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Selling on Etsy can be exciting and help you get your products in front of tons of people. I love getting notifications on my phone from Etsy orders.
When you start selling on Etsy, you’ll have tons of questions and some of the answers may not be so obvious so I’ve come up with 22 top questions and answers for selling on Etsy.
Jump to Sections in this Post
- 1 What is Etsy? How does Etsy work?
- 2 Can you really make money on Etsy?
- 3 How much does Etsy cost per month?
- 4 How much should I pay for Etsy ads?
- 5 Is it better to sell on Etsy or your own website?
- 6 What should I sell on Etsy?
- 7 What sells fast on Etsy?
- 8 What cannot be sold on Etsy?
- 9 How to choose an Etsy shop name?
- 10 How do I make my Etsy shop header?
- 11 How do I get reviews for my Etsy shop?
- 12 How do I get my shop found on Etsy?
- 13 How do I price my items for Etsy?
- 14 Can I have multiple Etsy accounts?
- 15 Why does Etsy need my SSN?
- 16 Why does Etsy need my bank info?
- 17 Does Etsy report income to the IRS?
- 18 How do I accept payment on Etsy?
- 19 Should I offer free shipping on Etsy?
- 20 How long does Etsy take to pay?
- 21 What are some tips for Etsy beginners?
- 22 What to do before opening an Etsy shop?
1 What is Etsy? How does Etsy work?
Etsy is a platform where hand crafters can sell their creations. On Etsy you will find unique and one of a kind products created by people just like yourself. I love Etsy because you can have direct contact with a customer to personalize their order or get clarification on their needs.
Etsy, in a way, is like eBay. There are individual people selling items that they made themselves. There are small shops and there are shops that are huge. There are new shops and there are shops that have been around for years. There are some shops that have great reviews and there are shops that have sketchy reviews. At the end of the day, if you want to create an Etsy shop, you get to decide how your shop is perceived by your customers.
2 Can you really make money on Etsy?
The answer to this question depends on the amount of work you do and the type of products you sell. I recommend that you do your research on shops that are selling similar items as yours. How long has that shop existed? What does the shop charge for products? How much does the shop charge to ship items? What are customers saying about the products from the shop?
After you’ve conducted your research, determine what you want to sell and what you want your profit margins to be. Your profit is the amount of money you make after you have bought the supplies for a product, made the product and shipped the product. I recommend you get the Business Launch Playbook that will help you analyze your competitors and get your Etsy business up and running and I also recommend the Cricut Pricing Spreadsheet to determine how to price your items to make a good profit. Remember, starting an Etsy shop is a marathon, not a race.
3 How much does Etsy cost per month?
The cost to use Etsy per month is relatively cheap. If you sell digital products, the overall cost of running an Etsy shop is very low. If you sell physical products on Etsy, you will need to evaluate all the Etsy fees plus shipping to make sure that you can make a good amount of money. For more detail on the cost to run an Etsy shop, check out this blog post.
4 How much should I pay for Etsy ads?
Etsy ads can help you get your product in front of the right customer, therefore increasing your chances of making sales. The lowest amount that you can spend on Etsy ads is $1.00 per day and the maximum you can spend per day starting out is $50. Etsy will analyze your ad spending patterns per week and can increase your maximum budget limit. So overall, I think you should test out Etsy ads to see how it works for you and I recommend testing out Etsy ads for at least a full month to get enough data to analyze your results. Once you have run your Etsy ad, determine if you made any sales, if you made a profit, and if you should increase your spending on ads.
5 Is it better to sell on Etsy or your own website?
Some people are torn on whether they should start selling items on Etsy first or on their own website. My personal opinion is that Etsy should be the way for you to go if you aren’t tech savvy at all. Starting your own website on a platform like Shopify does require you to be somewhat tech savvy and you will have to do a lot of Googling around to figure out how to do things. With Etsy, it’s pretty straightforward and intuitive.
Etsy provides a lot of resources to help sellers get their Etsy shops up and running. I think once you have the hang of Etsy and want to branch out into customizing your own website and driving traffic to your website, then you should definitely check out Shopify or other ecommerce platforms.
6 What should I sell on Etsy?
There are tons of items that you can sell on Etsy. You can sell digital items that range from printable stickers, to printable invitations, printable planners, printable wall art, resumes, svg files, etc. You can also sell physical products ranging from tshirts, to confetti, handmade necklaces, personalized tumblers, laptop stickers, vinyl decals, etc. For a list of 65 items that you can make and sell on Etsy, click here. I suggest you think about what you want to sell on Etsy and spend time seeing who your competitors will be and taking tips from what they do and how you can make your Etsy shop stand out.
7 What sells fast on Etsy?
Using tools like eRank.com and Marmalead.com will allow you to see who some of the top sellers are on Etsy and the types of items they sell. You can also get suggestions on how to improve your listings so that they will be ranked in the customers searches. I can’t really tell you what sells fast on Etsy, it’s really all about the time of the year and the type of items customers are searching for. When you know what customers are searching for, you should try to think like them and use keywords that they would use to search for a specific item.
8 What cannot be sold on Etsy?
Some of the not so obvious things you cannot sell on Etsy include copyrighted content including Disney, Nickelodeon, Marvel and any other products that are owned by another company. In order to sell these products you must have consent to do so. Other items you cannot sell on Etsy include:
- Items you did not make
- Alcohol, tobacco, drugs, drug paraphernalia, and medical drugs
- Certain animal products and human remains
- Dangerous items, including hazardous materials
- For a list of others items that cannot be sold on Etsy, click here
9 How to choose an Etsy shop name?
First off, you should choose an Etsy name wisely because you can only change your Etsy shop name once. With that said, you should choose an Etsy shop name that speaks to what products you sell. For me personally, I already had my blog InsideOutlined up and running so I decided to name my Etsy shop the same thing. For my second Etsy shop where I sell printables and cutouts, I named that shop IOPrintables. So add some flare to your Etsy shop name while communicating what you sell in your shop.
10 How do I make my Etsy shop header?
To make an Etsy shop header I suggest using Canva. Canva is a free graphic design platform that you can use to create your Etsy shop header, liven up your Etsy product pictures and even use to create graphics for your social media accounts and thank you cards to include with your physical product orders.
11 How do I get reviews for my Etsy shop?
Think about this, before you buy something online, you typically look at the reviews for that product. Etsy shoppers do the same thing. When you first start your Etsy shop, you obviously won’t have any reviews, but you can ask friends and family to place orders and leave honest reviews. What I have done in the past is that every month I would message customers about 2-4 weeks after they had purchased from me and ask them to leave a review for their purchase. A lot of times customers wouldn’t respond, but some would leave a review. Obviously if your products are good and your customer service is great customers will automatically leave good reviews.
12 How do I get my shop found on Etsy?
There is a whole process to getting your products and shop found on Etsy. What you need to realize is that you can’t just put your products on Etsy and then customers will come flooding in. It doesn’t work like that on Etsy and it most definitely won’t work like that if you have your own website. To get your products found on Etsy, you must use keywords throughout your entire listing. Keywords are basically words that your customers are likely to search for when looking for a product that you may sell. You should include keywords in your listing title, description and the tags also.
13 How do I price my items for Etsy?
You should price your products so that you can make a profit. If you intend to run a business and the reason a business exists is to make a profit. If you need some help pricing your products, check out the Cricut Pricing Spreadsheet.
14 Can I have multiple Etsy accounts?
Yes you can have 2 Etsy shops. I have 2 Etsy shops, one where I sell physical products and the other where I sell digital products (svg files). I love that on the “Sell on Etsy” app, you can switch between both of your accounts. In order to view both of your Etsy accounts on a computer or web browser, you will need to sign out of one account and sign into your other account. A work around is that if you are on a laptop you can open one account on Google Chrome and the other account on Safari, Firefox or whatever web browser you use.
15 Why does Etsy need my SSN?
Etsy requests your social security number because if you reach a certain amount of money each year, they will send you a 1099-K and report the earnings to the IRS. Etsy also needs your SSN so that you can keep track of your income and have the necessary info when you file your business taxes.
16 Why does Etsy need my bank info?
Etsy needs your bank account info so that you can get paid and get your deposits.
17 Does Etsy report income to the IRS?
Yes, Etsy reports earnings to the IRS if you make more than $20,000. Etsy will send you a 1099-K form if you meet this threshold. To find out more, read here.
18 How do I accept payment on Etsy?
On Etsy you can accept credit or debit cards including MasterCard, Visa, American Express or Discover as well as PayPal, ApplePay, or Google Pay.
19 Should I offer free shipping on Etsy?
For orders over $35, Etsy encourages you to offer free shipping, but it’s not a requirement for you to do so. Offering free shipping only makes sense if it doesn’t eat too much into your profits.
20 How long does Etsy take to pay?
With Etsy you can choose how often you want to be paid out. Your options are daily, once a week, every 2 weeks, or once per month.
21 What are some tips for Etsy beginners?
Some of my tips for Etsy beginners are to do your research on the products you want to sell, find Etsy shops that sell similar items as you and take notes on what they do well, keep track of your income and expenses, set your items at a competitive price, use a playbook to keep your business on track.
22 What to do before opening an Etsy shop?
Before you open an Etsy shop, there are a few things you need to do such as determining your shop name, determine if you will sell physical or digital products in addition to a few other things here.
I hope your questions on selling on Etsy have been answered. Opening an Etsy shop to sell your Cricut crafts is an awesome and rewarding feeling.If there are additional questions you have about selling on Etsy, comment down below or send me an email at byrd@insideoutlined.com
