Selling Crafts Online
Tips for Selling Crafts Online at Etsy

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Selling crafts online in your own Etsy shop can be a simple, cost effective option for getting started with online craft sales. It will take a commitment of time and some smart planning and promotion to get customers into your shop and buying your products. These tips will help you to get started selling crafts online in your Etsy shop.

Look Professional
Ensure your Etsy shop looks professional. The more items you can post in your store, the more you will appear to be established and professional, and that helps to build customers' trust in you. Include an attractive banner that reflects the image of your products and an attention grabbing shop announcement.

Take Great Photos
Great photos of your products are an absolute must for selling crafts online and building a successful Etsy shop. The disadvantage of online sales and shopping is that customers can't hold and touch items online. The best way to communicate the quality, function, look and feel of a product online is with several clear photos.

Etsy gives you 5 photos for free. Use them all. Even if your item is simple, show the front and back, different angles, or close ups that show a beautiful detail or the quality of your work.

Check out other people who are selling crafts online at Etsy to see how they photograph their work. Look at other sellers' pictures to determine what type of background shows your type of craft to its best advantage. Does it look best laying flat, or on a prop or a model, in a wide shot best or is an extreme close up more intriguing? What pictures stand out from the crowd and what ones just blend in with the rest of the competition?

Don't copy a unique photo style from another seller. Instead, think through the reasons why that style works, and develop your own photo style based on your assessment of the competition.

Use Strategic Shipping Fees
Ensure your shipping fees, including international shipping, are in line with the shipping fees that your competitors are charging. Being strategic with your shipping fees can be a big make or break issue when it comes to successfully selling crafts online. Also, shipping fees must be clearly stated in your Etsy shop. If a potential customer can't find your shipping fees, they likely won't ask, and you'll lose the sale.

Check out Your Competition
Find out who is selling products that are similar to your own on Etsy and ask yourself a few questions about how your competitors run their shops. How do they photograph their items? How many items are in their shops? What is the typical shipping fee for your type of product? What is the typical price range? Try to decide what works for your competitors and what doesn't. Don't copy their shop, but look for inspiration and assess the fundamentals of what strategies work best in your category.

Add a Profile
Be sure to add some information about yourself and your work to your profile page. Successfully selling crafts online requires building trust with your customers. When you tell your customers a little bit about yourself and the process you use to make your items, you are building that trust relationship.

Similarly, people buying handmade items typically respond to a feeling of connection with the artist. A short but compelling profile, builds the feeling of connection that can nudge a customer towards the decision to buy your crafts.

Write Thorough Descriptions
Take the time to write very thorough descriptions of each of your pieces. Think like a customer. What do they need to know before they commit to buying your item? What are your store policies? Try to anticipate and answer every question a customer might have.

If a customer likes your item, but your description leaves out some vital information, they will probably not ask you for the answers to their questions. Instead, they'll likely move on to one of your competitor's shops.

Price Strategically
Statistics based on random samples of daily sales on Etsy show that the average price of individual items sold in Etsy shops is $10.00 to $15.00. I'm no fan of competing on price when selling crafts online, but it will be important to check out the price points of your competitors so you know how your prices compare. Don't under-price your items, but do be strategic about pricing. If your items fall into a higher price range, market the exclusivity, luxury, high quality materials and craftsmanship of your pieces, don't short-sell yourself.

Post Items Frequently
You'll get better exposure for your Etsy shop if you list items on a regular basis rather than posting all of your items at once. Unfortunately this strategy can be time consuming. You won't hear any arguments from me if you say that posting new items each day is a big pain. However, it is valid strategy for getting better exposure, and it's a reality of selling crafts online on third party sites.

To be more efficient with your time, you may want to prepare your photos and descriptions for several items at once and then post one item to your Etsy shop each day.

Make it Easy for Customers to Find You
Explore Etsy's categories to determine the one that is the best fit for your crafts. When you post items, you will assign tags, which are like keywords, to describe your items. These tags are the words that help customers find your items. Use all of your tags and use them well.

Try to think like a customer to determine what words they might use when they're looking for your items. For example, if you are selling a small blue and orange crocheted purse with fringe and flowers, you might use tags such as crocheted, purse, bag, handbag, tote, blue, orange, casual, fringe, small, medium, flower, wool. Don't limit yourself to the first two of three words that come to mind. These tags help you get customers to your shop.

Define Your Own Unique Look
Don't worry about appealing to everyone's tastes by designing a little bit of everything. It's important to define your own unique look and then market to that customer. In general, Etsy tends towards less traditional craft and has a more youthful style. Whether your style is retro, punk, traditional, or whimsical, decide who you are creatively and make every marketing decision based on that image.

Promote Your Shop
It's not enough to create your Etsy shop and then wait for customers to come along. Use good self promotion strategies like networking, and distributing business cards to promote your Etsy shop offline.

Online, you can include your Etsy URL in your signature when you post in forums (Remember to add valid content to a forum discussion. People sense blatant self promotion pretty quickly, and they don't respond well to it). You may also exchange links with quality sites that are related, but not direct competitors. Include your URL in your email signature to put the link in front of potential customers. Also, sending out a regular newsletter to past customers reminds them of your shop and lets them know about new products.

Understand Your Customers' Experience
When you first set up your Etsy shop, it's wise to buy something from yourself so you can experience the purchasing process from the customers' point of view. This exercise will help you to and work out any issues that may not be noticeable from the seller's point of view and assist customers if they have any questions about the purchasing process.

Like everything else in life that's worthwhile, building a successful Etsy shop requires an investment of your time. Make full use of all of the promotional resources provided by Etsy. Keep in mind that building the store is an ongoing process and it's only half of the equation for success in selling crafts online. And finally, be creative and consistent in promoting your Etsy shop.

 
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