5 Things to Know Before Opening an Etsy Shop

5 Things to Know Before Opening an Etsy Shop

Etsy is an amazing way to supplement your income – or even go full time. This will be my 4th year running my little shop and I love it. However, there are things I wish I had known or better understood before going into this adventure. So let’s talk about the 5 things to know before opening an Etsy shop.

Learn About Pricing

Many first time shop owners (including myself!) fall into a trap thinking “if I price cheap, I’ll sell more and make more money!” Not so much.

Raise your hand if you avoid Walmart and prefer Target, even if you end up paying a little bit more for the same dang thing? Here’s the thing, a lot of what Target sells is the same that Walmart sells but we feel like we’re getting a better quality product because Target markets it that way.

Don’t market yourself to be Walmart, be Target. And yes, it starts with pricing. Get your customers thinking of your product as a quality product. You might sell less volume at first but you’ll actually bring in more.

A good formula to follow is –

Product Cost x 2.2 = Wholesale Pricing

Wholesale Pricing x 2.2 = Retail Pricing

Photos, photos, photos!

I cannot stress this enough. People are visual! Why do you think Pinterest and Instagram have grown so much in the past year? Your product might be the best damn product there is but if your listing photo is crappy? Your product will be perceived as crappy.

Take a minute to get some good quality photo of your product and make sure all photos in your shop have a cohesive look. Find one or two backgrounds to use throughout. Make sure to use lots of natural light and stick to bright and clear photos.

Find your niche / ideal client

Oh how I wish I had done this to begin with! But seriously – find your niche and/or ideal client (all of the really successful shops did!) Your planning, promoting, everything will be so much easier if you do this.

Why?

It’ll give you focus, plain and simple. You won’t waste time on products that may or may not sell because you’ll cater each and every one of them to your ideal client! So say you want to sell knitted products… that’s still too broad! What are you going to be knitting? Women accessories, like scarves and gloves? Baby products? Hipster manly hats? See what I’m saying? How do you decide? Find your niche and ideal client!

It’s not-so passive income

I know you’ve read the blog posts about monetizing, “it’s great passive income!” but don’t make the mistake of putting too much stock on the passive in that sentence. There’s a great deal of work that goes into running a successful Etsy shop!

From creating products, to keeping up with Etsy SEO, to replying to messages, to fulfilling orders, running an Etsy shop takes time.

It’s not a get rich fast thing

This kind of goes along with the last point – a lot of people think that starting an Etsy shop will mean bringing in the big bucks right away. Nope! Do some shops just take off and do great almost right away? Yes. But I’m sorry to tell you, that probably won’t be case with you. Not because you suck but because it’s a seriously saturated market out there right now and it takes some serious work and time to build a following / loyal clientele.

Be prepared to invest some serious time into this new adventure but I promise it pays off! Just last year I made more than I did the last three years combined – yes it took time, and admittedly I didn’t put a lot of efforts those first couple of years, but my point is – don’t get discouraged. Keep at it and it’ll pay off.

Original article and pictures take www.259west.com site