You can have your first Etsy shop up and running within minutes, but a little bit of strategy and planning can go a very long way in helping you make sales. I’ve got four young kiddos to wrangle every day, so it’s all about working smarter, not harder over here. 

Before you open your Etsy shop, let’s talk about five important things to do. 

If you’ve already opened your shop and aren’t making sales, go through this list and see if there is anything you skipped. You can always go back and tweak things to work better for you. 

(This post contains affiliate links and you can read the full disclosure here) 

A Wee Bit of Market Research

I can feel your eyes glazing over already but hang with me here. 

I’m guessing that part of your desire to sell on Etsy comes from your love of creating. And maybe you want to be free to create whatever you want, whenever you want. I get it. If your Etsy shop is mostly just a hobby and a creative outlet for you, fabulous! You do you. 

However, if your goal is to enjoy creating things and make money, a little market research upfront will help ensure that the items you spend time and energy creating are what someone else wants to buy. 

Online tools like my favorites Everbee and Erank can help you find products that a lot of people are searching for but not many shops are selling – that’s the sweet spot for creating products that sell. 

As you’re first starting out, it can help to create based on current trends to gain some traction in your new shop. 

If you want to learn step-by-step how to do effective product research, join my program called Digitally Purposed which will help you ​create your own profitable digital product business in the quickest way possible!

Yes, You Need a Niche 

If you want to make sales on Etsy, you need to think about your buyer’s experience. 

Let’s imagine that your printable coloring book page pops up in their search (woo!). The buyer loves it and adds it to their cart. Then they click on your shop to see what else you might have for them. 

But instead of more coloring pages or kid’s activities, they see a branding template for realtors, a weight loss journal, and wedding invitations. Confusing, right?

They might purchase that one coloring book page, or they might find another shop that is all about coloring pages and kid activities where they can buy 10 different products that look amazing all in the same place. 

When you choose a niche for your shop, good things happen:

• Buyers are better able to find you due to SEO. 

• Buyers are likely to purchase more than one product from you because you have multiple products that they’re looking for. 

• Buyers perceive a higher quality in your products because you “specialize” in one area. 

See how that works?

Based on your market research, choose what kinds of products you want to create for your shop. 

Don’t worry! Once your first shop is well established and making money, you can open another shop and pursue another niche. 

On Point Name + Branding

Your shop needs a name and some eye-catching branding. This is step three after you’ve done your market research and chosen your niche because you want everything to make sense together. 

If you’re selling printable wedding stationery, your name and branding will be very different than if you’re selling resources for teachers to use in their classrooms, right?

You can start by thinking of the general “vibe” that you want your shop to have. Classy, modern, quirky, rustic, antique, bold, etc… The vibe you choose can inform your shop fonts, logo, and colors. 

For your shop name, try to keep it simple and easy to spell. There are a lot of Etsy shops out there, so you might have to get creative to find a name not already in use. 

Once you think you have a name picked out, it’s good to see if the domain and social media accounts are available for this name. This is not necessarily a deal breaker if they are taken. But it can help with marketing in the future if you can snag those too. 

Make a Profitable Product Plan

Alright, you’ve done your research, you know your niche, and you’ve got a memorable shop name and branding. 

Next up, let’s talk strategy! 

Before you start listing products, create a product plan. Your product plan is a list of products that you want to create in roughly the order that you want to create them. 

A product plan can help you sell more products or sell multiple products grouped together in a higher-priced bundle. 

You can start off by thinking of a bundle and then breaking it down. 

If your niche is bridal showers, you could sell a bundle that includes invitations, food labels, party game printables, and thank-you notes. 

To get started, you would create and list each of those products individually (making sure that they all match). Then once you have them all created, you can also list them together as a bundle.

If you were to create tons of random wedding-related products that all have different colors and styles, you would miss out on the opportunity to make more sales (maybe someone wants matching invitations and thank-you notes) and sell a higher-priced bundle of everything! 

Learn Etsy SEO

Lastly, it’s good to know some basic Etsy SEO before you open your Etsy shop. You can always go back later and tweak your keywords and descriptions, but it will help you gain sales earlier on if you know a bit before getting started. 

For people to be able to find your gorgeous creations, you need to have the right keywords in the right places. 

You’ll want to use keywords in your:

• Product Title

• Tags 

• Description

  
  

You can read more about how to write an Etsy description that sells HERE. 

One final bit of advice as you dive into selling on Etsy: Don’t overcomplicate it. 

Selling on Etsy is a continual learning process. You can always go back and make changes to your shop and listings later, so above all, take action. 

Learn what you can, then make decisions and start selling. You can do this!