Things To Sell on Etsy To Make Money
If you make handmade products, printables, arts, and crafts, clothing, accessories, or have sourced vintage clothing, you can earn a full-time living on Etsy.com.
Etsy is a website that brings sellers and buyers together within these defined niches. The site makes it easy for the seller to earn money, and simple for the buyer to find what they want to purchase through a custom search engine, Etsy Search.
How to Get Started on Etsy
In order to sell on Etsy.com, you’ll need to register for an account.
You cannot change the information once you register so give some thought to your user name as it will become your shop name.
You’ll also need a credit card to get started, so be prepared with that information. However, before you register take the time to consider what you’ll sell and to whom you’ll sell.4
Once your store is opened you can also manage it via the Sell on Etsy App.
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What to Sell on Etsy
Deciding what to sell is one of the most important choices you have to make before you start earning money.
Do some brainstorming and make a list of things you may want to sell. Then do some research. This step is very important. You want to do enough research so that you can make a good choice and not just go with the first thing that comes to mind.
It can take some time to earn money by selling products on Etsy. However, taking the time to make a plan and understanding everything you can about your niche will increase your chances of how to make money on Etsy.
Use Your Current Talents or Learn New Skills
The first thing you need to know is what you can do or what you want to learn how to do.
What are your talents and skills? Are you an exceptional seamstress? If so then you can make any number of things from pillows to clothing and accessories. Do you know how to find vintage items that you can promote? It’s best to start with a skill that you already have. Then, you can decide exactly what you’ll sell based on the research you’ve done and what you’ve learned should sell well.
Selling Printables on Etsy
One of the most popular niches right now on Etsy is selling printables. These are in huge demand. Planners, journals, invites, wall art, invitations, etc. They are easy to learn how to make and you sell downloadable digital files so there is no need for packaging and shipping to clients. Make the product once and you can sell as many as you like. This is all in all a great business model and extremely newbie-friendly.
You will love this affordable training here:
Is Selling on Etsy Worth it in 2022?
Do some research and look at what is selling well on Etsy now. Do any of these types of products fit in with your current skillset or your new interests?
You don’t want to copy another store in its entirety but there is nothing wrong with starting another store that sells similar things. Most business owners know the secret to doing well is to find what is already selling and do it just a little bit better or differently. That’s why you will often see gas stations on every corner of an intersection and a coffee shop pop up across the street from another coffee shop.
Don’t copy, but don’t be afraid of competition. If a shop on Etsy is super successful and has no competition, becoming that competition can only be profitable.
The Best Things to Sell on Etsy to Make Money
As a guideline these are the best Selling Categories for Etsy stores in 2022:
- Jewelry
- Party Decorations
- Printable artwork & other digital products
- Vinyl mugs, socks, and accessories
- Toys and Baby Items
- Knitted Kid’s Clothing
- Planner items
- Accessories
Get to Know Your Target Market
One way to decide what to sell is to combine your skill set with the type of people you’d like to serve or already do serve.
To whom do you want to sell? Niche it down to who you want your ideal customer to be. For example, teachers, students, and stay-at-home moms. Get to know your target audience before deciding on the products. This will enable you to develop better products because you’ll have a good understanding of the problems, needs, and desires of your audience as well as how you can help them.
Price Your Products to Sell
The next thing you must do is decide the best price point for your products. The price must provide value to your customers as well as earn the type of profit you need to make this a real business for yourself.
Setting prices is a combination of understanding the amount your audience can afford, the value you provide, your costs, what the competition is selling at, and the profit that you want to earn for your efforts.
If you are selling digital products or printables the cost is very low. Etsy charges a small listing fee of $0.20USD for each product you list on your store for 4 months and a 5% transaction fee when you make a sale.
There are other costs for advertising if you choose to do so but for a complete breakdown of the fees, you can read here.
Selling Physical Products Costs
Fixed Costs – These business costs won’t change. Your fixed costs consist of things like storage, utilities, rent, internet, and so forth. These costs are not based on which products you make, or how many you create, but are the simple costs of doing business.
Variable Costs – This cost will change depending on the type of products you decide to offer your audience. For example, in a pillow business, if you offer a silk pillow and a cotton pillow, the fabric costs for each type of pillow will vary.
It’s important to understand fixed costs, variable costs, as well as direct costs such as how much it costs to produce each item and whether or not the prices go down the more you create. Another aspect to consider when pricing a product is how much time it takes you to create it and how much you feel your time is worth.
By understanding these aspects of pricing, you’ll be able to come up with the right prices for your products. Don’t be afraid to test them, raising or lowering them as needed, but keep your “make or break” point in mind as the whole point is to be making money on Etsy.
Make Your Shop Stand Out
To ensure that your shop has the very best chance for success, it’s important to learn how to make your Etsy shop stand out.
Esty gives you a lot of flexibility when it comes to designing your store so that it looks unique and shoppers understand what you sell. To ensure that your store gets a lot of attention follow these tips:
a) Learn Basic Photography Skills
Taking excellent photos of your products is essential to sales. You’ll need to take a lot of close-up pictures using a lightbox. A lightbox is a flat box that is bright white inside and has an electric light that illuminates your products fully. You can create this type of box in a number of ways depending upon the size of your products. WikiHow has an excellent tutorial that you can use to make your own lightbox or get an idea of how to create one.
If you are only selling digital products this is not always necessary. You can make great mock-up templates in Canva to display your products or buy some ready-made templates.
b) Learn the Basics of Copywriting
It’s important to write clear, keyword-rich descriptions that make your item irresistible to your audience. The research you did about your audience, as well as your understanding of the product you’re selling will help you. However, you will need to know what good copywriting consists of in a product description. Your copywriting should tell the readers what the product is, who it’s for, what it’s made of, the colors it comes in, how it was made, and any other information that you can think of to describe the product.
Take some time to study product descriptions on popular websites and top-selling Etsy shops to help you learn. Then, test out different product descriptions to see what works best. You’ll need to give as many details as you can, in the space provided, using words that your audience will understand and appreciate.
Use Etsy Apps & Tools
There are several apps made just for Etsy that you can use to improve your Etsy store. Try apps that help make marketing easier such as 1-Click Pinterest Promotion, or apps that help with general organization such as Stitch Labs or Simple Inventory Management app.
Alura and eRank and Marmalead (all with free trials) are great keyword tools for doing SEO research to optimize your listings.
Making your shop stand out is an important component of making money on Etsy.
Promoting & Marketing Your Shop
The final and probably most important aspect of earning money through Etsy is to understand that you must promote and market your Etsy shop. It’s not a matter of building the shop and people just show up to buy. While that might happen, more than likely it will not. You will need to spend some time and money on marketing to ensure that you are successful. Here are a few marketing aspects that you may want to look into a bit more.
How SEO Works – Search engine optimization is an important part of any online business including your Etsy shop. This includes using the best search terms in your product descriptions, shop descriptions, and any other promotional material that you put out such as within a blog post. Use the keyword tools mentioned above.
Social Media – You can use social media such as Pinterest.com to market your Etsy shop. Using the excellent pictures you’ve taken, you can push your products out on any social media platform that allows pictures. If you write a blog post, you should also share it on social media. Whatever you do should be shared on social media.
Blogging – You might think it’s not popular anymore to have a blog, but nothing could be further than the truth. While blogs are evolving, they’re not disappearing. Today you can use many different formats for content that work with a blog such as text, podcasts, and video. The more you blog about your products to your audience the more sales you’ll make.
YouTube.com – This is a great way to market your products. You can video the process of making your items, or finding the items if you have a vintage store, edit the video to make it short enough (no more than 10 minutes) and publish them on YouTube.com as well as other social media sites.
Join the Etsy Community – There is an active community of shop owners and buyers on Etsy. If you get involved with the Etsy community, they will like and follow you, as well as help promote you to the people they know. The community members may even purchase things for themselves.
Place Advertisements – Using banner ads, or social media ads, create advertisements to bring people to your Etsy store. Be sure to keep in mind your audience, where they hang out online, and what type of ads will appeal to them most.
Attend Craft Shows – If you selling physical items you can get some more inspiration or perhaps even some new ideas at craft shows as to what things to sell on Etsy to make money and/or also promote yourself offline too.
Use business cards at craft shows to inform people about your Etsy store. This is a great way to get repeat customers and another clever strategy on how to make money on Etsy.
Build an Email List – Not only should you build an email list, but also build a direct mailing list. Anyone who has purchased from you can automatically go on the lists, while others may need some incentive to sign up for your lists via your blog or website. Use the list to market new items and announce sales.
A Very user-friendly Autoresponder I recommend (Free for up 1000 subscribers) is Mailerlite.
For more in-depth training on this:
Use Etsy Tags – This is imperative, as you should be using all the space there is to insert keywords and explain what your items are. This can be found in item details. Use every bit of space given to you for the best results. The SEO-optimized keywords that you use will help your audience find you so choose carefully.
Be Consistent — Add products to your store on a regular basis. This will help you get more views and visitors. Each time a new product is added on Etsy, anyone who has followed you will be notified. Your shop will show up higher in an Etsy search because it will be considered more active and items are listed in chronological order.
In Conclusion
Selling your crafts on Etsy is an affordable and fun way to create a side-income business for anyone. Learn a few in and outs and you can have a nice business up and running in no time.
Finally, if you want to make money on Etsy, remember to put your customers at the top of your list. Always under-promise and over-deliver on every single order. Add that little extra something to your packaging so that your customer will become a repeat customer. It’s a lot easier keeping a customer than getting a new one.
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