← How to Sell Your Stuff on Etsy
How to Sell Your Stuff on Etsy
Ep 172 | Biggest Etsy Seller Beginner Mistakes
00:50:17
Today we’re going over the biggest mistakes new Etsy sellers make---- so you can avoid all of them! These are the problems I see the most often that hold owners back from the success they’re desperate for. **“How to Sell Your Stuff on Etsy” is...
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Lizzie Smiley
Hey, my name is Lizzie Smiley and I absolutely love helping people connect with their calling and all the tools they need to kick roadblocks and excuses right out the door so they can cultivate the life they dream about. If you want to launch, grow, pivot, or scale your Etsy shop, or you've always wanted to develop the mindset and skills to run your own business, then I'm your girl. I've had that entrepreneurial spirit going strong since my very first lemonade stand. And now I'm a work at home mama with multiple online companies and a full time Etsy shop, all while being present with my kids for the everyday chaos and most important milestones. On this podcast, we'll talk about all things business, mindset, Etsy, creativity, dazzling our customers, and so much more. There's plenty of room at this table for you, so scooch on in and let's go. I'm holding nothing back. Welcome to how to sell your stuff on Etsy. I'm so glad you're here. Hey, guys. Hello, friends. Welcome back to the podcast. This week you're getting me for a solo episode. It's a very last minute, impromptu discussion we're having today, but I actually think it's going to help a lot of folks. There are so many new sellers coming to Etsy, which makes me so happy, as you know, because the biggest lie on the block is that it is saturated. Are there things that are saturated? Yes. But if you stick around here long enough, you hang out with me, I will show you all the ways around it to the very plentiful open fields flowing with milk and honey that are not saturated. There's so many opportunities still, and I am seeing new sellers just pop off. So we're going to get into the biggest mistakes that Etsy beginners make that I see. I do. I've done a lot of coaching, I've done a lot of shop audits. I spend hours a day on Etsy doing research for just, you know, all kinds of different projects, including my own shops that I run. I'm so excited to just unveil this. You know, I put together this list and sometimes I feel like such a. What do they call it? A broken record. We just got. We just got back from our spring break trip, so we're gonna see how well my brain's plugged in. But the thing is, sometimes I think the way that these lessons are packaged makes a big difference. And also, I know there's a ton of new folks here today, so we're gonna dig into It a couple of quick reminders that I want you to know about. We have some live events coming up with me. Live meaning like live on Zoom. But you know, one day we need to do it live live, don't we? We need to like meet up somewhere. That would be so fun. But if you are interested in digital products and you're interested in selling coloring pages on Etsy, there is a massive demand for it right now. From toddler coloring pages to to grown ups to ADHD to Sweary. Hello, shout out to Sweary Carrie Designs, who's one of my favorite people who listens to the podcast. It's literally perfect for her. Although she sells physical products and then all the way to just to like for kids and for relaxing. The point is there are so many possibilities and so I am teaching an AI workshop on how because I am no designer. I don't know about you, but me sitting down to try to draw a coloring page, not going to happen. But I know how to use AI with some of the best of them and I'm going to show you all of my tips and tricks and literally the entire process for how you figure out what kind of coloring pages to create to how to create it in midjourney. Plus some other little surprises to how you structure that listing on Etsy, how you write the SEO. All of it will be unveiled. So join me Thursday, March 27th at 7:00pm Central Standard Time until at least 8:30 Central Standard Time. If you cannot be there, the recording will be available. The link to register is in the show notes along with a coupon code for you. So please join me if you're interested in that. Additionally, we have gathered quite a bit of interest for a beginner workshop. So actually if you're listening right now, this could be perfect for you. Today we're going to talk about all the things that you shouldn't do that are mistakes that people make. Ooh, I just thought of one I didn't write down. I'm going to write that down right real quick and oh, I can't believe. So you're going to get a bonus. I had 10 listed. We're going to do 11 if you're new. I'm going to do a beginner workshop. So I am going to just sit down with all of my beginners. People either who haven't started yet. They don't even know where to start. People are started but kind of hitting some snags and I'm just going to do a beginner workshop. Like here's you know how you can pick the product to sell. Here's how you, you know, what you need to know about setting up the shop. Here's like, the basics of some SEO and some listing structure and just the things that sometimes could maybe be a stumbling block. I don't know about you, but sometimes I can feel really overwhelmed, starting with something new. And if I can just watch a tutorial or sit down with someone who can talk me through it, it kind of lowers the volume on my anxiety about it and I can take those first steps. So that's what we're going to do together. Grab that workshop. It's just like right now, today is when it's being released for the first time. So early bird pricing is happening. Will not be for long. Grab that. If you're a beginner and you could use some help. We're also going to do Q and A and live shop audits on that call. Um, this one will not be sold after the fact, so you have to register. You can get a recording. But I'm not. After the date. We re. We have the event. It will not be available after that. So grab it now. What else do I need to tell you? Oh, I know what I wanted to tell you. For the coloring pages workshop, there is a video I'm going to link that I did on YouTube showing the opportunity. So if you're a little skeptical, like, well, or kind of not even skeptical, but just like, want to know more before, you know, registering for that workshop, I did a little YouTube video showing it. You know, it's, you know, it's got one of the YouTube title, like, can you really make money selling, you know, coloring pages on. On Etsy? But I'm going to kind of pull back some of the data and show you what new shops are doing and bringing in. I think that'll be helpful. Okay, that being said, we are going to jump right in to now 11, the 11 biggest Etsy beginner mistakes that I see all of the time and hopefully either help you to stop right now if you're doing them, or to prevent them if you're not there yet. And number one, we're going to start with the one I had to jot on the side. Some of you are going to be like, yeah, Lizzie, you talk about this all the time, but it's still the biggest mistake I always see, and that is breaking the law. So we're going to have. I'm not an attorney. This is not legal advice. I'm just going to tell you from my experience for educational Purposes that you don't want to sell something on Etsy that you don't have the legal right to sell. A lot of times when you go and you look at even the best sellers on Etsy, you will see lots of shops making money selling like, I don't know, Taylor Swift themed, like slumber party invitations. Or you will see Disney T shirts for the family cruise. And it's these, these are selling really well. And it seems like, oh my gosh, cool. No big deal. That makes total sense. People are. These are going to fly off the shelves. Well, the problem is, is that you see them on Etsy in your little search and you see that they're doing well. What you don't see is when these people get smacked with a lawsuit and, or even like, I guess more common but less scary, their shop gets shut down, they lose the listing that you can get into some big, big trouble. So there's something called intellectual property. Attorney Paige Hulse, who comes on the podcast regularly, talks about this much better than me. So go back and look at some of her episodes if you're interested in that. In fact, I will link. We have a legal episode playlist that I. That I have now made legal episode that I will link. So you guys can just see all the episodes that she's been on talking about this stuff and others. Everything you need to do to protect yourself, which is very important. So if, if. Here's kind of my rule of thumb. If someone would buy it from you because they would recognize it from someone else, they would recognize the name, the song lyrics, the book title, the character, the, you know, the quote, the, the picture. Like a smiley face, for example, is a, is a trademark thing. If you are going to make money on it because people recognize it, then it's. It's not okay to sell. It's under someone else's intellectual property coverage. And that is. So we just don't hear about it. Sometimes we do that these, these Etsy shops get sued. A really big common one that's like. Because obviously we know about Taylor Swift, we know about Disney, although I still see them all the time. And I'll see various cartoons show up that people will put on T shirts or stickers or whatever and they sell. Really a really common one is like song lyrics like for, for example, the, the ones that have happened recently have been country western song lyrics that like people are putting on a Tumblr or on a T shirt with like, because the western kind of trend is still pretty hot and they end up getting in so much trouble with that artist, the legal team comes after them. And the reason that people get away with it for a while is that these, these people are having their legal teams sweep the Internet periodically. It just depends on their cadence. It could be annually, it could be quarterly, it could be monthly. It just depends on their legal team. And that is when they are sending out. At the very minimum, cease and desist, if not actually serving, serving lawsuits. Also, you can. So let's say you get away. You're like, well, it'd be worth it. I could get away with it. I could make thousands of dollars. These kind of lawsuits are retroactive a lot of times. So what they do is they take. They take what you made, plus, so it still hurts you from before as well. So just don't do it. Number one biggest mistake is using someone else's intellect, property to make money. Looks like you can get away with it. You really can't. And. Or I will add this one caveat. You can sometimes buy a license to do so. So sometimes you'll see an Etsy shop that's massive. It's been there for years and it's selling Disney stuff or something, or like sports teams is another big one that is not okay. But you can go and you can pay for a very, very expensive license to be able to then sell and use their name. Some of these bigger shops, they're not just on Etsy, they're in lots of other places as well. They have much, a much bigger presence online. They can afford that most of us cannot. I cannot. I definitely cannot. So that's number one. Moving right along. Don't do it. Just don't do it. Number moving right along is we're going to talk about demand. So one of the biggest mistakes I see that new sellers make is that they, they come to Etsy and it's. It's actually the sweetest thing. It was how I started as well, with, like, I have a product I make. Like, I made reclaimed wood signs and someone will be like, I, you know, make crochet purses or I make clay jewelry. And that's just a passion and that's what you love. And you're like. And people have said, why don't you sell it on Etsy? It was literally my story. People said, why don't you sell these on Etsy? And I was like, oh, cool. Yeah. So we're coming to the platform with something that we're already selling just because people have liked it before. I've, you know, been able to sell it at on a little craft fair or people locally have bought, that's fine. But there's this nuance to the Etsy platform where as opposed to, you know, seeing it on your Facebook page or walking by your booth at a craft fair, people are using the search bar on Etsy to find things. So if they are not actively searching for what you are making, there is no demand for it. And the best way to use Etsy, because they're taking a chunk, right? They're taking 6.5% of our profit. If we're going to use them, let's use them, let's leverage them. Let's use the traffic they can send. If you can create your own traffic, don't use Etsy. Start a Shopify site. You'll save lots of money. The beautiful thing is the marketplace, the people coming and searching and buying. So these newbies, they'll come in and they'll try to sell just kind of what they're excited about selling and they don't understand why it's not selling. And it's either that people aren't searching for it and it could get into which we'll talk about as a separate line item. They're SEO or, or basically the keywords that they're using on their listing are not. Are either too broad, like there's too much competition for them, they're too general, or, or there's no searches for them at all. It's usually, you know, there's two sides of the coin. So the, the what to do here is going to lead into number two, which. Or number three. Right? I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that the entire episode with these numbers because of my first one. So the next one is, is start with research. Too many sellers don't do their research first. They're just like, I'm just going to come sell this thing. Well, you need to find out what is selling. A very easy way to find out what is selling is to look and see if there are already multiple best selling listings for that. I have all kinds of YouTube videos where you can see how to find the best seller, how to filter by bestseller, because the Etsy platform doesn't have that filter directly, but there's a little workaround. You can see where the best sellers are if you're in my, if you join my trendspotting membership, there's a coupon for $20 off the first month in the show notes, I show you literally every single video how to, how to do these little hacks. Let me make sure I make sure I link that for you guys. So people don't start with, with research and they make emotional decisions rather than data led decisions. So make sure. Establish that something is in demand, that it's selling, establish that there are best sellers, establish that you have a way of making it your own without directly copying what's already best selling and or incorporating trends. So something that can really help. I always gave the example, if you've been here for a while, I'd always talk about trying to come onto Etsy as a new seller and sell a mama shirt and how hard that would be because there are already millions of mama shirts on Etsy. So how do you, how do you compete in that very, very busy niche? Because there's also a lot of demand, right? It's a great niche to be in. And so I would always joke, well you would go down the micro niche rabbit hole, which just means don't do a mama. Like how about a dachshund? Mama was an example I'd always use. Or like how could you get really, really narrow? Could you do like triplet boy mama? How could you get really narrow, still hit the mama niche, but, but niche down a little bit. Another way that you can do this, and this has recently worked for me, I have tested it now in my, in my PNG shop. I have like a. I sell a bunch of digital products that I make with AI that I turn into PNGs that I can then sell for people to put on their T shirts or their sublimation or whatever. So you can trend combine to make this work as well. So rather than going down the really tiny micro niche hole, you could incorporate for example like the coquette trend which is if you've probably seen it, if you've seen a bows all over the place, that is like the essence of the coquette trend. It started very girly pink bows, very like soft girl era. And now we're just seeing it like anything in a bow. You'll see black bows, green bows, pattern bows. You'll see, you know, like a, a bow that looks like a, has a basketball pattern in the background. Just everything bows. So now if you find a clever way to bring in like a mama shirt, but you bring in a really unique coquette angle to um, that can help you break into the niche which is otherwise super saturated. It's called trend combining your trend combining the mama niche with the coquette niche. And that is where the magic happens is trend combining. It's so much fun. I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole because we have more of these to go over. But so number three, just being too many sellers. Don't start with research making data led decisions. Let the platform and the audience and the shoppers tell you by what's already selling very well, what will what will perform well. This Etsy is not the place to be really, really creative because if no one is searching for it, you could have literally the best product on the entire platform and it will not sell because people are not searching for it in the search bar. And that's how to use Etsy. So data led decisions. Are you a print on demand or digital print product Etsy seller who's tight on time or still learning all of the Etsy secrets? I totally remember the days of having no idea what product to create next before I learned how to make those informed decisions so I can really identify with where you're at. I know how stressful and frustrating it can be to just create listing after listing and see little to no results. You wonder what you're doing wrong and just you just want someone to tell you what to create that's actually going to sell. Where are those opportunities? So let me give you a leg up with my weekly trends and opportunities report. You just join my membership and every Monday I'm going to send you an email with a list of exactly what is trending right now with a video tutorial showing you how I found those trends and how to apply them in your shop. We're taking guesswork and time extensive time off of your table. I'm also going to send you five print on demand and digital product opportunities that are growing in demand right now, helping new shops make sales and still have very low saturation in the marketplace. So your tight schedule, your newbie status doesn't have to hold you back anymore. I'm going to help you earn while you learn. You can grab my free demo to start and see an example of what the weekly trends and opportunities email looks like right from the show notes. See what you're going to get and I will see you on the inside soon. Number four, this is really, really common and it's a little hard of a pill to swallow but more often than not when people are just getting started and let me just say this is happening to me right now. I have a new physical product shop that I launched actually a couple months ago now six weeks, I can't tell something like that and I still don't have a sale because I'm not good enough yet. So Number four is the designs just aren't good enough yet. There's tweaks that need to be made, they need to be sharpened, that the seller needs to practice. So, you know, when you get really good at a job, like, let's think of like a barista, their first, probably even 30 days. I don't know what the, what the actual level would be. 30 days on the job, their drinks aren't going to be as good as the barista who's been doing it for a year. And I don't know why we come to Etsy and we think, I mean, I could hypothesize, right? We hear all kinds of inflated stories and I love to click on the huge success stories. They inspire the heck out of me. I'm not someone who's bothered by that. I'm someone who's like, ooh, if they can do it, so can I. I get excited, but it sometimes inflates our concept of the work that it takes or what you would need. We. When you come to Etsy and you're starting something new and you haven't like, let's say you're going to start a print on demand T shirt shop, but you've never designed T shirts before, you've never sold an E Commerce before. Why are we being so hard on ourselves, expecting we should be like making $100,000 the first year? We need to practice. The designs aren't good enough. I hate telling people that. But I also know that it's the most loving thing I can do because that's just what your big sister does. She tells you the truth in the most gentle, kind way and then she gives you the tools to fix it. So let me suggest, here's what I did. I did not come to this a good designer. AI helps me a lot. I highly recommend it. It's why I run AI workshops all the time to help you guys with this. But even still, like with my lettering on my signs and my first Etsy shop, I was not good at it at first. I wasn't good at picking fonts. So I suggest you practice. I took a few years of art school. I was going to be an interior designer. Didn't work out. But, um, in those first few years, a lot of what we did, especially in just. We had some, just general art classes. The instructor professor would give us a, a famous piece of art to basically recreate and we were learning different techniques that way. Now, now I just gave you a lecture about intellectual property violations. I'm not saying go recreate another bestseller and then go sell it. It's not yours to sell. But what about, like, I'm sure that barista is testing drinks that then the manager is testing. They're not just giving them to the customer, they're testing it. So. So practice. Practice making designs. Practice creating the best sellers. And we're going to talk. In fact, I think I'm gonna. I'm gonna. These numbers are gonna get so jumbled. I'm really sorry. Especially to all of you who are really type A and would have have this on lockdown. It's just not gonna be me today. The. The next thing that I want to talk about that is so important is that. That new sellers aren't doing is attention to detail. And this really, really, really connects in with. The designs aren't good enough yet because. And this is a lesson even I'm learning right now on a whole new level. Like, the fonts that you choose matter so much. And you think you're like, oh, I'm going to make my own version of this. You know, I just used the example of mama shirt, so I need another one. Coquette grid. No, we need to use a font example. So this western shirt, let's say. And. But I'm going to differentiate it by changing up the font. Well, obviously, I'm going to encourage you to differentiate yours, make yours different somehow. But you have to have an eye for the font. You have to train yourself to understand and pick the right font. For years, I kept picking the wrong fonts. And those details, those tiny details matter so much. The placement, the placement of your design. Like, for example, if you're selling digital designs or you're selling print on demand, the placement of your design on the mockup matters. Pay attention to the millimeter, how it's placed on there. Does it need to tilt a little bit to work with the. With the image? Is your. Is your arch. If you're arching text, is it the perfect degree for the rest of your design? I am, I am giving you perfectionist. I'm not giving you permission to sit and stew about something and never get listings up, but I am telling you detail matters. And so especially in the designs, when the designs aren't good enough, it's usually because they're not paying attention to details. And here's the thing. If you guys have. If you haven't heard one of the episodes with Brittany Lewis, be a wolf biz, I will. I'll make sure and link one of those. She is incredible and she's really good. She teaches Print on demand. Like really intense print on demand. There is no, there's nothing gentle about that approach and, but she's, she creates mega sellers in that space because what she does is she teaches you to become so obsessed with your customer and understand what they want so much better than they do so that when you sit down to design, you just create gold every single time almost. And she teaches you to build. I talk about this too. A, A, like a. What does she call it? A brain. I call, I think a brain cache. She. What does she call it? It doesn't matter. We'll use my brain cache where you are constant. This is why I spend so much time scrolling on Etsy. I'm not there shopping, I am building. Oh, she says mental archive. She says mental archive. I say brain cash. Build your brain cache like you're storing in your memory how things should look, what fonts are really on trend, what elements. Okay, like I should place. I have this design. I need to add a little more to it. So I need to place this little kind of. It would be like a mystical star. There are all these elements in canva in these different places like perfectly, perfectly around the design just to give it a little more of a pop. All of these little details add up to the emotional connection. When the customer sees the listing, they have to add it to cart because it is so on point. So attention to detail for shirt in the designs aren't good enough. It also extends to paying attention to the mock ups that you choose which is what we're going to talk about next or your actual photography. Paying attention to this is what I'm actually really bad at with my products. This is part of why I'm, I'm not making sales yet in my physical product shop. It's going to be such a great story for you guys eventually needing to pay attention to the. I don't even know that I'm not a good photographer, so I don't even know the like the composition of the photo, how things are laid out. Is it, you know, are there, are there weird things in the picture that are creating more questions than, than answers for the customer? Is it, is it perfectly positioned? Also paying attention to just your listings in general? You know, is the layout of your or in your photo gallery, do you have like, does your stuff look good? Do your, do your images, your, your graphics, do they look good? Are they cohesive? If they go through the graphics, do they all have a similar branding style to them? Do they have a font that is legible, that is on trend are you answering questions and paying attention to these details in your listing description? Is everything just a really big block of text or do you have it spaced out really nicely? That makes it easy for the customer to read Details, attention to details. So that is so massive. I'm learning more. You're going to hear me talking about this more and more. It's kind of my really big aha right now. And it's the difference between when we get a lot of listings up and we get lucky with a few versus we become a master. Like what Brittany teaches. Our mental archive is so strong and we become a mega seller because what we create so often is literally perfect. It's really, really interesting. It's going to be fun to teach once we understand this better. So the next one which is very closely associated is mockups. So or product pictures if you're new here or to this. A mock up is a blank picture. So let's say you tell to sell T shirts you don't have to go through print on demand. You don't have to go buy samples of all them and take pictures of them. You could, but especially while you're still trying to figure out how to get good, that would be very challenging. You can buy mock ups. I like to buy them on Etsy. In fact, I will link my two favorite mock up shops and the reason I'm going to do that is because you're listing your, your obviously your design needs to be great but your product picture, the setting of it, the lifestyle setting of it is a large part of whether or not that design converts. Not all the time. We've. Sometimes we see the most random stuff on Etsy selling and the picture is terrible but something about the design is so unique or like and I'm. I'm kind of back talking there, right? Because I said before don't be too unique. Sometimes things hit in such a way that it's like hitting a certain, certain cultural event. Like you'll like like things on this happens a lot where there's a TikTok trend that goes crazy and so people are like seeing that and getting excited about it or there's something about the design that's so random that for some reason it works. But there's got to be demand. Like there's no way around it. Your mock ups matter and I'm linking the ones that I like because they convert really well when I, when I use them I see more sales than if I just go by sometimes and there's no like I'm not like no shame on anybody at all. But when you go on Etsy and you just buy the cheapest mockups you can get because you've got to get something up, I think it would be better to get fewer like, don't worry about that. With a whole shop bundle with those super mediocre mock ups, spend the 20, 30 bucks on just a couple that are really good and then let your sales pay for the next round of mock ups. It would be better to do that than to get the whole shop thing. Now you can use those lower quality mockups inside your listing if you want. Like the first image is the most important, the thumbnail. You could use some lower quality ones inside there. I don't personally, but you could, it is a hack you could use. But when you're using like mockups that are AI and I, heck, I sell mockups that are AI, there is a time and place for everything. And you've got to remember not everyone who's buying mockups are buying them for Etsy. There's lots of different reasons they could need them. But for you, for my listeners selling print on demand or digital products on Etsy, I want you to get really good quality mockups because those pictures, your product pictures, your mockups matter so much for the conversion. And I just see people needing to get in quick and get in cheap and then they wonder why they're not making sales. And part of it is because we got in quick and we got in cheap. So I'll give you some suggestions there on that. They really, it really helps a lot moving in to. We're going to talk about SEO or search engine optimization for a second here. So what this is, is like so Etsy is a search engine. We've talked about this. People go to the search bar. They're not when they're perusing, it's because they've, they've gone down a specific rabbit hole from the front page of Etsy or they've typed something in the search bar and then they're going down the rabbit hole that way. Your keywords, the key on your listing in your titles, your descriptions and your tags need to match what people are typing into the search bar. And a lot of times a big beginner, you know, mistake. It's often that there's no strategy around this. If you have no idea about this, you'd be a really good candidate for I have a really low ticket course called Six Figure Secrets to getting started on Etsy and it would give you like the exact crash course you would need on all of this. Um, there's. That'll be in the description with a. What do you call it? A coupon code as well. Because some of you. I'm just sitting here thinking, like, some of you are like, we just did an SEO workshop. I'm not going to do another one for a long time. And you're going to need to learn this. So people come in with no strategy, and they just type something really simple in the title that describes. I did this in the beginning. I didn't fill the title. I didn't use all the character spaces. I just typed like reclaimed wood sign. And nobody saw it. Nobody saw. If you're. If nobody is seeing your listings, you're not getting views, you have an SEO problem. A lot of times people will use the wrong words to describe it. So, for example, in my case, and this actually really tags into the one we talked about earlier with Demand. So lots of people were buying wood signs. Once I figured out SEO, it was actually something that sent me through the roof in terms of sales. It's how I got to multiple six figures on Etsy. But, um, I was using the word reclaim wood because I thought that's what everyone wanted. Um, thank you, Joanna Gaines, who I freaking love. But the problem was is people weren't searching that they were searching would sign or they were searching the phrase that they wanted on the sign. So I was using. I had a great product by then. I had decent pictures. I wasn't using the right words that people were searching for. So it's either using the wrong words or only using words that are super, super saturated. They're called head keywords. So it would be like, again, like mama shirt. There's tons of searches for that, but it's like millions of competing listings. You've got, you know, in our example, before you would want. And. And at this point, this is, this is going to be too broad as well, but it's going to get you closer. Rather than just mama shirt, it would be like pink coquette mama shirt or we were talking about the basketball bow before basketball mama coquette or coquette bit. Better yet, coquette mama basketball shirt or coquette. Okay, actually, and, and don't. Here's, here's like a big lesson in this. And this is a big problem that people do with SEO. And this is what I did in the beginning with the reclaim wood. I'm just spitting out of my mouth what's coming to my mind. Oh, this would be what, what people would call it. No, no, no, no. If you want to do this right and you want to get results faster and you want to have a better sense of how strong your SEO is, you need it. You need a tool like Everbee. Ever Be is my favorite SEO tool. We didn't even have them when I first started. I had to guess on a lot and it was not good. And instead, actually we use the Etsy platform. We used to just study the best sellers and grab their titles to help concoct our SEO. That is much harder to do now. It's just a much more competitive space. You need a tool. Everbee is going to tell you exactly how many searches there are for a keyword phrase and how many competing listings that you're dealing with. And if you, if you take that six figure secrets course, I'll show you a strategy for how you want to set that up so that you're not using all supersaturated keywords. So people come in with no strategy and they're using either terms that are too broad or they're using the wrong words. They just, you know, or they're using whatever comes to mind. And that is a big mistake. And you will know you're making that mistake or an adjacent mistake if you're not getting views. That kind of helps you diagnose a little bit. Next one, which I guess, let's see, it was supposed to be, I think it's eight, but I don't know. I don't know. This is a really big one that took me a while to learn. And it's that people, new sellers, will put everything in the product description that they want the buyer to know. And the issue with that is that Most people, like 99% of people, don't read the descriptions because they're too cumbersome. Should you have a description? Yes. Should it answer customer questions? Yes. But more importantly, you want the most important information in your photo gallery. So those 20 pictures aren't just for you to have 20 different angles of your product or different color examples or whatever. It is for you to answer questions like if there's something about the way that you ship your product, you're going to want that in there. If it's a digital download, you're going to want a graphic in there that says this is a digital download. Nothing's going to be shipped to you. You're going to want something showing the dimensions, you're going to want something showing the different color choices, like a legend. Anything that you would put in the description, that would be detail. You're going to want to put in image format in your photo gallery. And the issue is there are so many choices on Etsy, there are so many sellers, so many listings. You're going to do fine. I'm still maintaining it's not too saturated. But if they can't quickly and easily find the answer to their question about what they want to buy in your photo gallery, they're not going to DM you most of the time. You're really lucky when they do. They're gonna just scroll to the next listing and find one where they can get their answer quick and easy. Think about how we are today, guys. We want everything fast and easy. We don't want to look. I. I was at Burger King today because my toddler was super hungry and we were 30 minutes from home. And they had the kids menu on a flashing screen that like, went from one screen to the next instead of keeping it static. I was like, cussing at myself because I was so annoyed that it didn't stop. Stay up long enough for me to really read it. We have no attention span. Make sure your customers can get. Your shoppers can get their questions answered in the photo gallery. That's like such a huge pro tip. It's a bit of a pain. I'm working on ways to make this easier for you guys, like templates and things that I can offer to simplify some of this. It'll also help with the. The attention to detail part, but you're still going to have to do that for your designs. Although I'm actually working on design templates as well, which, with suggested fonts and everything like that, it's going to be really fun. I'm having a lot of fun with it. It's going to be good. Okay, next customer service. Don't roll your eyes at me. Don't look at me in that tone of voice. Because there is skepticism on the Internet because people hear horror stories. We have to bend over backwards to help a shopper connect with us as humans. And one of the only ways we have that is that we can do that is through, like, yes, how we set up our listings. But our tone of voice in your welcome message, in your listing descriptions, which five people will read in your. Even on your. On your graph. Like, sometimes this makes me cringe. Sometimes I'll be like, looking through someone's graphics and they, they want to make the point there's no refunds, and they want to make that very clear. And so it'll be like all caps, shouting at the shopper. Absolutely no refunds and I'm like, I'm like I that's. That does not convey you're looking out for me as the customer. You really care about this transaction. You're going to make sure I have a great experience that says to me this person's looking out for themself. Okay if it's non refundable but the way that you just said that to me makes me uneasy. In this transaction we can gentle that down a whole. We can use chatgpt. Anything you need to gentle down. Type it your your way, really direct and then say chatgpt. Make this sound a lot nicer. This is something I really, I actually like to use my brain for this part. But you know, just to say, you know, due to the digital nature of this product, no refunds will be given as opposed to absolutely no refunds in all caps. We can just say it a little gentler and still get across the same concept. So pay it. Be customer centric. Pay attention to your tone when people are dming you. This is not the time to do like how you text your sister without any attention to like tone or grammar or spelling. This is the time to be professional. Also this, the other big thing is like defensiveness. So if you've been here for any amount of time, you've heard me kind of talk about the general Etsy Facebook groups and how it's. They're pretty nasty. The people are nasty to each other. They're nasty and negative about Etsy. It's only kind of the bad news and I think there's a time and place for that. Like, I like to keep it real. I don't, you know, try to just, you know, I don't lie my way through things. But I, I am an optimist. I'm a positive person. I see Etsy as a gift. It has changed my life. I'm not going to sit here and dog on it, am I? Are there are the things I'm not happy about. Sure. Really not happy about the lack of customer service that we get. That's something that really bothers me. I feel like they should be accessible, especially if they expect us to be. I have my things but I don't talk about it. I keep it positive. Why? Because it helps you and me both stay in a better brain space. A mindset to do better. Do you know like, like attracts like. If you think about it this way, because you, some of you aren't going to want to go woo woo with me. We'll do that next week with Jenny. If someone's around you. Actually, I was that kid. So in my family, I was a really grumpy teenager. I think I just had like really strong hormones. I don't know what it was, but I was the person who ruined everything for the family because can you imagine me being grumpy? I'm now like the most, what? Cheerful, happy person. Let's hope menopause doesn't turn that around down the road. But, but I was the one who could ruin a dinner, a family trip, an outing or whatever by just being grouchy. Think about when you go around someone else's energy, it affects you. So if you're choosing to be in like these, in these Facebook groups or in these groups and you don't really have your kind of guard up, it's gonna, it's gonna negatively affect your mindset. It's gonna bring you down. It's gonna take some of your capacity for being positive and successful on Etsy. So pay attention to your tone and your defensiveness when you talk to the customer. You're gonna have things happen. I just had. And it's so funny because just like a week or two ago, I did this carousel over on Instagram. I'm at how to sell your stuff, if you're not following. It's really fun over there. And that's where I open up shop. Audits. Whenever I do have availability for them because they fill up so fast. I did this post about how I turn around. Like, I think, I think, I don't know. I did the math. Like over 80 of my bad reviews. And I really do. When I get a bad review on Etsy or someone's not happy, I am like, so good at turning it around. But that's been a gift of mine for a long time. Everyone knows, like, if you go out to dinner with me and you've got a grumpy server, it won't be for long. I'll turn them around. But I just had one. I just got a one star review that I, I have not been able to do anything with. And it was so awful too, because it was literally about. They couldn't access their digital download. And I'm like, that is not even my fault. But when I, I ended up. And if you go see the actual. I'll better link that. I'll link the, the review carousel so you can see. Because I actually gave scripts for how to handle these things that help me turn them around. Link, review script. A lot of times when you see people, oh, I tell you, don't Just respond to a bad review. You want to try to turn it around first because once you reply publicly to their review, it gets locked in. You can't do anything about it. So you want to try to resolve it with them first. And I've got scripts on that carousel, but I'll see people respond to a bad review and they are so defensive. And I understand it's frustrating. I understand there's people out there that take advantage of us. I understand that it's like the skepticism can go both ways. But just like in a situation with a parent and a child, when I expect the parent to be the bigger person, I expect the parent to suck it up. I expect the parent to work on themselves. It's not the child's responsibility to make sure things go the way that they should. In a seller customer relationship. I'm sorry, you're the seller. You're the business owner. If you went to a hotel and were spoken to the way a lot of Etsy sellers will speak to people in their reviews, you would be like calling Better Business Bureau. We don't do that. So, so like big sister, love to you be really careful about not being defensive. There's a way to like have your own back, have boundaries, be, you know, be professional and handle that, but pay attention to. So like, for this bad review that I got, none of this was my fault. I even tried. I just. So I could test it and talk to you guys about it too. I tried to get Etsy to remove it and they wouldn't. Even though it says that the only time that they remove bad reviews is when it's has is absolutely not the seller's fault. Like it has something to do with Etsy or some other third party that they couldn't have controlled. And I'm sitting over here like, guys, this is because you, because of your. This isn't because of me. The files are there. You're the one who gave it to her. But anyway, I couldn't go into all that with the review. So I. All I just said was like, dear such and such, I'm so sorry you're having trouble accessing those files. That must be extremely frustrating. And I want to make it right for you. This is where people get mad at me. They say it's not your job to make it right. It is. Yes, I'm the parent, I'm the seller, it is my job. But that's just me getting a little spicy. And I just said this is a digital product. So Etsy actually delivered them straight to you. Via email and on your profile at the time of purchase to help you out. I've also sent them to you via or I didn't say to help you out because that's actually a little tiny bit condescending. I just said I have reached out to you via messages and via email with direct links to help you get these right away. Please let me know if there's anything else I can do to serve you. And the reason I did that is so that the next customer shopping is going to look and see that review and rather than be like, oh, I probably shouldn't buy this because this, A, I won't be able to get my file and B, this, this seller is not going to help me. They can see by my reply that not only will they be able to get their files for sure and but I will also bend over backwards to help and I will be super nice about it. So I'm writing it for them, so pay attention to that. I see a lot of defensiveness and dming like screenshots when we see in the Facebook. By the way, I have a Facebook group that's lovely that you're welcome to join. It's totally free and I have really strict rules about how people can interact, especially with each other, but also to keep it positive. So if you want a happy place, that would be it. Lots of help going on over there. So we're wrapping it up here. We're on number 10 and that is. This is a huge mistake. I hope you're still listening. If you are, I don't know why I'm saying that, because you are. But it is so common that people are ready to give up and they don't have enough listings up. If you are brand new to this, you are not like a professional. You know, like if, if you've been making your product for 20 years and selling it somewhere, then this shouldn't be an issue. Like you're, you wouldn't have to. It wouldn't be as important. If you've been a graphic designer forever and you just got a few kinks to fill out and figure out for Etsy, fine. But if you are new to this, you got to get a lot of listings up. You got to practice a lot. And that's not what I'm saying to the person who's ready to be a mega seller. That's what I'm saying to the person who's new, who's thinking, I want to make five to $10,000 a month selling T shirts. And I'm like, You can? Heck, yeah. But you're going to have to make really good designs and you're probably going to need to shoot for like first numbers around 2000 listings, because that way if you're, if you've got 2000 up and 10% of them convert, which is a kind of a standard, ish type of a conversion, it's actually kind of high. But whatever easy numbers, that's, that's having 200 of the 2,000 that people actually buy. And if each one of those was bringing you in $100 a month, so kind of average sales, it's not like a crazy bestseller where it's selling thousands. Just bring in a hundred dollars a month, you'd make 20,000amonth. So you've got to keep getting the listings up. You've got to have the right mindset about, about having enough things to test if you're brand new at this. I make designs all the time that don't sell in every single shop. Even when I was really good, I got better at it in my sign shop. But I remember before I shut my sign shop down, I started trying to sell handmade shelves, wood shelves. I never could crack that in print on demand. Like, full disclosure, I never could crack blankets in print on demand. I didn't really try very long. But sometimes you have to keep testing, testing. It's part art, part science. Testing, tweaking, making adjustments. Give yourself enough time. By the time you've made even a hundred listings, like, let's say, print on demand, you're going to be a heck of a better designer. And that's something I say all the time on my shop audits. I'll go back to their first page of designs, and even their most recent ones aren't going to convert. They're not quite there yet. But I can tell that person, you've come a long way. What is it going to look like when you've created another hundred again? Those first, you know, 50 drinks by the barista aren't going to be as good as after they've been doing it for a year. So give yourself. Let's be reasonable. If you're not coming to this with the skills, let's be reasonable. Let's go to school first. Not literally. Just practice. People don't have enough listings. And number 11 is a mindset issue and that's that people give up too soon. So a lot of folks, a lot of new Etsy sellers. In my new shop, I've only got 20 listings up over there, but it's a Physical product. You don't need 2,000 listings for a physical handmade product. That's usually like for my sign shop, I think at the peak I had 175. But they're higher ticket so that's going to be part of it too. How much money do you want to make? It's just a math equation. But the mindset of just like this isn't working. This doesn't work. I can't do it. Well no, you pivot, you try. So my first signs didn't work. Took me six months to get it to a, to a full time income. First few months I was making maybe 25amonth. I'd sell a random one here or there. Then I figured it out, actually ended up taking this guy's course. And the biggest thing for me was that, that SEO. I'd already figured out the pictures but learning that SEO piece. Oh, and I just took off from there. It went from 25amonth to 6000 plus a month. Biggest month I think was between 13 and 14k in physical product signs. So don't give up so soon. Keep working at it. Listen, a lot of people overestimate what they can do in like a month or even six months. They overestimate. They, they're like, okay, I'm going to build this to 10,000amonth in the next six months. P.S. you can. Some people do, but the majority of people, no, they overestimate what they can do in the short term, but they underestimate what they could do in the long term. You underestimate what you could do in a year. So like what if the first few months are hard? Can you have the staying power? What is your. Why can you have the staying power? The discipline to make yourself to say everything is figureoutable. I will figure this out. That's some powerful energy right there. Rather than. I'm never gonna figure this out. No, no, no, you're better than that. You're gonna keep going because if not this, then what? If not now, then when? Unfortunately, there's no one's coming to save you except me. I'm here for you, but I can't save you. I can just walk with you. So we're gonna do some major mindset stuff next week with Miss Jenny from the shop. One of my favorites. We just, it's like a little slumber party every time we together on here. So it's going to be great. But a lot of new sellers need to work on their mindset. Expectations need to be reasonable and you need to Be working on yourself. You need to be working on your skill. And yeah, this is so doable. So doable. I. There's stories and here's the other thing I want to tell you. It's not rare. Do you know? It's rare. You're rare. The person who will try at all. Only 2% of the population will take this risk of even trying an Etsy shop. You are already one of the rare ones. A lot of people have success if they stay long enough and they work long enough and they discipline themselves and they push through. Yeah, this was fun. I didn't know how long it was gonna be. I kind of thought it was gonna be a short one. But every time I say that, it still goes 45 minutes. So I hope you have learned a ton. I hope you have some new ideas. Hopefully this topic brought in some new folks. So please know if you're here and you're new, I'm so excited. Like, the way I cherish that you are here. The way I hope you will go back and binge and listen to more. The way I hope you'll go over to YouTube for the tutorials. Come back next week, join. There's so much room at this table for you. Like, if there is anything about who I am or this brand, it is that I believe everyone deserves a shot at this. And there is enough room for everyone and anyone willing to put in the work long enough. And it's gonna be. I can't give you a flat. Here's how long it's gonna take. I don't know you. I don't know what skills you're coming with. I don't know what blocks you're coming with. I don't know what issues you're bringing to the table. I don't know what gifts you have. So I can't estimate it for you without more data. But if you will hold yourself here long enough together, we will do this. So anyway, I hope that was so fun for you. Do you guys like my new mic? I think this might be the first episode you're hearing it on. Maybe, maybe not. I got a better mic. I felt like I sounded bad before, so. I love you all to pieces. I love spending this time with you. I will see you on the Instagram at how to sell your stuff on YouTube and how to sell your stuff. And next week, right here with little Miss Disney, Princess Jenny from the shop, talking about mindset. Until next week, go make something awesome. I love you guys. Bye. Bye. And that's a wrap on this episode of how to sell your stuff on Etsy. Thanks so much for hanging out with me today. If you're looking for more resources, head on over to howtosellyourstuff.com where you'll find podcast show notes, all the links from today's episode, the blog courses, coaching, and more. If this episode was helpful to you, awesome. The greatest compliment I can receive from you is a rate, review and subscribe on this podcast. Not only will it allow us to connect again on a future episode, it lets me know I'm providing you with value and helps other people find this content more easily. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your support. Have a great day and see you next time.