How to Make an Old Etsy Listing New Again
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Disclaimer: all opinions are my ain.
You lot landed here because you're a good entrepreneur who is doing a scrap of inquiry earlier starting an Etsy shop! And possibly you lot want to know how to brand extra money at home.
Etsy was my gateway platform into the e-commerce earth, just at that place are some things I wish I knew before selling on Etsy, and I wanted to share those things with you today.
Etsy is a peachy platform to kickoff on, but I don't recommend Etsy being your just e-commerce platform and I'grand going to give you the nitty-gritty details why (and how I near had to go to courtroom over my Etsy shop…).
I'k also going to requite y'all other places to sell your products so you can maximize your potential profits!
First, permit'south talk near some of the pros of starting an Etsy shop.
Pros of Starting an Etsy Store
While there are reasons you don't want to rely on Etsy 100%, I practise remember it'south a keen place for newcomers who don't take a large audience of their own to marketplace to.
Hither are some reasons why I think starting an Etsy shop is a smashing idea.
1. Starting an Etsy Shop is Quick and Piece of cake
When you start an Etsy shop, y'all don't need to worry nearly domains, hosting or hiring a web designer. Everything is already done for yous.
This is a screenshot of my Etsy store, and as y'all tin see, the only items you might demand to have custom-designed would be a header paradigm and a logo. You could easily design a header epitome yourself on Canva, making your Etsy shop gratis to set up!
I besides like the design of Etsy shops. I think they are convenient and clean. Etsy has obviously done their research into making sure the layout of their shops is as high-converting as possible.
You can besides upgrade your Etsy account to have more than features, such every bit a scrollable banner at the top of your folio to showcase unlike promotions simply every bit EasyPrintablesShop has.
While in that location are options to customize, it's nothing similar the customization you become past starting your own store on your own website, but having a shop ready to get in as little equally an hour is very highly-seasoned, regardless of the customization limitations.
2. You lot Have Access to a Big Audition
Etsy is a search engine and the people who go to Etsy are looking to buy.
If y'all are simply starting up and don't have your own audience yet, starting an Etsy store is a bang-up way to get your products in front of a larger audience to increase your chances of making sales.
When I first started my Etsy shop, I hadn't congenital upward a large audience on my own, so existence able to leverage the shoppers on Etsy helped me brand a few sales.
three. You Can Integrate Dropshipping
If yous don't programme to industry your own products and instead program to use dropshipping, Etsy tin can integrate to many dropshipping platforms meaning y'all can sell apparel and different items without having to worry nigh really stocking them.
Dropshipping is a neat method to build a assisting business organisation with no inventory, and Etsy makes it very easy to integrate. Before you choose a dropshipping platform, just make certain they are compatible with Etsy.
Here's a listing of dropshipping companies to help yous get started (if that'due south the route you lot'd like to become)!
four. Etsy is Established
Etsy is established and is known for being a market place full of unique items. Your hereafter potential customers are likely on Etsy looking for the items you sell right at present.
That doesn't hateful you won't demand to learn how to market your appurtenances, however. Only like whatever other online business concern, starting an Etsy shop will yet crave you to learn about online marketing.
5. People Trust Etsy
Trust is a major factor in the ownership process. If your customers don't trust your shop, they may not experience comfortable buying from you and handing over their credit bill of fare and personal information.
Brand new online shops can often confront this drawback as they lack reviews, social proof and authority.
This isn't much of a trouble on Etsy.
On Etsy, buyers can purchase products confidently knowing their personal data will be stored properly. They tin can also experience comfortable knowing that if the item doesn't get in, they'll exist able to contact Etsy and become a refund.
Drawbacks of Starting an Etsy Shop
While the pros I only listed with starting an Etsy store might brand Etsy seem like a dream for beginners, y'all should likewise be aware of some of the cons. I wish I knew most these prior to opening up my Etsy shop (it would have saved me a ton of stress).
There are a few reasons why I eventually moved my store off Etsy and onto my ain domain.
1. Your Products Are Shown Beside Your Competition
If a customer walked into your shop and picked up a beautiful necklace y'all spent weeks creating, would you run over to them and say, "if you think that's squeamish, y'all might also like this necklace that y'all tin get from my contest just down the road!" every bit you evidence them a photograph of your competitor's products?
Nope!
But that'due south what Etsy does, and that'southward what will substantially happen to you lot if you start an Esty shop.
At the bottom of your Etsy shop, Etsy shows products they think the user volition also like.
This means that your competitors may (and probable will) be shown to your potential customers on your own store page.
Etsy makes money when an detail sells, so they want to make sure that when a potential customer is browsing, they have lots of choices to increase the likelihood they will purchase.
Etsy doesn't care what shop sells what items, they just want to make sure something sells.
And that means promoting your competitor's products on your own shop'southward page.
ii. You Take Less Control
I almost got sued. Yous'll want to read this section entirely.
When started an Etsy store, the last thing on my mind was going to court to fight over some silly fiddling Lightroom mobile presets I was selling…but that's almost what happened. And I wish I knew how prevalent this was over on Etsy's side of the pond because afterwards speaking with other Etsy shop owners, my example wasn't unique. It happens every single day.
At any point in time, Etsy can shut down your shop and you might non take any command over it.
It happened to me because a jealous competitor accused me of frivolous copyright (I didn't copy anything), withal, by police force, when you are accused of copyright infringement, Etsy has to take downwardly every single list in order to avoid getting sued themselves.
Hither's the quick and muddied version of what happens when you lot get defendant of copyright infringement:
- Someone reports your business relationship to Etsy and issues a DMCA takedown detect
- Etsy immediately removes the item(s) in question from your store and notifies you with 2 options: one. either acknowledge yous're in the incorrect and delete the items from your shop OR 2. counter the DMCA claim. Countering the merits legally opens you upwards to become to courtroom. Countering is essentially saying "I'one thousand not bankroll down because I'm non in the wrong, and if yous desire to take me to court over it, bring it on".
- If you lot become with pick 1, you can't sell those items over again. If you go with option ii, Etsy volition notify the person that you are countering their claim and they volition accept 14 days to take y'all to court. If they don't take you lot to court in 14 days, then everything is over and your items can be listed for sale again.
I went with option #two considering I knew I was not infringing on anyone's copyright, however, those two weeks where I had to wait to potentially be asked to go to court were very stressful!
My options were to wait around and see if my competitor decided to dorsum downwardly or to become an attorney and become to court.
Oh, and if I put my listings back upwardly without doing either of the above options, I risked getting banned off Etsy for the rest of my life. To be fair to Etsy, this isn't their error. It's merely the constabulary and they need to follow it so they don't get sued as well.
By the end of it all, the person who claimed I was infringing on their copyright didn't come back and take me to court (obviously, as they were just trying to scare me). Nonetheless, my listings were taken downward for two weeks and my Etsy SEO was severely impacted.
I lost money over this, fifty-fifty though I wasn't in the wrong.
When my shop finally got approved to sell again, my sales had plummeted. I reached out to Etsy and asked why traffic to my shop had gone down.
They told me that due to their algorithm, it could have some time for my items to discover their identify in the search results again. Once again, this is out of Etsy'south control and so I don't blame them for this. It was just an unfortunate situation and my store suffered even though I did zero wrong.
I had worked incredibly difficult on my SEO for my listings to announced higher in the search results, and because a competitor decided to take me down unlawfully, I had to pay the price by losing out on income while my listings were shut off and then had to piece of work my way back up the search results once more.
And what if this happens again in a few months? What's stopping my competitor from doing the same thing again?
Could this have happened on my own website? Absolutely, simply it's not as likely.
I also wasn't the only store owner this happened to. I reached out to many of my other competitors when I noticed their listings seemed gone, and they confirmed they were all hit with the aforementioned frivolous copyright infringement from the same sour competitor.
While it was a bad situation, it was the kick-in-the-pants that I needed to move my products over to my own website and stop relying on Etsy and other 3rd-party platforms.
3. Etsy Has High Fees
I sell my products at a lower price point, so Etsy'south fees really injure my bottom line. When I totaled up my fees, xv% of my revenue went towards paying Etsy's fees.
Depending on the price indicate of your products and what you are selling, your fees may vary. Here is a breakup of Etsy's fees so yous can accept an idea of what yours will exist.
Equally my items are priced low, the fees I have to pay account for more, and then permit's say yous accept higher-priced items and yous are paying Etsy only 5%. If you sell $1,000 per month on Etsy, you will be paying (at minimum) $600 in Etsy fees annually.
Hither's the thing: You could put that $600 towards building your own e-commerce website. E-commerce website builders like Squarespace and Shopify make it unproblematic to get your own site up and running, without having to hire a designer.
5. Y'all Are Limited to Etsy's Audience
In the pros, I mentioned that you have access to a large audience, but I didn't say that their audition is too your audience.
Is your target audition even hanging out on Etsy?
Before you lot spend time starting an Etsy store, you should practise some inquiry to see if your audience even uses Etsy to shop.
six. You lot Cannot Grow an Email List (Sort of)
Allow me preface this department past proverb that some electronic mail marketing platforms will connect to Etsy and then yous can collect the emails of your customers (IF they choose to opt-in). Just let me explain why that's not ideal…
If you are just starting out in east-commerce, the concluding thing you are thinking nearly is probably growing an email list. Just it should exist the first affair you call back nigh.
Email marketing is a highly effective and targeted way to promote your products to your audience. In fact, email marketing has a 66% (on average) conversion rate when information technology comes to making a purchase equally a result of seeing a marketing message.
And so, what is your email list? Your email list is essentially a group of people who you have direct admission to, who are also fans of your brand and your products.
These are people who are either by customers or potential current customers but one affair is for sure: they are people who have the potential to one mean solar day make a purchase from you.
Like I mentioned, with Etsy, some e-mail marketing platforms connect with Etsy where y'all can collect emails (but simply from people who buy from you, and simply if they choose to subscribe).
However, there is no streamlined mode to collect emails from those who haven't purchased from you. By streamlined, I mean yous can't add together opt-in forms directly to your listings.
Here'due south an example of an opt-in form on ane of my blogs:
Since you tin't add these to your Etsy listings, y'all aren't able to collect opt-ins in an easy way. Yes, y'all can hyperlink to an opt-in form, just mostly speaking, the conversion charge per unit will subtract since well-nigh people aren't going to click off of Etsy to access your opt-in grade. Users like the path to least resistance, which is why linking to an external sign-up folio isn't the best option.
For me personally, once I moved my shop from Etsy over to my own website, my income grew by 2,000% because I was able to do amend-targeted ads, utilize my email list, my products were no longer shown aslope my competition and my website traffic was converting to sales.
Is Etsy Worth It?
Here'south my honest opinion: starting an Etsy shop is great for those who are looking to dip their toes into e-commerce. Had I non started my own Etsy store, I wouldn't be where I am today with my products!
Etsy is also a nifty way to diversify your streams of revenue. At that place'south zilch incorrect with starting with an Etsy store, seeing how things go, and building out your ain due east-commerce site in the future. You tin even have BOTH Etsy and your own east-commerce site run simulteansouly.
Aside from starting an Etsy store, I would as well expect into putting your products on different platforms such as:
- Creative Market place
- Amazon Handmade
- Big Dare
Merely I absolutely recommend thinking of setting upwards your own e-commerce website where you lot take full control as well.
If you want to beginning your own online shop, cheque out my listing of over 65 different digital products to start selling today!
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Source: https://www.dananicoledesigns.com/starting-an-etsy-shop/
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