Want to open a Etsy shop? Here are 5 tips to know before opening.

We have all had a year! A year that lasted FOREVER!!!!!!! So many people wanted to open an Etsy shop to help make or supplement their income. This included me. If you have ever wanted to open an Etsy shop I have some great real-world information to help you. Here are 5 tips to know before opening.

Tip 1 – Shipping is crazy

I’m going to be 100% transparent, I had never shipped anything prior to opening my Etsy shop.

I tried my best to research what I could. Should I ship through this company or that? There is so much conflicting information out there. After watching about 20 hours of YouTube videos and reading countless blog posts I felt like I gleaned as much as I could from all of those sources.

Etsy gives you incentives to ship your products for free to your customers. My first shop (BeesandBirchCo) is a vinyl decal and iron-on shop. I decided to go with Etsy shipping because they offer a discount through USPS. Each one of my packages cost me on average $3.00 to ship.

Now, I do have a disclosure stating that I may send my products via snail mail, but I never have. Mainly because I want my customer experience to be amazing. That means I take the time to select amazing (and cheap) packaging.

Shipping your items is going to depend on the total weight of your products and the size of the boxes or bags being shipped.

Tip 2 – The packaging is important but doesn’t have to be expensive!!!

When you think about packaging what comes to mind? For me, it’s things like Apple products; simple modern clean packaging.

I freaking LOVE packaging. So I am very picky about what my products look like. But, packaging can be super expensive.

I follow a lot of people on TicTock and on Instagram that pay to have packaging printed and have custom stickers and printables made.

OF course, you will want something that has your business name on it as well but you don’t have to buy postcards, business cards or thank you cards with your branding all over it.

Start off simple, print as much as you can at home!

If you are lucky enough to have a color printer just buy plain white flashcards and make a design for a postcard on Canva or Pikmonkey. Both sites are free to use and are able to help you easily design something wonderful.

For my own shop, I use some printed tissue paper and a wax seal with a vellum tag. The tissue paper is from a shop on Etsy and I make the wax seals and velum tags in bulk at home. This ends up costing me about .85 cents for all of my packaging and cute add on’s.

Here is a breakdown of what I use and how much each package costs me. (I did not include the wax seal or wax because I owned these items from another craft.)

Bubble mailer: $7.99 for 50 = .15 per piece

Tissue paper: $ 11.99 for 10 sheets = .29 per order

Wax seal and wax: I had the wax seal $0 and the wax is $11.99 per box of 8 sticks = .24 per seal

Washi tape: $6.99 for 12 rolls = .01 per package

Vellum tag: $12.49 per 100 sheet’s = less then .01 per tag (printed at home)

Glassine bag: $8.75 per 100 = .08 per bag

cello bag: $7.99 per 100 = .07 each bag (these included thank you stickers!)

Alcohol prep wipe: $4.90 for 200 =.02 per package

Application postcard: $9.48 per 250 sheets = less than .01 per package (printed at home)

Plastic application card with sublimated logo: $19.99 for cards per 250 = .07 per card for the Sublimation logos it cost $11.75 for 80 = .14 per logo for card (here is the link to the sublimation supplier.)

Tip 3 -Your Etsy shop Branding is key.

When I first purchased this blog domain name in 2014 I also purchased 5 others. Once I decided that I was going to go with Sincerely Saturday I let the other domain names chill out until I had a use for them.

Fast forward to 2020 where I was finally determined to open an Etsy shop of my own.

I had held onto BeesandBirch.com for this exact reason, only to discover that someone else had literally just claimed the name a month before. Now, I own the domain name and the Gmail email by that name so I simply renamed my Etsy shop Bees and Birch Co.

My branding was very easy to figure out. It was all in the name! I would try to find something to represent each part of my logo and packaging.

Here are my logo and packaging. I designed the logo on picmonkey using a public domain vintage bee.

Please do your research when it comes to making your logo. You can not just use something you see online. You must choose something that you either purchased and have a license to use or is a public domain like this site.

Tip 4 – SEO and KEYWORD optimization is now your jam!!

I am going to assume that you have never owned a blog or website before opening your shop?!?

SEO (search engine optimization) and keywords are a major part of your being found on Etsy and online in general. Figuring out the keywords seems daunting and time-consuming but it doesn’t have to be.

Essentially, Etsy is a search engine and will do the work for you.

To find out what kind of words you should use to get buyers into your shop type keywords into the search tab. An example of this would be if you are selling wax melts, type in wax melts into the search bar. There will be a drop-down of all of the most popular words used to find that product. These are your keywords.

You want to use these keywords in your item description and throughout your product information so that the most amount of people find you.

FYI, if you are selling a product sold in big box stores like mugs, candles, essential oils, clothing, jewelry, Etc. check out big box stores keywords. Why? They paid someone to do the SEO for those products so there is a ton of free information that may help you on discovering your own optimal keywords.

BUT……..

To set yourself apart from the crowd you may want to get a few niche keywords in.

Let’s stick with the wax melt idea. Are yours made with all-natural ingredients? How about soy wax or maybe they are shaped like a hippo?

People will search for a narrowed-down product so make sure to include ANYTHING that sets you apart from the crowd.

Tip 4 – Product Saturation on Etsy is real!

I hope if you are reading this that you are not about to open a sticker, jewelry, digital download, or a hair accessory shop. Why? This type of shop on Etsy is beyond saturated. Everyone is trying to open one. I’m not saying do not open one of these, I’m saying it’s cutthroat and difficult.

Having a product that is in demand is key to making sales. But, if your product is just like all of the others you will be lucky to make sales at all.

If you are making any of these products and have the ability to make anything custom, do it! People love having the ability to customize products.

Maybe you are making scrunchies? Try using some premium fabrics from Liberty, custom printed from Spoonflower, or even hand-crafted fabrics from other sellers on Etsy.

People love to buy something unique and high quality for less.

Find your niche and kill it with your awesome products!

Tip 5 – Copycats suck! And it will happen.

It is 100% inevitable that there will be copycats. As a blogger and content producer, I have now had my most popular blog post used and copied by some of our biggest chain stores and DIY home improvement networks.

I was angry and felt cheated, but it will happen!

When doing your research and setting up your shop try your best to not cheat any other creator out of their intellectual property. You can look at the bigger sellers for inspiration but NEVER copy anyone’s content word for word. Oh yeah, that’s also illegal!!

Now having said that I do not believe in “gatekeeping.” If someone wants to know how to make something I’m going to show them how. Why? Because if the greatest sculptors, painters, lace makers, musicians, and designers never shared their craft we wouldn’t have any of the amazing works we have now.

Just make sure that what you are offering is yours to offer. I call mine my brain babies. LOL. I think of it, make it, and then share it with the world.

This is the tip of the ice burg!

Opening my Etsy shop has been a decade-long dream that I finally have a chance to do and I love it! There is a lot more that is involved with opening a shop. These are just a few items I wish I had known before opening my shop.

Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions about opening your own shop. I would be more than happy to help if I can.