
the giftable things you can buy on Etsy. You can buy a canvas print with sheet music for
your favorite song. It's a great gift
for newlyweds, wedding anniversaries
and music lovers. You can buy a pillow that says, "Mom, I am a rich man." This pillow intrigued me, so I googled "mom,
I am a rich man". Turns out this phrase is from a 1996 interview
with the singer. Cher, who tells a story about her mom who thinks Cher should find a rich
man and get married. Cher replies: "Mom, I am a rich man." It's a great clip. You
can find it on Youtube. This gift would be perfect for successful women
and their mothers. You can also buy tiny
photo album key chains with your favorite
photos in them. It's a great gift
for your partner, new parents, grandparents,
and don't forget pet parents. You can see by the keywords
that this shop is using in the title that
they are marketing this listing towards couples. Here's the exact same
product, same shop, but this key chain is now
marketed as a gift for dads. They have 15
different listings of this photo album key
chain in their shop. Different listings are
geared toward couples, moms, dads and Valentines. This is very smart. Moving on from key
chains to tea towels: there are lots of custom
tea towels on Etsy. These ones are personalized
with longitude and latitude. It would be a great gift for newlyweds, chefs,
and new homeowners. If I had a shop like this, I would have listings specific to each of those recipients. Okay. From tea towels
to embroidered socks: embroidery is a
current trend on Etsy. These socks would be a
great gift for gardeners, people with
perpetually cold feet, flower lovers, or any winter
gift giving occasion. Moving on from
socks to potatoes: Yes, you can buy soap shaped
like a potato on Etsy. This listing says it is the "original potato soap" which suggests that
there are knockoffs. This would be a great
gag gift or perfect for anyone who loves potatoes. This soap is $9.50 USD
per 4.5 ounce potato. This shop also has soap
shaped like a tooth. Moral of the story: in a crowded marketplace, Make
it giftable to stand out. Here are some more gift
items on Etsy for inspiration. Let's take a quick break. I'll see you in the next lesson, we're going to
explore Etsy search.
11. How Etsy Search Works: Welcome back. In the last lessons, we talked about four ways to
stand out on Etsy: Make it weird, Make it specific, Make it personalized,
and Make it giftable. In this lesson, we're going
to explore Etsy search. Then we'll begin market
research for your Etsy shop, whether it's an existing shop or one that you're
contemplating. Market research is a crucial -
but often neglected - step of launching
any enterprise. With product research,
you'll set yourself up for success by understanding your
customers' wants and needs. You'll verify the demand
for what you're selling before spending valuable
time and money creating, listing, and marketing
your products. While it's best to do
market research in advance, it's never too late to
conduct market research. In fact, it's a good idea to explore your niche
on a regular basis, especially if you would
like to grow your revenue. Demand is one of those factors which decide the fate
of your business. Market research is
important because people have to want
what you're selling. This sounds like a big duh, but it's easy to overlook. To understand your category,
you'll search Etsy. As you're searching, answer
the following questions: Who is the audience
that you're targeting? Who else is selling products
similar to yours on Etsy? How does your product
compare to theirs? How can you make your
product stand out so buyers purchase from you
over your competitor? But first, let's review
how Etsy search works. Here's info from the
Etsy Seller Handbook. "When a member searches
for an item on Etsy, Etsy's search algorithm works to return the most
relevant matches. Details of this algorithm change frequently so we can help buyers find what
they're looking for." In other words, Etsy's
search algorithm is designed to match buyers with the items
they're looking for so it's easy for them
to make a purchase. One thing that might
surprise you is that Etsy will expand your search to other
things you might buy. For example, when you search
"greeting card for coworker", the top row also includes
a coworker trinket dish. This search for "greeting
card for friend" also shows a jar of friendship
messages in a bottle. I clicked on that shop and
it has just four items. All are variations of
the message in a bottle: concepts like "long distance
messages in a bottle". There are only four
listings in this shop. This shop has had 1,229 sales
since their first review in 2020. Over 50 people have these
listings in their cards. Now that we've explored
the basics of Etsy search, let's conduct our
own market research. But before we start,
I want to share this quote from
author Austin Kleon: "If you have one person
you're influenced by, everyone will say you're
the next whoever. But if you rip off 100 people, everyone will say
you're so original." During market research,
we'll be getting ideas for your shop by taking inspiration from a variety of sources. You want your shop to be unique, not just like your competitors'. So let's take a quick break. In the next lesson,
we'll discuss market research for your
here. I'll see that.
12. Intro to Market Research : Welcome back. In
the last lesson, we talked about Etsy search. In this lesson, we'll begin market research
for your Etsy shop. All successful Etsy sellers
have one thing in common: they sell products
customers want. Okay! It's time to conduct
market research on Etsy. Sign out of Etsy. Or better yet, use a private
or incognito browser. Remember how after I interacted with the dissected
frog wall art, Etsy decided to put lots of
frogs in my search results? Using an incognito browser
will help your results be more neutral and less influenced by your own searching
and shopping habits. Now search for a keyword in your current shop or the
shop you're considering. For example, let's start
by searching "portrait". Note the autocomplete
dropdown box: it indicates searches that are frequently
made by customers. In this case, it includes
"portrait from photo", "portrait painting",
"portrait commission". From those autocomplete options, I chose to narrow the search
to "portrait from photo". Note the related searches
on the top of the page. In this search, related searches include "portrait
from photo pencil", "portrait from photo deceased", "portrait from photo dog". These are similar to the
autocomplete dropdown box. There are common searches
that Etsy customers use. As we discussed during the
Etsy pros and cons lesson, Etsy changed while I was filming this class. When
searching in a browser, Etsy will only give you the
specific number of results available if there are
less than 1,000 results. If there are over 1,000 results, it will say 1,000+
results plus ads. There is currently a workaround. When you search on
the Etsy shopping app, you can see the specific
number of results. This is helpful in gauging the amount of competition
in your niche. However, the results
you get within the Etsy shopping app will be affected by your own searching
and shopping history. You may want to use
the Etsy shopping app in conjunction with a
private search in a browser. After exploring some
keyword searches, narrow your searches. Click on both of
"Etsy's Best" options, Etsy Pick and Star Seller. At the top of the search, you'll see a row of "Most Loved". After that, you'll see
the search results for Etsy's Pick and Star Seller
narrowing your search. This way, we'll
show you the most popular results for your search. Unfortunately, every time
you do a new search, you'll need to
narrow your filters. Again, here are
all the clues Etsy will give you that indicate a popular item. Going clockwise, starting at the upper right, "20 plus views in
the last 24 hours." Looking down under the title, if the black stars are completely colored in
next to a shop name, that means the shop has a review average of
4.8 stars or better. If the stars are not
completely black, then it reflects an
average review rating of 4.7 stars or less. If a shop is a Star Seller,
you'll see it here. On the lower left, you'll see
the number of reviews for the item compared to the
total reviews for the shop. Then at the top, you
could see the label of either Bestseller
or Etsy's Pick. Both labels show popularity, but a Bestseller will
have more consistent sales over the last six months
than an Etsy's Pick. Let's take a quick break. I will see you in
the next lesson.
13. Anatomy of an Etsy Shop: Now let's switch our market
research over to a browser. I have Safari up
here on my iPad, and Safari calls it
Private Browsing. Your browser might call it something else, like Incognito. We're doing our market
research this way so our results are
not influenced by our past searching and
shopping behavior. So let's bring up Etsy. Here
is Etsy's home page. I am not signed in, and that
is the way I want it to be. So right here, we can browse
through the home page. It shows some popular gifts right
now, Black-owned Etsy shops. So I wanted to point out here that on
this bottom browser, there's a number of
resources for you. And I'm going to start
with Sell on Etsy. as one. Here is some information
about selling on Etsy, including Open Your Etsy Shop. There is also policies - so these are Our
House Rules at Etsy. So you can search here
to get some information. Throughout the class
I've been talking about the Etsy Seller Handbook, thinking that
anything from Etsy is coming from the Etsy Seller
Handbook. But that's not true. It's kind of spread out
all over the place. Another area that
you might want to look is the Help area on Etsy. And they have Shopping on
Etsy and Selling with Etsy. There's lots of
information here as well. To get to the
Etsy Seller Handbook, you would just Google it. And it is right here. This is where they
had the things like the Marketplace Insights. You could see trends
and that kind of thing. But I'm going to close that. And we're just going to go
back to Etsy's home page. The next thing that we're
going to be doing is we are going to be looking at
the anatomy of an Etsy shop. I searched anatomy (laughs) No, I'm going to search
my own shop here. Gems by Kelley. Right here, you'll see that these
three listings are mine. These listings are not. They're ads by
other Etsy sellers for things that are
similar to what I carry. Then these are mine
and this is not mine. Okay. Right here it says, do you mean the shop Gems
by Kelley? And indeed I do. So here is my shop. This is the cover of the shop. I have different slides here with different
things that I feature. The fact that it's
complimentary gift wrap, free shipping, and that
I'm a Star Seller. You'll also see it if somebody is a Star Seller right there. And you'll see it
right there again. When somebody is a Star Seller, these stars specifically
reflect the reviews. And that means that I have an average review rating
of 4.8 or higher. Here is my shop announcement -
the seller does that. I'm a Star Seller
typically every month. And so every month
I'll change it to say February 2024
Etsy Star Seller. And then I'll update how
many Etsy sales I have. Now if we go along here, there's these different
tabs up here for Items, Reviews, About, and
the Shop Policies. When you have a shop, you'll want to make
sure that you have all of these areas filled out. Right here, you can search
any item within my shop. If you search up there, you're searching for
anything on Etsy. I also have my sections right here. And
sellers will create their own sections, and I
highly recommend doing this, unless you just
have a handful of items. It will help customers browse. So, for example,
if they knew that they wanted pearl jewelry,
they could click here. If they knew that they
wanted clasp bracelets, they could go here, and so on. So let's just scroll down.
Here are the reviews. Etsy will sort the reviews by Suggested, and I like to look
at them by Most Recent. This is how many reviews I have. And they call out reviews that mention Quality, Shipping,
Customer Service. When you are doing
your shop research, you'll want to look
at the reviews of your competitors, and
that will give you a lot of information about what customers like and
what they don't like. Here they mention Quality,
Customer Service. My number one complaint I get on Etsy is "smaller than expected". Anything you can do to
show buyers the size - whether it's a model or simply holding it in your hand -
is really helpful. This person says I
helped out with sizing. This one talks
about the packaging, and that the bracelets
feel secure. My shops are mentioning fit, and customer service,
and quality. Some customers will leave
pictures like this, which is really helpful
for customers that are browsing to see the
piece on somebody's wrist. Anyway, looking at
the comments and the different themes in the customer reviews will
be very helpful for you. I've mentioned before, if you don't see the age of the shop, you can scroll back to
their last review page. This was my first review, It was from my friend Jax who actually also
has an Etsy shop. And you can see that the
date was October 2013. If you didn't know
the age of a shop, you could figure
it out that way. But right here it does
say in the About section how many sales I've had and how long I've been on Etsy.
This is my About section. It's very good to fill this out, so people can see that
you are a real person. They're curious about you,
they want to know about you. Here's a little bit of
information about me. I also have links to
my other places on the Internet, and then some
information about me here. We have Shop policies, Shipping. And I have also created a Frequently Asked
Questions section, which again, I recommend. That
is the anatomy of a shop. Now that we've looked at
the anatomy of a shop, let's look at the
anatomy of a listing. Here is a pearl bracelet and here it says Etsy's
Pick. It's on sale. This is a new thing. Here
it says Etsy's pick, and then it says
this item has had a high sales volume over
the past six months. It's a Bestseller
within beaded bracelets - that is something new. But again, any time you see
one of those peach labels, you can click on it and see
what Etsy means by that. Here, there's some
dropdown boxes, you can get a gold filled clasp. And I have length options
ranging from 6 " to 9.5 ". It's really important for me
to offer inclusive sizes, so my bracelets should
fit just about everyone. Here again, it says that I'm a Star Seller and
here are my reviews. I have 357 reviews
for this item, over 3,000 for the entire shop. Here are some pictures
customers have uploaded of this item, which also obviously
helps the other customers. Here are the item details. And I filled out this
information within Etsy and Etsy will hide the
details of the information. So you can hit here, it says: Learn more
about this item. This is the beginning
of my description. Here it's hidden, but
when you click on that, the customers will
see more information. I have chosen just to hit
the details at the top here. The size and length information, I also linked in all
my listings - which I recommend - is you can see all of my freshwater pearl
jewelries by clicking there. I have it linked, then I have clasp bracelets
linked there as well. Here's the information
about shipping. You can also access
the policies, FAQs and so on from there. So now that we've looked
at the anatomy of an Etsy shop and the
anatomy of an Etsy listing, let's move on to market
research for your shop. So I will see you
in the next lesson when we discuss market
research for your shop.
14. Market Research on Etsy: Welcome back. In
the last lesson, we started discussing
market research. In this lesson, I'm
going to show you how to do market research
for your own shop. I'm going to show you how I
would do market research if I was thinking about a shop for
custom building portraits. I'm going to click on
Custom portrait there. I am going to put building in here or home.
Let's just do home. There are over 1,000 results
as we mentioned before. If you want the specific number, you will go to the app. For now, that is a workaround. The C's picks are at the top, and these are ads by C sellers. I try not to click
on them unless I'm really interested because it
just can cost sellers money. I don't want to do
that unnecessarily. Here we have a row
of best sellers. These are not ads. What I would be looking
at here is pricing. Here the pricing is $20.31 300. That's hand painted.
This is interesting. They have five star reviews. You can charge higher prices
for a quality product on C. This is a best seller
and there's a video here. And this is cool. The artist is actually showing
how she does the work. I think that's cool. You can also look at
reviews to see what customers like and don't
like about the shop. That will give you a
lot of information for your own shop. If you're searching in your
category, she nailed it. Wonderful communicator,
stellar customer service, great communication, detail
oriented, quick to respond. Fantastic gift, great
communication, responsive, so on. Let's see what else she does. I'm always happy to
see that artists are selling at
higher price points and they are successful at it. So we can look here. She
does wedding portraits, house portraits, and pet
portraits, and people portraits. That would be a shop that you
would be competing with in the realm of custom
portraits for homes. Here we have more. And the prices
here range from 24 $9 $13 Let's look at this, $9.01 It's currently 50% off. They charge the same price, no matter what the size is. That's interesting, and they are really advertising that they
can get this done quickly. That is interesting. They don't talk about
their process here, let me see if I go
to their home page. If they have a about section, they don't talk about how they make it like whether they make it on procreate or Adobe. That's interesting. But they also do things like
custom pillows and so on. One of the resources
that you'll get with this class is this Market
Research Handbook. There's prompts here to help
you do your own search. That was just an example of the kind of things that I look at when I am doing research. I look at pricing and
reviews and so on. Another thing you can do is
look at keywords within here. They're using keywords of custom home portrait from
photo black and white, Sketch custom home sketch, housewarming gift,
first custom gift. So they're tapping into
that giftable market here. And those are the kind of keywords you might want
to experiment with if you are going to start within this category when you
are doing your search. It's also a good idea to search by Etsy's pick and star seller. Well, let's just do Etsi's pick for now and see
what we get here. These are things that
Ets recommends and this top row is ads
and this one is not. I mentioned before
that Ts will put items in your search that aren't exactly what you're looking for. So I search custom portrait home and I must have looked at a portrait of people
because now it's showing me a portrait of
a family instead, and a coaster and
different things. Oh, this is cut. This is really a hand stitched
house portrait. Super cute. Oh, that's lovely. I hadn't seen one
like this before. It can seem like I'm scattered in all
over the place here. But that is how it goes. When you're doing
market research, you're just clicking on different things
that interest you. You're getting ideas, like
I would have never known that you could get a hand
stitched house portrait, and I think that is adorable. You can get ideas for things
that you might want to do. This is a trend that I see a
lot of a faceless portrait. I bet there's a lot
of them on t's. Let's just search that it's a popular search because
it gets auto prompt. As soon as I type in faceless, there are over 1,000
results with ads. And some of these people have
faces and some of them do not. Like I said, it's a trend. But again, Ts is showing me a variety of things
here including this, which is a very different
product from say, this faceless portrait here. That is market research. I know it seems
random and all over the place because you
are just clicking on different things and
finding different niches. This one is a faceless portrait and it is a loss family
memorial portrait. There's a video here
where this artist is showing how she's
doing the work. She is essentially just tracing a photo and she's doing
this in procreate. I recognize the side thing, that's cool, that she's
showing how she does it. The shop has a lot of
business, 19,000 reviews. Let me see what
else she sells her. So announcement was last
updated October 20, 23rd. It's talking about
the holiday season, it's some face lets portraits and a variety
of different things. If you look at the reviews, you can see what she's
probably selling. The most of this is
seasonal Easter basket tag. Hello, my name is different. She's selling a lot of
stickers, it looks like. So that's what she's primarily
selling in this shop. From your market research, that you can see
that there's a shop that's selling a number
of different things here, like clothing, magnetic
bookmarks, family illustrations. If you go to the reviews, you can get an idea
of what they are actually selling and what customers are
actually reviewing, which in this case is
a lot of stickers. That is market research. That's just an example
of how you would do it and it is a meandering process. You will have these
workbook sheets to guide you, that
will help you out. And you'll have a
place for notes. You can also note here how
you would make it weird, make it specific, and so on. But that is just how
to do market research. It's a lot of clicking on different things, getting ideas, and seeing what's out there, what's popular, and what
the price point is. The next lesson is a
quick one where I will just wrap things up and
give you some next steps. I will see you in
the next lesson.
15. Congrats! And Next Steps: Hello and congrats. You're almost done
with this class. Before we go, here's
one more definition. Super impressive person. It's a noun and it means you, you invested time in your
professional growth. And I hope that you're a step closer to achieving your dreams. And let's see if you can
ace your next pop quiz. What are your next steps? One, leave a positive
review for this class. Two, get more, etc. Freebies at Kelly Bren Burke.com
forward slash at three. Follow me on Skillshare. Four, upload your class project or five, All of the above. If you guess five,
all of the above, you get a gold star. But really, if you did all of the above, that
would be awesome. But even one would be great. Specifically, if you leave a positive review
for this class, it would make my day and help other people
find this class. For the class project,
you're welcome to share any aspect of your Et C journey, whether that's your progress in the class workbook or
a screenshot of your. So this class is the first
in a series of classes I'm creating about selling on at C. If you follow
me on Skillshare, you'll find out about the next one as soon as I publish it. And I hope so many
wonderful things unfold for you on
your at sea journey. Thank you for joining me
and I hope to see you soon.
Kelley Bren Burke, Artist & Educator
