Getting Started on Etsy: Quick Start Guide

Etsy can be a great place to start selling some of your creative output, and do its part to support your creative lifestyle. Getting started on Etsy is easy, and below, I offer a few tips to find success.

PRODUCT: WHAT ARE YOU SELLING?

The most obvious step of getting started on Etsy is determining what exactly you want to sell. There are a ton of really cool, unique products on Etsy - but that doesn't mean the marketplace is overly crowded. Etsy is the ultimate in niche selling, so whatever you're selling is going to be for a very specific audience. Make sure you know that audience. Do a little research on Etsy and see what makes your product unique in your niche. Why does the marketplace need this product?

PHOTOS: MAKE YOUR STUFF LOOK GREAT

Once you know what product you're going to be selling, you're going to need to figure out how to photograph it. I emphasize this a lot on this blog, but marketing your side-hustle is really an essential part of finding success. How you display the items you're selling on Etsy is going to go a long way in defining how successful you are in getting those products sold.

Again, go back to Etsy and look around your niche. What are other sellers doing to display their products? Make note both of what you like and what you don't like. If you don't have a lot of skill with photography, it makes sense to hire a photographer who does. In that case, for cost effectiveness, make sure you have multiple products ready to shoot on the day you use the photographer.

For more great tips on photography, check out this post from Etsy.

PRICE: HOW DO YOU SET YOUR PRICE?

Setting your price is an important part of making sure that this is a side-hustle that is worth your time. You want to remember that you are going to take time to produce the goods, as well as the material costs that are built into everything you produce.

Etsy offers this formula to guide setting your price, Wholesale x 2 = Retail, with Wholesale determined as Materials + Expenses + Labor + Profit. I think that this is a really excellent guide for how you go about setting your price. One thing you're going to want to keep in mind as a cost that I don't believe Etsy covers in the guide is if there will be costs for you to produce these things while you're out of town. Are you going to need to check an additional bag of materials as you travel to your next gig?

As you decide what to sell, this is something to keep in mind as well. Are you able to stockpile these goods in a cost-effective way so that you can continue selling even as your calendar fills up with gigs? It's all a balancing act, and using your price settings can help set both supply and demand at an optimal level.

SETTING UP YOUR SHOP

Etsy will walk you through the setup process step-by-step after you join the site, but here are three quick tips in order to find success in your Etsy selling experience.

1) Name matters

The name you choose for your store is literally your brand. Make sure that it tells customers what kinds of products you carry, but is a broad enough name that you can continue expanding the offerings you have in a way that will improve your bottom line.

2) Use the Policies to Set Proper Expectations for Customers

As you set the policies for your store, do your best to take into consideration all possibilities, and prepare your customer for them. If you're out on a gig, it may take you a little longer to turn around a custom order, for example. If that's going to be the case, think about when the busiest times hit you, how quickly can you turn around custom orders? Set that as the expectation, so that in slower periods when you beat that deadline, you're providing exceptional customer service as opposed to missing a deadline because you're busy and angering your customer.

3) Have a plan to remain active (Don't put all your items in your store at once)

Plan out adding new items to your store so that you are always remaining active on the marketplace, with both classic items that sell well for you all the time, as well as new items that you can use to promote. If you've got a few great products, don't put them all in your store at once. Not only will this help you settle into selling on Etsy in a lower impact way, it will give you easy room for growth to help gain momentum for you in this new venture.

CONCLUSION

If you're a crafty person, then Etsy can be a great side-hustle for you to monetize your creative output. For more tips on finding success on Etsy, check out this post.

For more about side-hustles, check out the rest of this blog or my book: A Life in Art: Building Side-Hustles to Empower Your Life as an Artist.