Etsy ecommerce strategies for year 2019
If you're into antiques, crafts and DIY and wants to sell your handmade products, opening an Etsy shop is the best way to introduce them to everyone. Keep in mind that Etsy will charge fees to sell your items and relisting them, so it is not a free marketplace and you need to track your spending. There are a lot of skills required for running a successful business.
The biggest sellers on Etsy by far are supply sellers. Many buy bulk findings, charms, chain on aliexpress and resell them in smaller lots. Many jewelry makers are using commercial findings, beads and charms creating items that all look very similar. The best any seller can do is researching and finding the best niche in the market and start from there. You can spot emerging niche categories by mastering what is on Etsy categorization options, selecting one or more that you can do brilliantly, and watching for changes. No niche analysis will be ever complete without thoroughly learning the keywords that lead to it. In Etsy there is a big part of the efforts focused on SEO and learning it will be the most challenging part of your entrepreneurship.
Before you open your shop, think about exactly where your skills lie. Do some market research to see what similar items are selling and what the shops that sell them look like. If you can nail a specialized niche and become the go-to seller in that space, then you’ll have made it. Launching an online store is very easy. Getting traffic is what is really very difficult. There are millions of online stores on the Internet. Therefore, competition in this field is very high.
The best sellers always have the best visual brand. Here are some tips might be useful. Do not use several styles in your shop, try to be specific and focus on one point. Be consistent and plan with long term vision. Make sure your store has personality! Very successful sellers have either a natural ability to predict consumer demand, or they hit the jackpot with one or more tremendous ideas.
Here are some fruitful techniques to run a successful shop on Etsy:
1- Be special and Unique. Etsy is an imaginative marketplace known to sell unique items or highly curated products from rare sources like vintage and antiques. You should have a unique representation of your style on your Etsy store so that you can engage large audience on your website and convert your website visitors into customers. Thats why is so important the graphic design you will use and also the quality of your photos. The products photos are not relevant as display but also as part of the general environment the seller want gives to the store. All the efforts with photos and graphics are intended to push your brand and branding is a key aspect on Etsy business model. Make sure your branding is flawless. Your shop needs to have a true identity.
2- Be Willing to Work Hard. There should be at least 100 products to be shown on Etsy store which will represent your website perfectly on front-end. Also, don’t forget to add product description in detail to be shown on front-end. Set a competitive and affordable Price but be profitable always. Dont miss the point that you must have revenue always if not, the work is worthless. While selling products on Etsy, increasing your brand loyalty and customer’s retention rate are the major factors to run a successful shop. Offer Free Discount to customers who usually shop from your Store. Make amazing customer service a priority! There is no better advertising than word of mouth.
3- Learn SEO to actual professional levels. Be aware of the evolution and changes on SEO and the particularities of it while working for internal searches on Etsy or if you want reach wider public through google. Take time to learn SEO and then optimize your listings. Beef up your descriptions and key words and refresh every listing after certain amount of time or relisting cycles. Notice that you should use your keywords and tags from the buyer’s perspective. Good Search Engine Optimization can increase your search rankings and visibility of your products to the buyers on Etsy, resulting in getting more visits to your shop. Traffic is a headache of all online entrepreneurs. Be patient.
Optimize your Etsy listings for Etsy search: For most of the successful Etsy stores the biggest source of quality traffic is the traffic from Etsy search. Copy the keywords in your title to your tags and use your main keyword in the first sentence of your description. Be aware that a huge percentage of your buyers will come from inside Etsy but they need to be able of finding you!
4- Marketing your Etsy store. Promotion and advertisements are the best ways to boost your store performance as a promotion not only helps you gain good traffic, revenue but also helps you make your brand a renowned one. In order to get more and more visits on your shop products, you got to display your products in the best way possible. The more attractive your product looks, the more you can attract the buyers. Make sure you’re following the Etsy algorithm always and keep you updated of any change.
Most successful Etsy sellers really invest into outside marketing channels.
You should pay lot of attention to your social media. Rather than using as many of them as possible, try to master at least one but put all your effort into improving it. Dont try to be good or efficient on every social media platform but carefully choose the best option for your store according to the products you are selling. Some social medias are good for arts and others are good for personal care products, finding which one is the best for you will require careful study and observation, specially of best sellers practices in your category. If you have the time and energy, create a blog around the product you are selling. This can have links back to your Etsy store.
The more is your reach / promotion, greater is the traffic to your site, larger is the number of potential buyers you are able to garner for your store and hence higher is the probability of conversion to sales!
If you want your Etsy to be a business, you need to treat it like one. Make a business plan. It doesn’t have to be complicated, the important thing is to have a plan, know your goals, and develop specific, measurable, attainable and time-based objectives. Keep hustling and improving – Etsy is a long term game!
