4 Things to Make Your Etsy Shop Successful

You’ve got your shops set up, you have a few key listings, and maybe you’ve even made a few sales, but you know you have it in you to fulfil more orders. Along my own Etsy journey I’ve found that the following tips have been helpful in growing my shop, and I hope they will help you as well.

If you haven’t read my other blog post about Starting a Successful Etsy Shop <link>, then I would recommend giving it a quick read. Even if you already have an open shop, there are some helpful tips and tricks there that may help build an excellent shop foundation.

NUMBER OF LISTINGS

If you only have 10 items in your shop, that is only going to be 10 opportunities to be found amongst millions of listings. It’s also a little weird as a shopper to visit a shop that only has a handful of listings to choose from - people love variety! The recommended number of listings from my research has been 60-100. I found that as soon as I cracked the 60 mark I started to see a considerably higher number of sales. Some people even recommend having 120-170+ listings …. So yes, if you can get that high, you’re likely to see a lot more conversion. 

SOCIAL MEDIA

More and more it’s becoming important to have a social media presence. I know that on top of everything else you are doing in your shop that this is one extra thing, but social media could drive 10-20% (or even more) of your sales monthly. Start with the platforms that you feel most comfortable with, and as you grow, link in more (the great news is that many of these platforms speak with one another, so posting in one could mean an easy re-post in all of them.

• INSTAGRAM: This is the mother platform. Definitely make sure you claim your shop name on Instagram and set up a profile. It’s easy enough to load your listing photos up into the platform, and even link them so viewers can be directed right to your site to purchase. Try to make a post every day if you can, or every other day. The key is consistency.
• FACEBOOK: Create a Facebook Page for your shop (not a whole new account, just a business page). The best thing about Facebook Pages is you can link it to your Insta and almost never have to touch it again afterward. There are still lots of people who use Facebook, so its great for them to have a social touchstone with your product.
• PINTEREST: Pinterest is a great place to load in your Etsy listings. But I would recommend it as a platform for promoting your blog. Make long images (as long as you are permitted) to take as much screen real estate as possible. The magic of Pinterest is that your posts don’t age and disappear like they do on Insta and Facebook, they circulate, get shared, reposted, and can live on forever. When you’re ready to start a blog, this is an extra special place to post links to your writing, and to teach people new skills.
• TIKTOK - The newest social medial platform on the block, TikTok has 15-60 second videos that are fun, funny, danceable, and sometimes educating. People have consistently shown a love for watching process videos, packaging videos, and studio tours … so give your viewers an inside peek into your process. And another great thing, you can immediately upload your videos back to Instagram stories and posts (kill two birds with one stone!)

KNOW THE NUMBERS

Start by getting to know your shop analytics (Marketing > Search Analytics). You can select the period of time that you want to review (I’d recommend keeping a eye on your “Last Month”, “This Year”, and “Last Year” numbers.) I come from a true face to face sales back ground, I’ve done cold calls, I’ve worked in office sales, and store front sales, and every good salesperson will tell you that you always need to know your current numbers, your past numbers, and your future goals (monthly and annually). 

This analytics page studies your statistics that are driven in by Etsy Search (that means people typing in the search bar and landing on your page) - there are other ways that people find your site like direct links, social media, Etsy ads … but this is Etsy Search only. Etsy Search is SO important, think about it, the reason you are on Etsy in the first place is to have access to their HUGE shopper base, and they way they find you is through the search. 

So, let’s learn some simple Etsy math:

In the example pictured above I brought in 4,627 visits via Etsy Search (yay), 1.5% of those resulted in a sale (excellent! Aim for 1.5-2%), and the average order was $55 … that resulted in almost $3,800 in sales. In the period examined above, Etsy search accounted for 15% of all of my sales on Etsy, so it’s CRITICAL that you ensure these numbers stay healthy. 

What can you do to increase your profits through Etsy Search? Well, let’s start by breaking down the facts that we know:

1. VISITS - Increase your shop visits … more people in means more people will eventually convert (and if they don’t convert into a sale today, they might favourite your product or shop and purchase later). You can increase your visits by ensuring that you have great photos, descriptive titles, fully filled out listing pages, and all 13 tags complete. 
2. CONVERSION - So how do we get that 1.5-2%+ conversion rate? How do we get people to actually click BUY and purchase? Of course having great photos, product descriptions, good terms and conditions are critical, so make sure you have those completed. SHIPPING is a big deal, if you have a $15 necklace, but charge $8 for shipping, you’re going to lose a lot of shoppers. Instead, consider lumping your shipping costs into the total of your product (see what your competitors in your country are doing). You can also boost conversion by running seasonal sales or offering discounts (try not to do these too often, but when you do, make sure you advertise it on your shop social media platforms)
3. AVERAGE ORDER VALUE - You can increase your total earnings by increasing your product prices. Don’t be afraid to charge what you think you’re worth! I am always told I should charge more, and I’m so apprehensive about jacking up my costs too much and scaring my customers away. Just be sure to keep an active eye on your competitor’s rates, and stay competitive - and charge more if you think you offer more inclusions or more value.

ETSY ADVERTISING

Etsy Ads are a critical key to getting noticed - remember, it costs money to make money … but these costs are essential and should be lumped into the overal costs of running your business. Take a look at these stats:

280K people saw my ads when they did an Etsy search, or on Google, and of those people 2740 clicked on my ad. Of those 2740 click, 59 resulted in a sale, that’s a 2% conversion rate (YAY, right on track!) - and that 2% brought in a cool cool $4k in sales. Now, what did this $4k in sales cost me in advertising? … about $1000. But think about that, that is $3k in PROFIT that I wouldn’t have otherwise have made. YES, these ads cost about 25% of my sales, but I get sales in a multitude of other ways (organic Etsy search clicks, social media, direct visits etc), so in the end my Etsy Ads only cost me about 5% when compared to my my overall Etsy sales - and that makes it WORTH IT.

So, how much should you be putting into your ads? Some people swear by $1/day, and that’s a great place to start. Ensure that you let your ads run for at least a month or two to get good statistics on the return you are making from them. I recently listened to an Etsy Success Podcast about advertising, and the shop they interviewed recommended increasing your $1/day ad spend to $5-10/day … if you think about it, putting in 5x more money into my ad spend might have gotten me 5x my revenue ($20k instead of $4k!!). But make sure to know your shopper, and advertise when you know it’s a peak time to shop. If you run a school supplies shop, advertise more from June-October, and less during the rest of the year. If you run a wedding based business, advertise more during March-Aug, and less during the off season. Be smart with your money and know your shopper.

There are 100,000 different things you can do to make your Etsy shop a success, but these are 4 often overlooked areas of focus that are incredibly important. I hope this was able to help you!