Selling on Etsy: How to create a successful online shop

1. About the Class: so I'm guessing if you're watching this video, you are either considering opening an Etsy shop. Or maybe you already have a Nancy shop and you're trying to figure out some ways to make more sales. I love to create, and you just want to know a way to make some money doing it well, my friend, you have come to the right place. This is selling on Etsy. How to set up a successful shop I'm bombing would cut. I'm an artist, maker, skill share teacher and Etsy shop owner. I have been a professional working artist for about 30 years, and I have then fortunate to have some have had some really fun and interesting job opportunities along the way. I've done everything from designing logos and album covers and cereal boxes and the toys that come in cereal boxes, the displays that you see in in stores to decorative finishes, on ceilings and on walls and in restaurants to painting murals and portrait's. Most recently, I have focused my creative efforts on creating artwork that I sell in online store and on etc. As well as teaching here on skill share. This is my fourth skill share class I have to acrylic painting classes, one that teaches you how to paint sunflowers, another one that teaches you how to paint roses and my third class teaches you how to make a really cute little Zodiac wall hanging. The reason I created this classes because people ask me all the time for advice on selling on Etsy. I have found a lot of success there, and I have had countless people tell me, Oh, I tried, etc. And it just doesn't work for me. Well, I'm here to tell you that if you are willing to do the research and do the work, you can be successful on Etsy. I've had over 5000 sales and made well over six figures in revenue since I opened my shop. During the class. I'll give you tips and resource is that will help you determine if what you want to sell on Etsy has a good chance of succeeding. I'll share simple formula that helps you calculate your prices that ensure you're making a profit. I'll give you a list of Do's and don't settle. Have you packaging and shipping your products like a pro. I will tell you how to create an effective product listing that helps turn browsers into buyers. And finally, I'll be teaching you how to give your shop personality with some branding. Once you've completed the class, you'll have the information you need to successfully set up some of the key areas of your shop, along with a super helpful list of links and resource is to get you making decisions and sales as quickly as possible. It's important to note that although I'm covering a lot of information in the class, there is still much more that you can learn and many more things that you'll need to do to keep your shop successful. The class is meant to be an introduction in an overview to five components that I think are really important for a successful shop. When planning the class, I took a look at some of the struggles that I've had running my business and my shop over the years, and I am sharing the information and resource is that I found to overcome them. You can find those in the class project section just to the right of the class description . I'd love to stay in touch on social media to You can find me on Facebook at Bonnie Brook, Hot Designs and Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Using the handle, Bonnie will cut. You can find links to all of these in my profile or on my website at www dot Bonnie kat designs dot com. That's it. If you are ready to learn how to set up your Etsy shop for success, just click and roll and I will see you in class. Let's get started. 2. Class Project: the class project is divided up into four parts that relate to the class sections. Doing the project. One step at a time will keep you on track and out of overwhelmed hurt. One will be to decide what you'll sell and then post a picture that represents your item in the class project area, along with a description of your shop. If you already have a shop up and running, post a picture here and get some feedback from the group. Part two will be to create your logo and branding. Take a picture that represents your branding, whether it's a logo, a sticker or even a rough sketch will do posted here in the class project. You know this is a great place to get some reactions and some feedback. Existing sellers Please post your logo here, too hurt. Three. Set up your shop banner and shoot your first listing photo heart for Open your shop. Share a link so that we can all check out your amazing new store and bonus posting. Here is a great way to get views which will help your etc. Ranking. Now this is a lot. I realize that so feel free to break it down and keep coming back and adding, As you get through each section, it will be so fun to see how everyone progresses, along with the opening or the improvement of their shop. 3. Sell a Product That People Will Buy: the first thing you'll need to do to start selling on Etsy or anywhere is to come up with a product that people will actually buy. Whatever it is that you want to sell, there are some things that you need to carefully consider before taking the time and making the effort that you need to put in to list them for sale on Etsy or any other online store . The first question you'll need to ask yourself is. Will people buy this? You really need to consider whether or not there's a need or a desire for the product that you want to sell. So I recommend doing some research to determine if there are people interested in purchasing whatever it is you're considering. Here are some ways that I recommend to figure out if your product will make money. The first thing is to check to see if there are similar products listed on Etsy, and how are they doing? How is the product that you have in mind different from what they're offering? How could you make your product stand apart from the competition if the marketplace is crowded and there are a lot of similar items so to give you an example of things you can look at on, etc. To decide if your product is something that will sell and that people are interested in is you can go onto the site onto etc. And do a little research. So, for instance, say you've designed these really cool, personalized bar necklaces that you make yourself and you think they would sell really well on etc. So you come onto etc. And you type in one of your search words. So I'm just gonna put in here personalized necklace and do a search, and then you'll see. Here we go. You have a lot off of personalized necklaces. Now, if your necklace looks a lot like what you are seeing here, that could be a good thing, and it could be a bad thing. The good thing is that if you're seeing a lot of these, it's a good indication that people want to buy these and that it's a a good seller because a lot of different shops are selling something similar. Another thing you can do is look at the shops themselves, look at the ratings, see how well they're doing, like, for instance, this shop has over 29,000 sales. Now that tells me that's a good shop. So they must know what they're doing to some extent, because there are obviously having some success. You can click on the listing and take a look at this particular listing. You can look at the photos, see what they're doing. You can also see, while this was Favorited by 5692 people. So that tells me that that a lot of people who have seen this listing and seen this image like this that is great information to have that says, Wow, I've got an item that people want. Okay, so, you know, hopefully yours is a little different than this. You don't want to be selling exactly the same thing as other people going to talk about some of like, the listing features later on in the class. But for right now, what I want you to be looking at is you're trying to decide. What am I gonna sell? So you're trying to get it An understanding of whether or not your product is suitable for the marketplace. Okay, so we've determined if you were selling personalized bar necklaces. Yes, it fits in. Well, okay, so it fits in. How are you going to stand out in this crowd of personalized far necklaces? But so those are some things you can dio to help you determine if your product will sell. Another thing you can do is simply to ask friends, family or followers on social media what they think of your product. Make some samples and test them out. Post pics of your product samples on social media To see what kind of reactions you get, use this feedback to determine whether or not there is a need or an interest for your idea or ideas. If you get great reactions, don't forget to use thes reactions to craft killer product descriptions or social media content. All right, so you've got a great idea that people really seem to like you've done your research to determine whether or not it's a good fit for etc. And you've decided that it ISS. Now you need to determine whether or not it's worth your time to try to sell it. What I mean by this is selling your product effectively takes a lot of time and effort and I'll talk about reading listings later in the class. But you need to really think about some things. For example, is your item one of a kind item? If so, is it valuable enough to spend the time? It will take you to photograph it right? A listing researcher Keywords wrap it and ship it and take it to the post office. Is it a handmade item that you hope to so large quantities off? Is it sustainable for you to do that? How will you make each item? Will you create them all yourself? Or will you be able to hire outside help or do you want to hire outside Help Are the raw materials and supplies that you need to make each item readily available? Can you purchase your supplies wholesale to keep them in stock and keep your costs low? Buying wholesale supplies is also much cheaper than buying your supplies Retail, which allows you to either sell your items at a lower cost or make more profit per sale. Whichever works better for you, you also need to know is the item that you have in mind allowed on etc. Etc. Has strict rules about what you can and cannot sell for a complete list of what's allowed. Check out their seller handbook, which can be found on their site and is full of a wealth of information. I've added a link to this section in the class. Resource is which you can download and print. You can find that in the class info. What more important thing to consider is the originality of your design? Is Theo idea you have your own? This is so important. You need to have a product that's not covered by an existing trademark or copyright if you copy someone else's designs, not only is it not cool, but it's also against the law and etc. Policy. At Seacon Shut down your shop for copyright violation, and in a worst case scenario, you could be sued. Copyright is a huge important topic, and more than I'm going to get into here. But you really should be aware of the details not only to protect your own designs, but also to do your research and make sure that somebody is not holding a registered copyright to an idea that you thought was your own. For more information, visit copyright dot Gov. So now that you've come up with an item that you are excited about selling, the next thing we need to consider is pricing. I'll talk about pricing in the next video, and I'll see you there. 4. Price Your Product for Profit: Okay, so now you feel confident that you have a winning product. You've done your research. You know that people are interested in what you want to sell. And you know your products are allowed on, etc. And totally unique. You are off to a great start. Now. You have to determine a price that will allow you to make a profit. There are a few different ways to price your product. I feel like the simplest method to use is called cost based or cost plus pricing. So that's what I'm going to talk about here in this class years and basic terms you need to understand to help you figure out your prices. One supplies pretty obvious any materials used to make your product to the cost of your labor, which is the payment for the time it takes to make your product or what you pay your employees to make it, or a salary your expenses in your overhead, which is the costs required to run your business, which can't directly be attributed to any specific activity, product or service. Finally, your profit margin, which is the percentage of revenue remaining after all of your costs and expenses have banded up. Here's how to calculate the wholesale price using cost based pricing. First, add up the cost of every supply that you used to make your product. And don't forget the packaging here. Then you need to determine how much you want to make for your time and then calculate your labor cost. For example, if you wanted to make $50 per hour and it takes you 30 minutes to make your product, the labor cost would be $25. Next, you want to calculate what it costs you per month to run your business and divide that by the number of sales you make per month. Now, if you're just starting out and you aren't sure yet what your overhead or expenses per month will be, just start keeping track now so that you can evaluate your prices down the road and up those three numbers and double it to figure out your wholesale price. Your retail price will be your wholesale price times 1.5 to 2. If you plan on selling your products in retail stores, you'll have to consider that a retailer will usually mark up your wholesale price times to basically doubling your wholesale price. So you might be thinking. But Bonnie, I want to sell my products in my shop and at retail stores. Why can't I just sell my products wholesale to both places? Well, that's a common misconception, but it's really not a good way to keep your retail partners happy. You want your product to be the same price in your shop is your retail partners are selling it for you. Don't want toe undersell your retail partners so that you can maintain ah, positive working relationship with them. See the class printouts for additional links to information about selling your products wholesale. Here's an example of how to price a product for wholesale and retail. Let's say you are selling an art print, and it costs you $2 for the paper, the ink and the packaging materials, and it takes you five minutes to print and package your our print. If you decide you want to make $20 per hour for your time in this case, and you've been tracking your sales and your expenses and you've come up with an overhead cost, for instance, let's say you're overhead. Expenses were $100 for one month, and you had 50 sales that month. Your overhead expenses would be $2 per unit sold. If these are your numbers, this is how your wholesale price would be calculated. $2 plus $1.66 plus $2 equals $5.66. Now you need to double that to get your final wholesale price of $11.32. Now you're going to want to figure out your retail prices well, so take your wholesale price, which is $11.32 and multiply that times 1.5 to 2. How about give you a range of anywhere between $17.25 to $22.64 would be your ideal retail price? What you want to do now is to check your competition and see what their prices are so that you can be competitive and still make a profit. Now I'm not suggesting you have to be the lowest price to get a sale. Just evaluate the competition and then select your profit margin in price based on your product and your brand Now, these numbers are only for demonstration. Your numbers will be unique to you and your business. Decide on a price that ensures you're making a profit and paying yourself fairly for your time and then test that price out. Ideally, you want a price that your customers are willing to pay while also ensuring that you your business, is making a profit. This is a really simplified explanation of pricing, so I've included some additional resource is in the class notes, which can be found in the class project section. Next up had a package and ship your products like a pro. See you in the next video. 5. Package and Ship Like a Pro: Okay, Now that you have a great product idea that you're confident will sell and make a profit, you need to plan how you're rapid shift your items professionally and beautifully. Now I've ordered products from handmade sellers that honestly looked like there was no thought put into the packaging whatsoever. I've also received packages that made me think, Wow, this is really special and made me smile and feel like what I ordered was truly valuable. You want to put thought and care into every touch point with your customer, and this one is super important. Here are a few do's and don't that will help you. Give your customers a five star review were the experience when they receive their order from your shop. When it comes to packaging your product, do consider gift wrapping. Customers love to have the option to have the order wrapped and ready if they're giving it as a gift and etc. Is full of customers looking for unique gift ideas. Make it easy for them to purchase and sand a gift from your shop and bonus. This also gives you the opportunity to add some additional branding and make a little more money on the sale. Don't just throw your item into a box with no thought or care. Whether it's gift wrapped or not, this is a surefire way to disappoint your customers and lose out on any future sales from them. You want your customer to feel really excited at the moment they open your package. Don't miss this unique opportunity when shipping your product. Do invest in a sturdy new shipping box and packaging materials don't ship their order in a reused box. You want your customers to feel like they're getting something new and valuable that is packaged with care. I've included a link for the source. I used to purchase all of my shipping and packaging materials in the class notes, which can be found and downloaded in the class project section. When packaging and shipping your product, it's a great time to reinforce your brand image. So do consider your branding and customer when deciding on your packaging. For instance, is your brand sleek and modern, or is it rustic? In vintage? Choose packaging materials that are reflective of your brand identity. You may even make some custom gift wrap tags or stickers to put on your products. Don't miss this important opportunity to connect with your customer. Add your business card or maybe even a coupon or a hand written thank you note, or even a small gift included in the package. This is a terrific opportunity to really make a lasting impression on your customer. When shipping your product, do make sure you sign up for etc. Shipping so that you can get a discounted rate. You can decide if you want to keep the extra money or pass the savings on to your customer by adjusting the settings in your etc. Dashboard. You can also get better shipping rates when you join a shipping service such as shipping, easy dot com or ship station dot com. I have included links to both of these options in the class notes. Don't just take your item to the post office or UPS or FedEx and pay them to ship it without creating accounts and comparing rates. First, it's super helpful to know the weights, dimensions and packaging costs off all of your products before you start comparing prices and setting up their shipping classes and descriptions on etc. I recommend you write all of this down on a spreadsheet or sheet of paper so that you can always access it when necessary. The next video is one you can't miss. So stay tuned to learn how to create an amazing product listing that converts shoppers into buyers. See there. 6. Create An Amazing Product Listing: all right. Now that you have a winning product that's priced to sell and packaged like a pro, you have to get it listed in your shop. Here are some tips for creating product listings that cell First, let's talk about photography. We live in a visual world, and I guarantee you that having professional quality photos of your products tell a story and clearly define your product will give you a leg up on your competition. You want to catch a potential customers attention and convey the quality of your shop in your product with your photos. So here are a few tips for taking great product shots. One. Take a variety of shots, etc. Allows you to have 10 images per listing, so definitely use this opportunity to convey as much information about your product as possible. Photograph every side and angle. Show your item being used or displayed. Place it next to something to show its size and its scale. Just try to think like your customer and answer any questions you're thinking they might have about your product. It's also important to brand your photos and your shop banner. What I mean by this is use props and backgrounds with your brand colors in your photos. Wherever it makes sense, you want your images to catch the attention of your ideal customers, so creating a cohesive look to your photos and your shop banner is really important. Collective group of props and backgrounds that reflect your brand image to use when taking any of your photos for your shop. See the Class notes for a link to a great class right here on skill share that goes into detail about how to create a branded photo Pratt box. If you could afford a high end DSLR camera, that's awesome. But you really don't have to do that and invest that much when you're first starting out to get good shots. Fortunately, most phones actually take really good photos that will work fine for your shop For the time being, just make sure that your photos are clear in focus and convey all of the important features of your product. Use consistent lighting for your shots to create a cohesive look. Natural light from a north facing window is great. Avoid harsh lights or shadows. One other thing that I see a lot of shops forget about is that you need to design and crop your photos so that they fit nicely on the Etsy shop page. Be aware of how your main listing photo looks and crop and adjust it to look. It's best you can do this from the shop dashboard when creating your listing. Next, let's talk about copy. You're listing title tags and product descriptions, play a big part and not only getting found in etc. Search, but also of converting browsers into buyers. So here are some tips for writing effective copy for your listings. One. No, the key words you're trying to rank for and use them correctly in your listing. Your most relevant keywords should be included in either your listing title or tags or both and in your listing description, if possible, make sure to use all the spaces you have available in your title in every available tag to help your chances of getting found. Now for more information on keywords and how to use them, you can check out etc. Rank dot com or marmol e dot com. I have included links to both of these sites in the class notes, and you can find a lot of information on what are good keywords. You could do some research there. Marma lead also has a great podcast that you can check out All right. Next, I want to point out that you again need to think like your customer. When you're writing your product descriptions, use words and descriptions that you think they might use. For instance, if you're selling G clay prints, you might use a variety of terms to describe your prints because some people may not think to use or even know the terms you clay. This is why you have to do research for keywords to know what words shoppers air actually looking for. Next, keep your listing copies short and concise. Don't waste your viewers time. Bullet points are an effective way to quickly convey the details of your item and helps if customers are just kind of skimming there, scrolling very quickly through all of the listings on etc. And you want to give them the information they need as quickly and clearly as possible. While you have their attention, etc. Doesn't have a limit on the number of listings you have for each item, so try listing in a few different ways to see what works best. Just don't copy the listing exactly. That's not permitted and would really just be a waste of your money cause, etc. Wouldn't recognize the copied listing. So what you should do is think of a variety of reasons why your customer would want to purchase your item and then add different listings for each of those reasons. Let's look at my monogram. Coffee mug I just listed in my shop is an example. Now someone might be looking for, um, something to do with some flowers so they might actually find this mug and buy it when they were looking for a sunflowers gift or a sunflowers coffee mug. Now a totally different customer might buy it if they were looking for a bridesmaid gift or a daughter gift or ah, gift for Mom, um, or something with a monogram or personalized. I hope that makes sense, but really, what you want to do is think of as many different ways you can list it and then build a listing around each of those targeted keywords. To learn more about that, definitely check out marmalade and make sure that you are using key words that people actually look for really important. All right, also important. Fill out every section of the listing on the Etsy dashboard. Make sure to add all of your tags, titles, sizes, colors, variations, etcetera on all of your listings. Wherever it's appropriate, the more information you have in there, the more etc. Sees that this is a good listing and it has a lot to offer. This will not only help you get found in search, but it also gives customers the information they need to purchase your item. It also keeps them from asking tons of questions. You know there are so many listings on etc. The more information you can get to your customer in the quickest amount of time will win you the sale. If you follow these steps, you'll get your listings off to a really healthy start. So pay attention to your shop stats for each listing and lean into what works. Renew your listings as often as you can that keeps him up in the ratings and in the rankings. Keeping in mind that each time you renew, etc. Charges you a 20 cent fee as of the time of this class being recorded. The class it are, the rates are going to be going up. So make sure you pay attention to what the current head see. Policies are because they do change from time to time. Now we've touched a little bit on branding in the section. In the next video, we'll dig a little bit deeper on ways to create a well branded look in your shop. See you there. 7. Brand Your Shop: Now I want to explain a little bit more about how to customise the look and feel of your online shop by adding some branding. Branding is what helps you define and differentiate your business. It's the process of creating a personality for your business and your shop. You need to define your brand any time you interact with your customer by customizing your shop to convey your USP or your unique selling proposition. Branding is an integral part of a successful business. If you brand your business well, you'll draw just the right customer to your shop. When you're setting up your shop, there are several opportunities to build and define your brand. The first thing you're going to want to do is to design a logo and an icon that quickly represents your shop name. Your logo should be easy to read and adaptable to many different sizes and applications. You can design your logo yourself if you're familiar with photo shop or illustrator or have some other type of software, or you may want to hire a designer to help you out. But a well designed logo can really help you a professional and trustworthy to potential customers, so definitely take your time and come up with something that you're proud of. Once you've selected a name and designed a logo, you'll need to also design a shot banner. If you look on Etsy, you'll see a variety of ways that you can do this. You can add one large image that represents your overall shopping brand. You can add just a logo on a shop description or several different props, or maybe a US A shop announcement or a sale. Do some research and find some examples that you like Before creating your banner. You can look at the cellar handbook for all of the size specifications. Before you start creating, you're going to need to use photo editing software such as photo Shopper Can VA to create your banner. Canada has a variety of dragon dropped templates that you can use that makes the job of designing a professional looking banner pretty quick and easy. Next, you're gonna want toe. Add your shop description. Your description should quickly identify what it is you sell and should be short and easy to remember. You can also use some of your targeted keywords here to help your Shops s CEO As discussed in the listing section. You want to create a consistent look to your shop by adding brand colors and props and backgrounds that reflect the overall mood and values of your business to any photos that you upload to your shop. Next, you need to fill out your about page. Now your about page is a great place to really show your stuff and clarify your brand and your message. Make sure to fill up all of the areas to tell your story and stand out on etc. Add photos of your workspace, your process, your packaging or anything else that you can think of that will help tell your story and make an impression on any potential customers. Having a completed about page will also help your shop get found in etc. Search. Like all the other topics I've introduced in this class, branding is really a complex issue that I've only briefly touched on here. It's something that you really should research and learn and try to understand. In order to build a successful shop, I've included some more lengths and additional resource is in the class notes. As I mentioned before, there are some great classes here in skill share on branding, and I've included links to some of them in the class notes. Next up, final thoughts Don't stop now. I'll see you in the next video. 8. Final Thoughts/Next Steps: Well, if you're still watching, I know that you are really committed to creating an Etsy shop that sells. This could be the very first step of a profitable and exciting new journey for you. I know you can do this if you follow some of the steps I've outlined in the class one. Create a great product. Two price it right three. Package it beautifully. Four. Ship it wisely. Five. Create an amazing listing that shows how awesome your product is. And six, create a memorable brand for your business succeeding on as he takes work. But it is doable. So your next step should be to download and check out the resource guide and all of the links to dig deeper into these areas and figure out a plan to please leave any questions in the comments area. And I will get back to you with answers right here in the class as soon as I can. Three. Complete the project and post your progress in the class Project Area four. Follow me here on skill share. If you'd like to be alerted with any additions or updates to the class and finally I'd like to thank you I really appreciate your time. And I look forward to seeing all of the amazing things you do on etc. So until next time, take care and I'll see you soon.