Currently, Etsy ranks fifth among the most visited online retail websites worldwide. There are over 96M active buyers and 7.5M active sellers on Etsy. And the numbers are still increasing.
Etsy has been working very hard to grow itself to be one of the top marketplaces in the world. Etsy is focusing on a different market than other marketplaces as it’s focusing on handmade, vintage, custom and unique gifts.
As a seller or new business owner, you should grab the opportunity of Etsy traffic and sell your custom products on Etsy.
Today, we’ll share how to grow your Etsy shop and boost sales.
What is Etsy?
Etsy is an e-commerce platform that specializes in handmade, vintage, and unique items. It was founded in 2005 and has since grown into a global marketplace connecting millions of buyers and sellers around the world.
The platform allows individuals and small businesses to open a shop and directly sell their handmade, vintage, or unique products to customers. The products on Etsy can range from jewellery, clothing, home decor, digital downloads, and more.
Etsy is known for its emphasis on individuality, creativity, and personalised shopping experience. It allows sellers to connect with customers and build a loyal following through features such as messaging, reviews, and customization options.
1. Write Compelling Titles and Tags
As Etsy works as a marketplace, there are a huge amount of products listed on Etsy by different sellers. And you will need to be able to grab your potential customer’s attention in order to get them to click and reach your product page.
The Etsy title is a very important element for the first impression for your potential customers. Your Etsy title needs to be able to hook them in order for them to click on it.
Not only that, the Etsy title plays a very important role in ranking high on Etsy search results. Your title shall consist of the high search volume keywords related to your products in order for it to show on the first page when someone is searching for the product. Here’s what you need to comply with for writing a compelling Etsy title.
- Include the focus keyword in the title (especially the first 3 words)
- Avoid repeating words
- Limit within 70–120 characters (max is 140)
- Don’t use more than three words in all cap
- Characters % and & may only be used once per title
Make sure you’re complying with the Etsy guidelines when perfecting your titles.
Etsy Tags
Besides titles, tags are also important to let Etsy know what is your product and how they should show your product based on the tags. In total, Etsy allows a maximum of 13 tags for every listing. So, use all 13 tags for your product.
Your tag should be specific and contains long-tail keywords so that it is less competition for you to rank. Not only that, when people are searching on Etsy, they tend to search for a specific term. So try to be more specific with long-tail keywords.
You can check all your current listings, and list down the least-performing listings. Then, do keyword research for each of them and include those keywords in your titles and tags.
A simple way would be using the autocomplete function on Etsy search to show what people are searching for. Or you can use other keyword spy tools like Everbee to see what’s trending.
Seasoned products also sell well in Etsy shops. Do plan ahead and come out with the related keywords during the holiday season to make profits on season sales.
2. Write Persuasive Product Descriptions
The product description is the most important for an eCommerce business. This is because your customers cannot touch and feel the product. And in most cases, they are not going to ask you anything as you don’t have a salesperson approaching them.
This is why your product descriptions are critical in persuading them to buy. As business owners, we understand that people don’t buy because of logic. They buy because of emotion and justify with logic. Your product descriptions should follow the same structure to get them wanting to purchase, and then help them to justify with the specifications.
Tips for Eye-Catching Product Descriptions
Here are some tips for eye-catching descriptions:
- Focus on the key details first – It’ll hook your buyers to get them to continue reading. If it does not hook them, they will easily skip your product descriptions.
- Short and easy to read – Long texts are boring to read. People don’t like to read and don’t have the patience to read. Instead, they scan through your product descriptions for the keywords only. Hence, your task here is to make it easy to read by breaking the info down into bullet points, smaller paragraphs, etc.
- Embed Product Link & Store Link – Etsy allows to insertion of URLs in the product descriptions. This is very important to get them to click and view more of your products in your Etsy shop. That’s better than them moving on and browsing at other’s shops.
- Focus on benefits, not features – Again, people purchase based on emotion, not logic. You need to tell them what they can benefit from your product. The best would be some hidden benefit that they don’t realize by themselves but it’s very useful for them. That’s the thing you need to persuade them to buy. Just like a Lamborghini owner, they don’t care about the horsepower or the torque that much. They buy Lamborghini because they look cool in it.
3. Focus on Etsy SEO
When we discuss 1 and 2 above, both are related to Etsy SEO. SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the strategy to optimize your product listings so that they will be shown on the top of the result, giving more visibility of your products to potential buyers.
This is the best way to get free traffic from Etsy for your shop. And also the fastest way to do it. By understanding the search behaviours and the keywords that are highly searched but have low competition, you can work on optimising your product listings to rank on those keywords so you can get lots of free traffic to your product listing.
Here’s what you can do to rank on Etsy:
- Keyword Research to look for keywords with search volume but low competition. Normally these are the long-tail keywords
- Optimize your listing title, tags, attributes, and categories to include the keywords you want to rank
- Write quality content (product descriptions and photos)
- Provide good customer service and get good reviews
- Offer competitive or free shipping prices
Read more about Etsy SEO tips
4. Eye-Catching & High-Quality Product Photos
Visual is very important for an eCommerce store. Your product photo will decide whether someone buys from you or not. Your customers are not able to hold or touch the product physically. Their buying decision will be based solely on what they read in your product description and obviously what they see in your product photos.
Your product photo is the first impression for your customers about your product and your shop. A high-quality product photo does not guarantee a high-quality product. But a low-quality product photo will definitely bring a bad impression and send your potential customers away.
If your business is not able to take professional photos, people will not trust you. This is the professionality of your Etsy shop.
In your product photo, you don’t only show the product from different angles. But more important is to show how people are using it. This will give your potential customer an imagination of how they look when using it.
Etsy allows a maximum of 10 photos for each product listing. So make good use of all of it.
Here are some tips for good photos:
- Take the photos from a variety of angles
- Pay attention to the detail
- Include some lifestyle photos or photos showing the product in use
- Show the unique selling point or benefits of the products
5. Stand out with product videos
While it is not a must, having a product video is always better. According to the Etsy Seller Handbook, adding a video to your listing “can provide increased transparency that boosts buyer confidence and conveys valuable information that they can’t get from photos alone.”
Photos are stationary, but videos are moving images showing how the product is working. And it will convey the product functionality better than an image. And since not everyone is using a product video, having one will definitely make you stand out from the competition.
Here’s how you can record your product video:
- Video length shall be between 5–15 seconds long
- The video is muted after it’s uploaded to your listings
- The ideal video resolution is at least 1080px
- One video in each product listing
6. Product Reviews
For an Etsy shop or any eCommerce store, reviews are very useful to give confidence to your potential customers. It will impact your SEO ranking and also conversion rate as the SEO algorithm will rank products with good reviews higher.
Not only that, having reviews for your product will give people trust that the product is good. And at the same time, it does not look like a new store with unexpected product quality.
Reviews are good because it’s neutral and is given by past customers. Hence, it will be seen as a trusted source of feedback rather than reading about the product in your product descriptions only.
7. Answer Your Customer’s Questions
When people have questions or doubts, they will stop and hold back their buying decisions. We don’t want that as people who left will most probably never be back anymore.
This is why as much as possible, you want to address their questions on your product page itself. This means having a comprehensive FAQ section that will answer different questions they might ask. Your FAQ might not be perfect at the beginning. You can always add it to the list later.
You want them to make a purchase, so take away any obstacles that may come along the way.
8. Complete Your Shop Information
The more information you have about your Etsy store, the better it is for your business. It can show your shop’s professionalism. You need to have the About page, your shop announcement, and the policies section all in place. This will also improve your shop’s SEO ranking so you will get more visibility.
Here’s what Etsy suggests you add to your About page:
- A video explaining your brand and business
- Your business background story
- Links to your social media pages
It will be good to have a shop announcement to alert you to your current and upcoming promotions so people can know what’s going on and what to expect.
And finally, your Etsy shop’s policies. This is what you should never miss out on. This includes information about shipping, payment options, returns and exchanges, and the privacy policy. Having all these in place will get your customers informed about what to expect and how soon they can expect to receive the product. Also to avoid any disputes or refunds.
9. Offer Free Shipping
I am not sure what you think. But free shipping is always favourable for online shopping. People can spend thousands online but are not willing to pay for the shipping cost.
Some will think that since they purchased so much, they should be offered free shipping. Others just don’t want the additional costs of shipping.
Offering free shipping will make it easier for US-based shoppers to find your products since Etsy’s algorithm prioritizes shops that offer free shipping.
Etsy also offers a free shipping guarantee to US buyers. This feature automatically applies free shipping to US buyers for any individual item $35 and up and any order totalling $35 or more from your shop.
See, a product with a price of $10 and a shipping cost of $4.99 is different from a $14.99 product with free shipping. Although they are getting the same product at the same price, the user experience is different. They will appreciate the free shipping offered.
You are not losing anything by doing this. Your revenue for each product is still the same. But this act will boost your sales as it is more likely for them to buy from you. Not only that, but Etsy also favours free shipping as part of its SEO ranking algorithm. Free shipping will get ranked higher.
10. Use Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the highest ROI marketing strategies nowadays. You can easily reach the people on your list anytime. And they will have the choice to read your email when they want. This makes email marketing less intrusive and disturbing.
For people who visit your shop or buy from you, you can give them the link to your landing page and sign them up from there. You need to offer them some very good incentive for them to give you their email.
Once you have them on your list, you need to start sending out newsletters and promotional emails to provide value and updates for them about upcoming product launches and sales in your store.
11. Be Omnipresent
Now, your Etsy shop will not be known outside of Etsy if you don’t promote it. In fact, the goal here is to be omnipresent. You need to be everywhere on different social media platforms so that people will get to see you.
This is important because people need to see or engage with you several times before they actually buy from you.
Social media is also good for building huge followers for your business. You should post regularly and consistently on your products and related content. It should be fun and informative. If you are focusing on selling only, people will not like your posts. They don’t like to be sold anyway.
12. Run Etsy Ads
Etsy advertising is one of the easiest paid advertising you can have. If your business is established, with few sales and good reviews, you can benefit from Etsy ads. But if you are running a new store, you might not be that successful in the ad results.
For Etsy ads, there are two types: onsite and offsite. Onsite ads are also referred to as promoted listings.
Setting up Etsy Ads is simple. You set the daily budget and choose which listings you want to promote. By default, all your new listings will be advertised as soon as they are published if you have the Etsy ads campaign turned on. You can select the countries you want your ads to show to.
Offsite Ads are the ads Etsy run for their business. And by default, all Etsy sellers are automatically enrolled in Offsite Ads. If you are making less than $10k last year, you can choose to opt-out. But it’s good if you stay and use it. Etsy will charge 12% of the sales amount.
It is advisable to join the offsite Ads as it’s a great opportunity to leverage Etsy ad placement to get more visibility and sales without any upfront cost. You only paid for successful sales.
Etsy ads will have more social proof than your own ads if you are just starting.
Your Turn To Start
Now you already know how to get more sales on your Etsy shop, it’s time to implement it.
We also have a post on step-by-step how to start an Etsy shop to get you started in no time. There is no technical knowledge required. All you need is to start doing it.