How I Increased MMy Etsy Sales 1000% in ONE Year!

Etsy is a powerhouse search engine.  I have been on Etsy since 2007, so I know all the changes that has occurred over the many years.  As a buyer and a seller.  Now that the changes in Etsy seem to be detrimental it’s not.  Stay calm and go with the flow.  Your business should be set up to grow with changes whether it’s Etsy or your own personal reasons.

Having a plan in place is so very important for any size business.  Creating a clear easy to follow plan needs to be in lace and updated often.  I will write about how I use my content calendar to easily post and create content without the struggle.

Now, let’s get in to the meat of this post.  What does it mean to increase your sales 1000% in one year?  When you are in Etsy as a seller dashboard, they will tell you compared to last year how your stats have changed.  I don’t have a screenshot to show you mine, but you can easily see yours by logging in to Etsy and going your dashboard.  It will look like this:

You can see the 333% YoY at the top.  That percentage means you are trending 333% from the same time last year.  Each box has these stats for revenue, visits and orders.

Below is a guide I used to sell on Etsy, now I am offering it for free here to help you get the most out of your Etsy business. Enjoy!

Tips and Tricks to Increase your Etsy sales.

Hello and welcome to increase your Etsy sales tips and tricks. Is there a guarantee? No, but there is hope. I had tons of hope when I started my little shop and got no sales. Never give up. This guide is not an in depth guide. Its more of a “get up a do this” kind of guide. If it’s something you truly want you have to put the work in and commit to seeing it through. One thing that helps me, is saying “I want to see what happens when I don’t give up”. That little quote keeps my fire burning and I can only hope it gets you fired up as well.

There will not be certain information that is unheard of, it will be in a more understandable way and easy to apply to any Etsy shop. No matter what you sell, if you are interested in it, so is someone else. So stop saying to yourself and others, “my items are unsellable.” You just need to find your target market and work from there.

First things first. Who do you want to sell to? You must answer this in order to move any product. My shop grew over 1000% in a years time by finding my target market. Find the age, location, male, female, income, and interests of the customer you want to attract. Write this down in a notebook geared specifically for your business.

If you don’t have Instagram, GET ONE! People buy with their eyes. Take some good pictures with your cell phone. Use the Foodie app to get some nice filters. Post often, if not daily. Social media is the cheapest and fastest way to get your product in front of hundreds to thousands of customers in an instant. If you don’t know how use Instagram, learn. Take a course, look on Pinterest, or ask a friend. Learning about your craft on a constant basis is necessary for success. Watch YouTube videos for tips on how to stage your photos. You must teach yourself on a regular basis. Anyone can open up shop but it takes real hard work to get consistent sales.

The next step is something that took me a while to really understand, but once I got it, I GOT IT! Like I really understood the SEO phenom. SEO is search engine optimization. Basically, it means how we ( customers) find you.

If you sell scarves, that you painstakingly hand knit, and you list “ Hand Knitted Scarf”, how the heck will I find YOU? Currently, using this example, when you search “hand knitted scarf” you get over 36,000 items. Can you imagine showing up in a store with over 36,000 scarves? This is exactly how you should think. Now, if you are selling a hot pink, ruffled scarf, that can narrow the listings down to only 89 items! Huge difference. SEO in the simplest terms, means to describe your product to the very detail but in a way a shopper would search for it. Such as “hot pink ruffle scarf”. Don’t put difficult ,unimportant description words in your title, description or tags. This a absolutely valuable real estate and these areas need to be taken care of.

Titles: Describe your item in searchable terms (ie. Hot pink scarf, pink scarf, scarf shawl, decorative scarf, scarf, hot pink). This way if a shopper is searching “pink scarf” you will still show up in the search results. What I do is copy and paste that entire title and put it in the very first lines of my description. You could put it anywhere but the top is best for search results.

I have used Marmalade to my advantage. It is a great service. Investing in your business is a must, so make sure you budget for advertising and education. Marmalead will help you clearly understand your mistakes and your competition. I highly recommend giving it a try for at least a month to get all your listings to A-B status. Just a note: it takes at least 30-90 days before you will see any real significant change in your shop stats. Make sure you write down your stats before you start and then again after 90 days. Nothing happens overnight. Keep up with your posting and create a business Facebook page for your shop. Once you gain traction, start a Facebook group geared towards your products.

I cannot stress how important it is to believe in your own shop. I say this because I see time and time again of different people saying “I’m not getting any sales”. The time you take to type that out in a group, you could have posted a new release on your Instagram.

More tips on Social media. Post often and create a buzz. Find hashtags that only pertain to the product or target market you are seeking. Don’t use random hashtags or other brands. You want to brand yourself and set yourself apart from the competition. Write out your hashtags most frequently used in a notes app, this way you can update it and copy and paste as needed. Create a photo scene. This can easily be done with some fabric and a few decorative pieces for the background. Don’t make it too busy. Also, try to use the same filter setting for your photos, this will be a part of your branding. Watermarks are also important. There are unsavory people out there just waiting to snatch one of your cute pictures. Use a watermark app.

Find a group that will allow you to promote your products. DO NOT spam groups. Keep your posts engaging, don’t post and run. Ask a question. See what people like or dislike about your product. Create new products while updating old ones. Stay up to date with trends. Keep up with holidays and even local celebrations pertinent to your city or state. Stay away, far away from copyrighted material. Yes you may see it, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it too!

Photos: Keep a cohesive look to your shop. Everyone is different, so appeal to them with some nice bright shots, clearly showcasing your product. I use the Foodie app (mentioned above). I like this app because it makes my products pop without a lot of fancy lighting. Natural lighting is best. Find the brightest window in your home and set a day to take your photos in front of this window. If possible, take them outside. Try your best to use all 9 photo options. Take pictures from all angles and even with your product in use. The one in use is perfect for your IG (Instagram)! Don’t overdo the background. Buy a white foam board from the dollar store and a bright window and the Foodie app…..you’re all set.

If you are not getting any sales you have to take a step back and get honest with yourself. Ask yourself “self, would you buy this?” Implement all of this and keep up with it. Most people start an Etsy shop as a side business, while some need it to maintain their lives and/or family. Either way, you need sales to sustain yourself. Buying stock, taking photos, listing content, writing copy, social media, shipping, customer service, all of this is you rolled into one person. So, don’t be so hard on yourself. Give yourself credit for at least stepping out and doing the damn thing. Go after your dreams.

For the next month, I want you to write out five goals for your shop. Once you write out those goals work at each one every, single day! Yes, including weekends! If one of your goals is to increase your followers, write “ in 30 days I will have x-amount more followers.” Then commit to posting, going to the trending page and double tapping photos that appeal to you, engaging with the followers you do currently have. Do a giveaway. This is a great authentic way to find genuine followers. Why? Well they want your item but might feel apprehensive to purchase. This gives them the opportunity to see more and have the chance to get it for free.Win/win.

Create a Canva (Canva.com) account and create some branding. I use this for my sale and advertising posting on IG and FB. When you do a giveaway, you will gain a lot of followers, however, be prepared to be unfollowed by some. If you are, no sweat. They probably weren’t your target market anyway. Don’t feel bad if you lose followers. You only need people who want your product and like what you have to offer. Keep up with your feed. Another good way to gain more followers is by doing a loop giveaway.

I went from 500 followers to 1800 by doing 2 loop giveaways. A loop is generally a group of shops that sell the same type of product giving away a shop credit to all the shops involved to one lucky customer. If you can’t find one in your genre, create one! Other smaller shops would love this. It creates a community and friends that will last years.

Pinterest. Honestly, I don’t have one single customer from Pinterest, don’t let that stop you though. Create a board for your brand. Notice I didn’t say shop.

You are now a brand, treat yourself like one. Become desirable. Stop scrolling without purpose and start posting with your goal in mind. Post to Pinterest as soon as you upload a new listing. You can do this straight from Etsy.

Stay away from drama. You’ve heard the old saying “ even bad publicity is good publicity”. Well, not to a little shop on the internet. Most people will and can survive some bad but try your best to keep good reviews and stay in good standing with your customers.

Ship on time and even early, if possible. Try to only list what you have in stock if time is a problem. Extending your shipping times is an option, but keep in mind that customers will steer clear of a small shop with long shipping times. Especially in the “Amazon era of I want it now” times. A lot of information tells you to have at least 100 listings. While that is a goal to seek, early on, just try to build your brand and following. Correct your listings and photos. Then work on building stock. Always plan to be big.

Never short sell yourself today because tomorrow you could get a ton of orders.

I can only hope you found this little guide of some help. In line to make this short, sweet and to the point so you can get to implementing these tips.

Get those sales rolling in. I’d love to hear from you, follow me on Instagram

@thelavenderpaperco & @iplanlovelive