You started your first Etsy shop and are praying hard to get sales every day. But in actuality, you are not getting the sales number that you want. You might be getting some sales here and there but not significant enough to get you excited about this business.
We know the frustration after putting so much time and effort into building the store, creating the listings, marketing and product photography, but the return is not as expected.
Today, we will be sharing how you can get more sales on your Etsy shop. Follow us and check out these guides.
1. Your Product Listings are not Ranked on Etsy Search – Increase Etsy Shop Sales
Despite any other marketing methods that you have for your Etsy shop, search traffic is still the main traffic source for most Etsy shops. One of the main reasons you are not getting enough sales on Etsy is that it’s not ranked high enough on the search results. Your potential buyers come to Etsy to search for the items they want to buy. They are already in buying mode.
Your task here is to make sure your products are getting more visibility and showing in front of them so they will have the chance to view your listing and eventually buy from you. The reason this is not happening usually is due to your listings are not optimized based on the Etsy SEO algorithm.
To get this done, you need to learn what are the key elements of Etsy SEO and how you can optimize it.
First of all, you need to do your keyword research to look for the keywords that are mostly searched on Etsy. By all means, avoid using generic keywords as there are too many competitions on those keywords and it’s hard to rank for. Instead, use long tail keywords that describe your products well. For example, “London Vintage T-Shirt” is easier to rank compared to “T-Shirt”.
Think if you are the buyer, what will be the words that you will enter in the search bar to search for the item? You will be typing in something that can explain what you want so that Etsy can show you related items. Not wasting your time and showing something not related. Right?
Increase your Etsy SEO
This is the same as what Etsy’s SEO algorithm thinks. Etsy SEO algorithms aim to make it easier for their users to get what they want to increase the user experience.
When you have the keywords that you want to rank for, optimize that in your product Title, Tags, Attributes and Categories. Make sure you use all the 13 tags available for each listing to maximize the chance of showing up on different keywords’ search results.
2. Wrong Product Pricing Strategy – Increase Etsy Shop Sales
It’s not good if you are pricing your products too high or too low. If you are confident with your branding and quality, you can always increase the price to get more profit. There is nothing wrong with doing that.
But the bad thing is if you are pricing your products too low. You should be confident with your products that they will sell well and that you are offering something valuable. By offering a very low price, you will end up being in the range of a price war. And once you join the war, it is very hard for you to win the game. A price war is not healthy and you can never win fighting on price. There are thousands of ways to lower the cost and sell something cheaper.
How to Price Your Product
Unless you are selling something that is the same as others, you can have justification for why they should pay more for your products.
As this is an eCommerce sale, it is up to how good is your copywriting skills to explain your products to your potential buyers. Handmade and custom items can cost more than factory-made items as factory-made items are produced in bulk while customized items are ordered to make. They might not appreciate paying more to make arrangements. But you can assure them that they are getting a high-quality and new product with this.
3. Your Product Description is Not Converting – Increase Etsy Shop Sales
Apart from your product photos, your product description is the only way your potential buyers get to know more about your product and decide whether to buy it or not. So, you need to leverage it and write a good sales copy in your product descriptions.
Make it interesting and optimise it to persuade them to buy from you.
Your product description should focus on the benefits your product brought to your customers and the features to come next as supporting information to justify it.
People don’t care about the feature or spec of the product if it does not benefit them.
For example, you might be proud of your product, the car that can go 0-100km/h in 3s. But the fact is, most buyers don’t care about it. They want a car that looks cool, can bring them from one place to another, and fast. That’s all.
They are not going to bring the car for racing every day. Or going on track often. That’s not necessary to be what they are focusing on when making the purchase decision.
When you have a long product description, people don’t read it. They scan through your product description. So, design your product description to be scannable. Add some bullet points and sections to your product description so that it’s easier to read and scan.
4. Attractive Product Photos – Increase Etsy Shop Sales
Again, you are selling online, people are not going to touch and feel the actual product. Not even to try it on. Hence, you will need to help them with the experience of showing them how it will look to use the product. You can do this by using high-quality product photos. A photo is worth a thousand words.
High-quality product photos can show the professionalism and credibility of your business as well. If a shop can’t even produce good photos to show its products, its product quality is questionable as well.
Mistakes like poor lighting, distracting backgrounds and blurry photos will cause you to lose out on clicks and sales.
The simplest way is to set up a corner of your house for product photography. Take your photos in strong, indirect natural sunlight with a neutral background.
Try taking it from different angles to show all the details of your products and how to use them.
If you are selling clothes, wall art and so on, you can also use digital mockups to create different product photos digitally.
5. Your Listings are Not Enough – Increase Etsy Shop Sales
After looking at hundreds of stores that do 5 figures monthly on a single product, we found that most have hundreds or even thousands of listings. Having a lot of listings will have the benefits where you can spread your product listings out and show them to more people.
This is a number game, the more product listings you have. The more chances for it to rank high and get traffic to new customers. Not only that but having new listings will keep your shops fresh and updated.
A good number would be having at least 30 listings when you are starting your shop. And you should aim to have as many listings as you can. If you are selling digital products or in a print-on-demand business model, you should even upload more listings as you can create different product variations digitally. And there is no cost of getting more variations.
A simple trick to get more listings would be to separate the product listings for the same product with different colours or materials. Or you can combine some products to create a bundle. No matter what you do, having more high-quality product listings is always the best.
Each listing will give you an extra chance to appear in front of your potential customers.
Not only that but for holidays or festive seasons, you can plan and launch related items to enjoy the traffic boost for seasonal sales.
Always remember this. Your potential customers don’t like to visit a shop full of dust, and so do Etsy.
6. Not Niching Out – Increase Etsy Shop Sales
Etsy is a marketplace but your Etsy shop is not. You can have different Etsy shops selling different products, but please don’t mix up everything under the same Etsy shop. It’s free to sign up for more accounts, you just need to have a different email address for that.
And why you should stay focused and limit the types of products?
When you are selling too many different types of products, your shop will look disorganised. And people can’t remember you well enough. They will get confused about what you are selling and what is your profession.
In contrast, if you are focusing on a certain product type or niche, you will be seen as the industry expert for that particular product. When they want to get that item, they will think of you and will look for your shop. This is the power of focusing and the power of branding.
Once you decide what you want to sell, work yourself all the way to be the top in the niche. Understand the product and niche in and out, and be professional enough to be able to answer those weird questions from your customers and potential customers.
7. Incomplete Product Information & Shop Policy – Increase Etsy Shop Sales
You are bound to fulfil the orders and respond to make sure your customers are satisfied with what they buy. No matter what happens, you are legally responsible for that. So, why don’t spell it out so your customers can feel more confident to buy from you?
A few important pieces of information would be the order processing time and shipping information. People buying online want to get their products as soon as possible. They can accept the fact that it takes time to ship the product to them. But that does not mean you can let them wait for a month without telling them in advance.
For example, you can inform them in advance in your shipping policy that every order will take 3-5 days to process, and for US orders, it will take 7 days to arrive and outside the US will take 14 days. It doesn’t matter how many days it takes to reach them. The importance here is to disclose the shipping information.
Another important thing would be telling them what you did for them. For example, what material you are using for your products and why is it better? And most important why they should get from you instead of your competitors. There is no harm at all in sharing more information with them. For those who read, they will buy.
So, you should provide all the information shoppers need to make a purchase:
- Clear shop policy
- Accurate shipping information
- All important product details like materials, size, etc.
- Size guide or care instruction if they are relevant to your product
8. Market Demand Research – Increase Etsy Shop Sales
When you are starting a business, choosing the right market is the first thing for success. If you are in a very small market or a market in which the potential customers don’t have the buying power, you will not be successful. It is better to sell a high-demand product than to sell a little or no-demand product.
When you are selling something or marketing something, you are not trying to ask those who are saying no to say yes. This is very hard, it takes time to educate them and create the demand so that they know they need that item. It’s a long process and does not guarantee any success.
So why don’t you instead start with a high-demand market? At least you know the money is there. Your task is to grab a slice of the cake.
Before you start, make sure you do full market research on the product that you want to sell. Also, when possible verify your product idea. For example, if you are doing print-on-demand or digital products business, you can and must try more designs fast. Launch different designs and find the right one, then scale it to get the most revenue.
Get the market data and research, and optimize it. Tweak your product so that it will fit the market demand or the problem that you want to solve. Identify the gaps in the market, and provide your solution to that.
This is where the money lies.
9. Identify Your USP (Unique Selling Point)
Etsy is a competitive marketplace. Unless you are very good, people will not buy from you. You need to give them a reason to buy from you instead of your competitors. People are indecisive and usually need a push to take action.
Other than the obvious benefits and features of your products, try to brainstorm some unique selling points (USPs) for your products. Think about the hidden benefits of it and how you can promote it to persuade your potential customers to buy from you. It can be your unique design, production technique, customization or even the discount or freebie that you are providing.
Always think about what your audiences might want, and what people are complaining about at your competitor’s shop. Then solve it in your products and show them you are different.
10. Marketing, Marketing, Marketing
Although your main traffic source is normally from Etsy searches, you should show your Etsy shop and products to more people. We called this omnipresent marketing. Be everywhere your target customers at, and show your business in front of them. People need to see you for few times before they decide to buy from you. This is what we call brand awareness. The more visibility you have, the more opportunity for them to buy from you.
For this, you can try other marketing techniques like social media, paid ads, email marketing, influencer marketing and others. The aim here is to show your business to different audiences to get more sales and visibility.
Implementation Time
Launching an Etsy shop is simple, you can do it without even having any inventory. But getting sales is not necessarily easy.
Many factors affect your Etsy shop sales. It’s important to know what’s not working and what you can do to increase your sales. You can start by checking the list of 10 tips we shared above.
All the best.