Etsy is an online marketplace made to showcase items that are especially “unique.” These items could be anything ranging from greeting cards and candles to clothes and jewellery. If you are a crafty or a dab hand at design or have any other unique skill, become a part of the Etsy contributors. Just make sure to follow the checklist given below:
Make Money With Etsy
Proceeding Further
Opening an Etsy shop may seem complicated, but it’s not rocket science. just follow the checklist step by step, then it’s a relatively straightforward process.
Try to have at least 1 item in your store that’s unique, it makes it easier for you to stand out from your competitors.
An easy way to get started
The interesting thing about Etsy is price isn’t as important as on Ebay and Amazon. People are willing to pay more for something they really want on this site – or at least that’s been my experience.
Whereas with Ebay and Amazon, people are much more price conscious.
Here’s what you do:
Find a local engraver. This could be a jeweler or a trophy shop. You’re looking for someone who engraves things like flasks, plates, cake servers and knives (for weddings) and so forth.
Strike a deal with her and get a price list of what she charges for each item. Odds are she already has the blank items. If she has professional photos of each item, use those. Otherwise, take your own photos.
Advertise the items on Etsy with personal engraving. Remember to mark up the prices for your own profit, and charge for shipping (or raise the price to cover shipping.) Put in your listing that items take a few days to engrave.
Take the orders and forward them to your engraver. Stop by the engraver’s shop once a week to pick up the items and mail them to your customers.
Pocket the difference.
This is so simple and obvious, but it’s a great way to make extra money. If you have a teenager or retired parent, you might even suggest this business to them.
Then be on the lookout for other items you can resell on Etsy. For example, watch for local craftspeople at fairs and such, and see if you can strike a deal with them as well.
You might assume they’re already on Etsy, but oftentimes they just don’t want to bother to open their own shop.
Case Study: $3500 a Month Outsourcing Art Work
You already know you can hire a ghost writer to write just about anything for you, put your own name on it, and call it your own.
Marketers do it all the time. After all, just because you’re good at marketing doesn’t mean you’re good at writing or even have the time to write all the blog posts, emails, sales letter and so forth that you need.
Celebrities do this, too. For example, when a movie star or entrepreneur or CEO comes out with a book, there is an excellent chance that book was written by someone else.
So far so good?
What I’m about to tell you might immediately raise a red flag for a few people. And yet, it’s simply a variation on ghost writing. You could think of it as ‘ghost art,’ I suppose.
I know of a woman who outsources original artwork and then sells prints of it on Etsy and Ebay. She hires artists to create original abstract art. And she’ll even find existing artwork that she likes, and then ask the artist she’s hiring to do something in the same style.
She likes to stick to abstract art since it’s easier to make and harder to recognize if it came from one particular artist or several artists all working in the same style.
She especially likes to have a lot of color in her paintings, since she’s found the bright, happy looking paintings seem to sell especially well.
She has the artists sign a non-disclosure agreement that says they are signing over all rights to the artwork.
From the original artwork, she gets prints made and sells them online as limited editions, as well as selling the original for a much higher price.
And she has an assistant handle all of the listing and product fulfillment. It gets even better – she’s actually created several different identities as an artist, so that she can ‘work’ in several different styles to accommodate different customers’ tastes.
She is careful to never say anything that is untrue. And she never does say that she painted the paintings. After paying for expenses and her assistant, she’s clearing about $3500 a month. Not a huge sum, but considering how little work she puts into it, it’s a very interesting idea!
Optimize your listings for SEO.
When people visit Etsy, they’ll search for products by typing in a search phrase in a search box, just like they would do when they search in Google or Bing.
Think of Etsy as a search engine and do your best to make your items show up on the first page when visitors type in keywords related to your items.
Use a search friendly title
Use relevant keywords in both title and tags.
Your keyword should appear in the beginning of the title
Make sure you provide all the necessary details about the items in your shop like an overview
and also a description
When the visitors in your shop are looking for information like those in the overview and description, they are very close to making a purchase, so make sure you have that in place so they don’t go and buy elsewhere.
If you follow the steps above, then you’ve laid the foundations to a successful Etsy shop.
But you still need something
Marketing
If you want to make money with Etsy, you must know that you’ll need to promote what you offer.
This means sharing them on social media sites, on your blog (if you have one) create Facebook ads, YouTube ads, promoting them to friends and family and more.
Competition is stiff on Etsy therefore you’ll be competing with lots of other sellers who publish their products on the website as well.
Buyers need to be able to find your stuff, so they have to be attracted by it with great marketing language and images.
Unsure how to market your own items effectively?
Simply do an online research and see how other successful sellers are promoting their shop, and Etsy itself will give you some tips and tricks.
I’ve found that Pinterest and Instagram are great places to share your shop.
I highly recommend to start a blog related to your shop category. With a blog you’re not limited to sell and promote the items in your shop, you can also sell other products either as an affiliate (Amazon, Shareasale..etc) or with dropshipping.
It’ll be well worth your time and effort if it will get your products in front of more faces.
This is how you make money with Etsy
Good luck with your Etsy Shop.
