← How to Sell Your Stuff on Etsy
How to Sell Your Stuff on Etsy
Ep 194 | Answering Your Etsy FAQs
01:00:53
It’s time for another Etsy FAQ episode! We’re covering everything from how to start building your email list, the Etsy algorithm, when it’s best to open a new shop vs repurposing the same one, listing video tips --- and so much more! **“How to...
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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. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm actually really happy to be with you and I hope my mind is going to be sharp. I'm praying for my mind to be sharp. Literally. It has been a whirlwind of a couple of weeks. My husband had to go on a business trip, like, super, super last minute for a new job. And I, I don't know about you, but when that happens, my life crumbles because of the toddler. We hand him back and forth all the time and so he had to take a business trip and it turned out fine. But like, can I just send a really big hug to all of the single parents out there? Because I don't know how you do it. I know you weren't really given a choice, but I don't know how you do it. And you're my heroes and I, I really, really, really stink at it. So that was rough. But then just, you know, to make things more interesting, he brought Covid back with him and we didn't know for a few days. The whole family got slammed with it and we spent like the whole, like last week before my daughter went back to school all just sick. And by the way, like, this is a great thing. I'm so glad that my children don't have bad, bad experiences when they get sick. Like, my kids felt normal, but that meant that I had a very normal toddler boy while not feeling normal. It's been a lot. So I'm getting my brain back. We're getting back to Getting the steps in, feeling good. But I've been so excited to record this FAQ episode. I was gonna do it like in advance and then I had no voice and I couldn't talk and I had no energy. So here we are and we are going to crank through this. I'm really excited. You guys submitted the most amazing questions. So like let's, let's do this thing. And the one announcement for this week that I want to let you know is that my coaching group is currently discounted for a few days. It's usually $247 to get in. It's a one time fee for lifetime access. Right now it's 147, 147 for just a few days. You pay once and you get lifetime access. And what this is, is this is how you can access me for one on one coaching. So within this group I have a group of coaches with all different expertise. They sell different things but Etsy sellers and together we make sure that questions are answered every day. I do a monthly coaching call live where we do shop audits, we do challenges in the group. We just finished a listings challenge that really helped people get more sales in their shop over the slow months and we just support each other. Like that's where I'm just peeling it back and we're, we're chatting about the things and you can ask me questions and myself or one of the coaches, whoever's most, you know, qualified will get answers to you. But I wanted to let you know because some of you are looking for one on one help. Some of you are feeling really alone in your Etsy journey and no one around you even maybe knows what you're doing or you're feeling isolated and you're not getting the results yet. Well, this is how if you want to get around other Etsy sellers who, who are making money, some part time, some full time, all different. Like we have all different types of shops, print on demand, handmade shops, digital shops, AI digital, actual artists. We've got all different people in there on different levels. I'm going to tell you what, every single time I've wanted to level up in my, especially in entrepreneurship, I get around people who have what I want and I start learning from them. And so we've created a community situation here. It's not just like Lizzie and the experts up in the clouds. We literally hang together and there is no gatekeeping. And so I'm going to read you a couple of things that my members had to say. Nikki said she this is so sweet. She goes, this wasn't even supposed to be like a kudos for the group, but it ended up being so beautiful. She said, I just want to let you know that's the subject line. I've been in this community for a little under a month and I just want to say how much I love it here. I've had my Etsy shop open officially since May, but sadly I've had absolutely zero sales. To say it's frustrating and soul crushing is an understatement and my self confidence has taken a hit. I research, I design, I list and then nothing. However, with the support that I see given every single day to each other in this group, it gives me motivation and confidence to not give up. I've been trying really hard to consistently keep adding and building my shop since joining the challenge. This month has really helped. This community is not like any other group. It feels like a family. It is something truly beautiful and I'm honored to be a part of it. I know one day something will click and all of my hard work will pay off and I can't wait to share it with all of you. I just want to say thank you and let you know how truly, truly special and amazing you are. And I want to let you know that since she sent that in, she actually has gotten I know of at least one sale and her designs are getting so, so good. So I'm really excited for her. And then Rebecca Miller, you guys heard on the podcast a while back, she said if you're waiting for a sign to join this group, here it is. This is one of a kind group where no question is too basic and expert advice is flowing like a waterfall. Yes, exactly. Need encouragement. We got. You need a fresh set of eyes to look at your design that you've been staring at for five hours. Send it over. Can't prompt the perfect grandma cat. Grandma holding a cat while drinking her coffee. Wall art picture. Let's look at the prompt together and figure it out. This is a group for beginners as well as seasoned sellers where everyone has room to grow and scale. Come join in on the fun. We'd love to see you there. Okay, I've got more. I won't keep reading them to you, but like there you can go look at the. At the page where you can sign up and it'll tell you. It'll show you the other things that people are saying. I think the most common question I get is, is this for me? And so I'm going to tell you that if you are like Nikki and you haven't gotten any sales yet and you're still trying to figure out the design piece and all of it. Yes, it's for you. If you are, you've gotten several sales, maybe even a couple hundred, but you're still trying to figure out how to like really crank this thing. Yes, it's for you. I would say like it's. So if someone's a full time Etsy seller already, it's probably not for them. They need to come in as an expert. Like those people who are doing that with me are experts and they're labeled as such in the group. So if you're anywhere from like brand new, don't have any sales yet to I have a couple hundred sales but I'm still trying to figure it out. You are not too far behind. Like the people who are ahead of you are the ones coaching you and those are the people you want to get around. So I hope that some of you like this is perfect timing. We're Q3 headed towards Q4. It's the biggest time of year. This is the time to make sure you're getting around community, um, and, and getting the resources you need to level up your skills. Like hopefully over the summer you did some things to grow your shop and now we're going into high gear. So some of you jump in while the, while the door, the price is a little bit lower. And we're going to jump into our questions today. Okay, the first one is what's the best way to start and build an email list in Etsy? Okay. So I'm so glad you're asking this because Etsy sellers need to build an email list. It's the only way for you to own your customers, otherwise they're Etsy's customers. It's the way for you to be able God forbid something were to happen to your shop. You have a way to contact people and still have some kind of a customer base. Email is still one of the most powerful marketing tools on the planet. So the easiest way and the most compliant way to build an email list with Etsy would be to use an integration like Ever be email which there's some great videos on YouTube you can look up to see how that that works. But basically it allows you to compliantly get your get customers to opt into your email list and then set up a funnel to where you've got pre written emails that it will automatically send to them as they join. And then of course you can send them one off emails as well. So that's one of the most easy ways to integrate, especially if you're already using everbee. The other way that you can do it is you can use a free tool like. Oh, what is it called? The mailchimp is what I was trying to think of it. They, the last time I checked, you could have up to 500 people on your list and be on their free plan. So it's, you would, you would go to mailchimp.com and you would set up a, an account with them and you would build a list. And what you can do then is then you can put like a QR code in your. This is how I like to put a QR code within your photos of your listings, inviting people to join your email list for, you know, a 20% off coupon or whatever percentage you want to do. You can offer other kinds of freebies, but typically when you're trying to convert somebody to an email list and they're in that situation where they want to buy your product, offering a discount is one of the best ways to do it. And so then they can just snap the QR code, get added to the list. You will have set up with mailchimp that it will automatically send them an email with the coupon code and then they could apply it to the Etsy, their Etsy purchase and, and get, and get on the list that way. So they'll get something they want, which is a discount for your product. You'll get them on your list and then you'll need to regularly add like, you know, send emails out at, I would say no less than twice a month or people then forget about you and then they mark you as spam more than likely. So that's the. Those are the two best tools that I know of that I've used to build email email lists from your Etsy shop. What you don't want to do is add the customer's emails without them choosing to. So that's why I say like make it be more passive. You can put something in your packages or your, you know, digital downloads inviting them to join for a future discount. That's fine too. But I like it in the photo gallery to try to get people up front. But you don't want to be like DMing them and asking them if they want to join your list. You don't want to be automatically adding their emails from their order to your list. Those kinds of things can get you into hot water. Question number two is, does having a video, a listing video actually help your listing? And the Answer is yes. Etsy specifically says that they give higher ranking in the search results to listings that have videos. That being said, I have sold tons of things without videos. I think that it's the most important in a physical product shop when you're making something handmade, being able to like see the dimensions, see it from different angles. The video I think is really helpful. Um, I think also if someone is looking at listings on a computer instead of on the app, the listing video is more likely to kind of stop them. It kind of catches their attention because you literally hover over the listing and the video starts playing. And then also I just think that it can help you look a little more professional. Now if you're selling a print on demand item or you're selling a digital download, an easy way to create a listing video is just to do a slideshow of the mockups that you've put the, put the, you know, the design on. You can also. Now there are, you can buy listing video templates off of Etsy for these different products as well. So I will tell you if it's going to really overwhelm you or it's going to really slow you down. You don't sweat it. You don't have to have a listing video. I've, I've made tons and tons of money without them. I would really encourage, if you are selling something handmade though, make sure you've got a video. That's the most important. Number three says, what is the best way to set up an Etsy shop? If there are two of you and you live in different countries. Okay, I would actually caution against that because honestly I wouldn't let somebody log into my email or log into my Etsy shop. Let somebody else from, from anywhere. I understand you might be doing things as a partnership. I think one person should be the person who logs into the shop and does the things with the shop and the other person should maybe just me shipping out product or designing or something else. They shouldn't be touching the shop because the 2 IP address could get you into trouble. And like especially if they're in a banned country or if their IP address gets in trouble. So like, let me give you an example. Sometimes people will hire a virtual assistant to help with their Etsy shop and, or they'll hire somebody overseas who says they'll go in and fix your SEO and get you sales or whatever. Well, the issue is, is that if that person, let's say they're doing that for a living and they're logging to all These different Etsy shops as part of their job and one of those shops that they log into, someone that they help gets suspended. Every other shop that that IP address has touched gets suspended as well. So I would never let somebody else work on your Etsy shop. There are third party tools like Evelysta and things like that where a VA could be doing some uploads for you and it won't, it wouldn't cause the same problem because they're not logging into your shop directly there. And I don't even know for sure. I am not that tech smart where I am for sure for sure if they're using a third party app that it's not still sending through the IP address. I personally wouldn't have somebody in another country touching my Etsy shop. I've had a VA help create stuff. So like if I create a, I create a digital product, I'll have them mock it up for me or create a template with it for me or create the listing images and then I personally go into the shop. So I, I would especially caution against having two of you work on it from two different countries. And I hope that helps cleared up and just anybody, everybody listening, don't have other people logging into your shop. It's just asking for trouble. Number four, I have an embroidery shop with low sales and have started laser engraving. Do I add that on to the same shop or start a new one? Thank you. I think you can add that into the same shop. I think that we overthink the whole like, oh, can I do this in the same shop? Way more than we need to. I mean there's definitely a time and place. If everything that you're selling right now is for pet parents and you're like, you know what, I'm just going to try some, I'm going to dabble in digital design for the nurse niche. Well then those two things don't make any sense together and it's going to confuse the algorithm. But if you're just playing generally with, you know, PNG files and you're like, I kind of want to test some print on demand. I don't there's any problem with trying it in the same shop. What's going to happen over time? What I encourage you to do, figure out what your thing is that you're really good. It's going to take a while, it's going to take some testing to do that. And that's what I'm saying, just put it all in the same shop, find out what goes really well. But then don't keep it hodgepodge forever. Once you figure out, okay, these PNGs for, for teachers are what I am really good at and this is what I'm going to do. I've got, I've got this figured out, then you kind of go deactivate the other stuff and clear it up and make it a shop for that. But I think in the beginning you can test a whole bunch of different things and you don't need to sweat whether or not you go into another, into a separate shop. And P.S. in this case, because you're doing all handmade, I think all of that can go in the same shop indefinitely. Again, unless you started out with, let's say you were doing all embroidery for dog parents or pet parents and then you're going to laser engrave for, you know, hunters. Those things probably don't make sense in the same shop together because they're just two completely random things. But if you're like, ah, I got a bunch of, you know, embroidery things and a bunch of laser engraving things. Yeah, those can go together. Number five says, would you recommend adding designs to redbubble in addition to Etsy? Not really. Redbubble is a website where you can upload your designs and they have all of the products there. So it's kind of print on demand esque. But then the customer orders from redbubble, redbubble makes and ships the product and you just make a small commission for providing the artwork. I personally have a Redbubble shop. I probably make $5 from it a month. I don't. If you are already maximizing your Etsy shop, it's already doing great and you're just like, I'm gonna, my designs do really well. Let me add another stream of income then. By all means, if you think they would do great on, then it would. I'm not saying don't do redbubble, but I think what happens a lot of times is we get shiny object syndrome and we're like, well, Etsy's actually not doing what I wanted to do yet, so how can I diversify? And I think that just leads to burnout. I personally almost never can find time to go add to redbubble. And the, the ROI is so minuscule. So I, it wouldn't be something I would do. I would focus on adding more listings to your Etsy shop. Really, you know, maximizing your skills, really becoming one of the best at what you do. Adding additional listings to give people more chances to buy from you. Build an email list that kind of Thing that's what I would focus on next is if I have three different bookmarks in a listing and two of them sell, should I make a new listing for the one that's left or add it to another listing or leave it alone? Okay, if I have three different bookmarks, see, I'm good. I'm assuming you're sell, you're selling. Okay, you're selling bookmarks. So I know a lot of times people do this different ways. Some, some people would be selling all the bookmarks as a bundle or they have a listing for bookmarks and then the customer chooses from the drop down menus which one that they want. I, I think if one, so I, I mean, let me simplify this. If one of them doesn't sell, I would, I wouldn't do anything, I wouldn't add it, I wouldn't create a new listing for it. You can leave it there if you want to. It's not hurting anything. Sometimes giving them choices, showing them something that they don't like will make them really decide what they do like. So. But I wouldn't, if it's not selling, I wouldn't be creating additional listings for it. Hopefully that helps like the bottom line of what you needed. My other question is should we, should we be showing the items sold or not? Which is better? So what they're talking about here is there's a setting in your shop where you can specify on or off whether or not you want Etsy to show the things you've already sold. So if someone were to go to your shop storefront and click on the number at the top that says, you know, 102 sales or whatever it is, if they click on that, it'll go to another page and it'll, if you have the toggle thing on, it'll show them everything that you've sold before. If you have it toggled off, it won't show anything. And there is no right or wrong to that. It is personal preference. You know, in the sign shop, for example, there were things that I didn't want to sell anymore. You know, I, I found that there was a certain type of sign that was really, really difficult to make and had a high margin for error. And I didn't like making them. So I didn't really want people to see, to go back into my sold items and see that because it was something that was in high demand. So, so in that case it was better for me to turn them off. But otherwise I don't think that there's a, that's actually a really good question. I don't think that there's a better or worse way. It's up to you. I would like to know 1. How to set up a seller account, how to list your product. Do I still need a payment processor or does Etsy and TPT handle payments and forward the money to me? Okay, so actually if you go to my website, I have a click by click video showing you guys. Let me make a note here showing you guys how to set up your shop. It's, it's pretty, it's pretty simple. Like once you click open a seller account, Etsy walks you through it step by step. It's pretty simple and by the time your shop is opened, they actually require you to list your first product. So they even take you through all of the steps of listing the product. So you're, if you, if you bite the bullet and take that one, I know, very scary step, you're actually going to come out on the other side feeling so much better because you're going to know the answers to all of your questions. It's gonna, it'll, it will be, it will. Going through the process will make you feel much more comfortable. Etsy provides the payment processor so you don't need to worry about that. And then you connect your bank account and they will send the money to you. She said, if they collect payments, do I give them a bank account? Yes, you give them bank account. Should I still have a website to try to collect email addresses or just forget that part and just sell? Yes. In the beginning I recommend that you don't bother with also trying to create your own website because Etsy is going to allow you to the marketplace itself. If you're creating really great products and you are positioning them really well, you're pricing them competitively, you have great photos in your photo gallery. The marketplace will do the heavy lifting of selling for you. And learning that piece of how to position your product is more than enough for a beginner. When you have your own website, you then also have to figure out how to market. So on Etsy, it's doing the marketing for you. It's running ads out on the Internet, it's got social media stuff going. It's, you know, just people. 90 million shoppers are just going to the platform to shop and they're showing them your stuff. The people who are searching for what you make. So don't add so much to your plate where you have to figure out how to position a product, make a great product, ship a great product package all of that and make yourself have to figure out how to build a website and how to do social media and all of that. My suggestion is always start with Etsy and master it. I would say even get it to where Etsy's got you. Very, very like secure part time or even full time before you then go and add your own website to it somewhere early on in there. You know, once you're, once you're making pretty consistent sales, like lots of sales per month is a great time to then start building an email list. And you can use the tips that I used earlier on that I shared about opening an email. You wouldn't have to have your own website for that. And then down the road it's like once you're full, full time and you're ready, you've mastered Etsy, you know exactly how to make and list something that's going to sell, then you can move on to learning the marketing piece and build your own website. And that's a great thing to do because you know, if you're driving your own traffic, you won't have the Etsy fees and you'll, you know, it's, it's a great thing to learn, it's a great thing to do, but in its season. So I hope that that helps you with those next few steps and I'm really excited for you. Next up is Etsy and his algorithm is working by step. For example, Etsy analyze one week what you publish and show your listings more for the next week in digital products. More views, click. And sales by week by week or month by month. Okay, I don't completely understand the question here from the wording, but I think overall what you're wondering about is how the Etsy algorithm works. And none of us know exactly. That's not something like that they publish or share with anybody. It's the same thing with, you know, Instagram or TikTok. Nobody knows exactly what the algorithm is. It's a mathematical equation that decides who's going to see what. But what I can tell you is that the number one thing that Etsy wants to do is increase the likelihood of a purchase. So they study their users, their previous behavior, where they live, what they like, what they search, what they buy, what they favorite, what they interact with. And they want to show them more of what they, what Etsy wants to show those people more of what they think they're going to buy. So the number one most important factor of the algorithm is simply the buyer and the buyer's previous behavior. What we can do is we can obviously make a great product that is high quality and that is something that's in demand, something that people are looking for because the Etsy Marketplace isn't going to help you at all if you're not selling something people are searching for on the marketplace. So really, really unique stuff. Like this is why you really probably want a keyword research tool like Everbee or like Profit Tree's new tool, which is incredible. We're going to be talking about that more in the weeks ahead. You want to do the research to find out what's in demand. These tools will tell you how much they're actually like how much each keyword, like how many searches there are per month for it and how many competing listings there are for it. And that information is really helpful. So for example though, like let's talk about your listing with the algorithm. When a listing is published, it's going to get some, especially if you have, if your shop is new or has performed well before, it's going to, your, your, your new listings are going to get some extra space in the algorithm. Like the, they're going to get shown to more people in the very beginning. So the algorithm can feel out how people are going to, are going to like it. And like for example, if you list something and it gets purchased right away, it gets a higher rank in the algorithm because it's assumed that, oh wow, this, this is, this is a hot, a hot thing. And, but everything is going to, is going to then depend on what happens next. So if you list something and by the way, don't worry if nothing happens in the first few months like especially if, let's say, you know, what is it? It's August. Let's say you're designing for Christmas. You're probably not going to start getting sales until October, November of what you're listing now. But we should still be listing now for the algorithm to look at the keyword searches. And it's just a good, this is when you want to start listing for Christmas. But what's going to then happen is as people interact with your listing, let's say they favorite it, let's say they click on it, let's say they purchase it. Every time one of those things happen, the listing gets stronger in the algorithm because Etsy is simply looking for oh, people like this people. Well, let me add something to that. People like this customer like this. So then they'll go put it in front of more customers like that. So this is why you, you want to continue adding new things all the time as much as you're able to because you have more chances then to compete in the algorithm. And then what happens is, let's say you get a bestseller, you get some, some listings that are performing really well. Your newer listings, I've been experiencing this with my PNG shop. Your newer listings will do better, faster. I'm noticing that now in the beginning it was a bit of a slog. I had to wait a while to get results. And then now that I've had several bestsellers, I have a lot. And the other thing that I have a lot of different things in my shops that sell daily and I. And what that does is it makes my newer listings have preference get some preferential treatment. So without knowing more about what you were asking, I hope that that helps. I mean, the bottom line is we don't totally know. The best thing that you can do is to be studying what's in demand, to be studying the trends and to be continuing to create and iterate on your listings to make them stronger and stronger so that you have a better chance of leveling up. And, and I will also say I kind of want to do a whole video on how to revive a dead shop because I think, and it's so much just like Instagram. It's just if you literally create new listings consistently. I just this year reopened a shop that had been close years, my sign shop, where I made my first multiple six figures. And in the beginning it's still not super fast because I still haven't hit the sweet spot in the products yet. I'm personally trying to figure out laser engraving and Robbie's running the machine and doing a phenomenal job. It's me creating listings that are more compelling. Especially now with, you know, they changed the rules on laser engravers and they're mostly laser engravers. Can't. We're not supposed to use designs created by other people. We need to actually be creating the design. Now we can't buy before we could buy laser engraving designs. And then our contribution was we were engraving it onto a new physical product. When that changed, I mean, that just adds a whole new layer of work for me. But the point is we've gotten at least five sales from that old shop. So it's really just a matter of creating activity. Create activity by adding listings. That's the most powerful thing you can do. Create activity by adding listings. And then if you add strong listings, it will create more activity by creating clicks, favorites, purchases. So I hope that helps a little bit. Okay, you mentioned Often for beginner shops, you need to build your volume, especially in the digital design space. They mean volume in terms of how many listings you have up. I'm wondering if it's better to prioritize seasonal items and keep renewing just to have a bigger volume or deactivate. Since I know they won't be popular during off season. Any advice is great. Also, big time fan of the show. Just opened my shop two months ago and stumbled upon your podcast and you already helped me tremendously. Thank you so much for your guidance, Jessica. Jessica, you're so welcome. Thanks for being here. This is a great question. Okay, it's not about volume for the sake of volume. It's about volume because the more that you create, the better that you'll get. Okay, so if I have a child sit down and I tell them to draw a tree, the first tree is probably going to look a little rough. But if I have them draw a tree every single day for a hundred days and I have them, okay, this is your first tree. Now this is day two. Study this picture of a tree and then draw a tree. After they've done it a hundred times and they've studied and gotten better, their tree design is going to be incredible. So I'm not saying build your volume because I just want you to have a ton of listings. I mean, yes, the more listings you have, especially if they're really good, the more chance you have of making, you know, a part or full time income from it. You, you know, especially digital designs that sell for just a couple dollars, you're not going to have 10 listings in your shop selling at $3 a piece that are likely to long term make you thousands a month. I think that would be a very, very, very, very. I've never seen that ever. You want to have a lot of listings contributing to your bottom line. So that being said, though, I wouldn't, I also wouldn't just do seasonal things. I would do about 40%, 30 to 40% seasonal things and then the rest, the majority. So 60 to 70% evergreen things, things that can sell on and on and on forever paying attention to the niches because like to your point, they won't be popular off season. It won't matter. You know, if you, if you've created a perfectly on trend summer design, it's probably not going to be on trend in December. That being said, I don't actually think you need to deactivate anything. You can turn them to manual renewal. For seasonal things, it's a good idea to do well I would say once the season is over, it's good to turn it on to manual renewal. If it's on manual renewal and you, it sells, you don't want it to disappear from your shop because that sale is going to kick you up in the algorithm and you could get more sales. But once the season is over, I, I will turn it on to, I'll just let it expire, so to speak. But I think I wouldn't, I wouldn't worry about like the point is just keep going. The point is keep adding listings so you can keep growing your income or if you're not making income yet, keep adding, adding listings so that you can keep growing your skills. And if it's not working, then we need to reevaluate. Like that doesn't mean it's not going to work for you. It probably most of the time it means your designs aren't strong enough yet. Get in the coaching group, get a workshop, watch a bunch of YouTube videos, create a bunch of designs for practice. Study creative fabrica, study the trends, strengthen your skills. When it's not working, it's not because it's not going to work for you. It's because you're not good enough yet. I've had to go through it too. I'm going through it all over again. It's not always fun. But this is why I say don't do Etsy when you're desperate. This needs to come out of a place of abundance, out of a place of energy, out of a place of curiosity, out of a place of playfulness or you're going to burn out so fast. If you're desperate, please like drive for Uber. Uber eats. Start a babysitting group. If you've got kids and you've got to be at home like watch some other people's kids to bring in money. Give yourself some breathing room space. Don't try to fix it with Etsy. I know this isn't you, Jessica. I've gone on a funny rant so I just want you to keep to keep adding listings to give yourself more chance to get better and for more chance to make sales put on the chain. There's a lot of talk about numbers of sales and revenue but I would love to explore and understand better the profit side of lower price point digital goods. Especially how is the different listing fees and process processing fees eat into a chunk of the profit and ways to maximize profit in a growing Etsy shop. Thank you so much. Love your show. Cheryl. Okay, let me think about what you're Asking here, I think, Okay, I think you're asking a few different things. If you have not looked into Profit Tree or you take that free ads class, make a note here that Ads masterclass by Hannah, you're gonna eat that up. Cheryl, you're gonna love that because she is so good at these numbers that you're asking about. And that is not my strong point. I. Yeah, especially, yeah, looking at the profits and all of that and the numbers, it's way goes way beyond more. It goes far beyond ads. That's just another layer of it. But when it comes to the lower price points of digital goods, the bottom line is we're in a marketplace. So no matter what we're selling, I always recommend that you look at the best sellers. You do the little hack and you filter by bestseller. You have to. If you guys don't know what this is yet, I need to link for you the best seller tutorial. I have a little YouTube video that'll show you how to filter by bestseller. You need to look at the best sellers because here's the thing. If you're coming in as a new shop and your listings aren't as good yet and you're not as established yet in the algorithm, and you're pricing way above them, people are going to pick the best seller every time. It's already got the social proof on it. It's already got the clout, it's already got the. It's already been discovered. So you trying to sell, you trying to value your thing that's comparable. I'm not saying. Let me be very clear about this. I am not saying a true artist, which I don't consider myself to be a true artist. I consider myself to be an AI digital artist, which questionable whether or not it's art. Right. But it's a way for me to make mostly passive income from digital product sales. I don't think a real artist should be, you know, Leela, Simon Hayes, who is just on the podcast, should be pricing at the same point as me. She should be 100 times more than me, if not more than that, because her art is gonna. She's actually sat down and made something. There's. I will tell you what, if I'm seeing anything in this AI, I know everyone's freaking out, oh, this is stealing from the artists. And I'm not quite. I think that there are behaviors and tactics that are disgusting, that are stealing from the artists. But I'm seeing artists make more money than ever before because people are valuing the art made by A real artist more than ever before because of AI it's actually been incredible. But what's important is how you position your product. Making sure that listing video is there, showing you doing your art making. That is actually a situation where you do need to be on social media showing your art process because it'll bring more value to the, you know, not just saying, but showing that it's not A.I. you're making something, but that's just so special, so magical. But if I'm trying to come in and sell a. Let me think of an example. Okay, so Halloween's coming up. Sell a postage stamp. Halloween style design, like is super on trend right now. I need to be pricing if I'm creating a digital product like that. I need to be pricing at or below the best sellers if I'm not a best seller, because otherwise why would someone pick mine unless it was like truly above and beyond. But typically a lot of newer sellers are going to be having a lower quality. So that's one argument for it, Sheryl, is that you need to be pricing at where the. What the market can sustain. And the great. Thank goodness the blessing of digital products is you don't have a whole lot to lose, right? Because once you've made it, you can resell it over and over again. It's a lot harder for print on demand when they're looking at their competitors that are selling them for less than like what they can actually get it for from Printify. Do you know, that's when it's just like, oh, how do we compete with that? Some drop shipper is, you know, they're not playing by the rules. And that's a whole different discussion. Same thing with physical products. You know when I was literally hand painting every single sign and I was getting beat out by on price and on orders by my competitors who were printing them all. And I could have just gotten really mad at all the printers and complained about the printers. And I'm not saying you're complaining, Cheryl. I'm off on another tangent. I could have complained about that. And I just said, hey, this isn't working anymore. I can either, I can either buy a printer, you know, for the cost of a Mercedes, or I can pivot because this is just the market and that's normal business. That's not A.I. that's not disgusting. I mean it sign of the times. It's just business like things, things come and go, so we have to pivot. The other thing about that pricing shield that I will mention is there's this thing called a, a no brainer listing. And that is where something is a bundle, a big bundle that is sold super cheap and they often become. People do it because it often becomes a bestseller and they can make thousands of dollars from that ridiculous bundle. It's a no brainer because it's something like a hundred wall art designs for 97 cents. That's just an example I've pulled out of thin air. When someone sees that and they're shopping for some wall, some printable wall art, that's a no brainer, they're going to buy it. Now someone else is going to look at that and say that's insane. Why would I sell that bundle for 97 cents when I have done all this work? Well, yeah, but if they sell the bundle and they make $17,000 over the next six months, they're not really mad about it because they made more than if they'd sold them all individually. So that's a different argument on the lower price point and creating no brainer listings, no brainer bundles where there's so much value. This is the kind of thing I do too. If you guys have seen my 2000 digital product prompts for $17, that's an insane price. I should have charged hundreds of dollars for that. But it's a no brainer. I sell them every single day because it's such a great value. You get so much for the $17. So hopefully Cheryl, I did the ADHD thing and went off on some tangents there, but I hope that your question got answered and shed some light. But I'm going to really encourage you for those numbers, which I love you for wanting to know the numbers. Look at that free ads masterclass by Hannah and you're going to get a lot, a lot, a lot of value. Next up. Hey Lizzie, thanks so much for your amazing info. My question is with renewing a listing after three months, if you've had no sales on that listing in that time, how long do you leave it up for? Does not renewing affect the algorithm in your shop? Is it better not to renew and just create better, hopefully better listings? Thanks and so appreciate the podcast. Okay, so it depends if you know, if I listed something in July that was a Christmas design and it didn't sell in the first, in the first three months, I'd leave it up because I haven't had a chance to see how it will, you know, last through that, that season yet. If I created something that was otherwise going to be evergreen and it didn't sell for three Months. I would let it expire. It's not going to hurt. It's not going to hurt your shop and the algorithm to let a listing expire. I just, I think I just like wouldn't really worry about it. I usually leave mine on, I, I usually leave mine on automatic renewal and then I'll look every six months I'll go and be like, oh, this thing never sold. I'll just let that one expire. I'll turn on, turn it onto, you know, manual renewal. I don't think about these things too much, so there's kind of no, no, wrong answer. But I do leave them up well past a season. You know, if I had something for Christmas, I wouldn't be deciding it was worthless until February probably. And I really wouldn't spend too much time worrying about what's active, what's not active. I would, to your point, just keep, keep going, keep adding new listings, keep sharpening your, your skills, keep designing. That's what I would do instead. Next up, I work full time Monday through Friday. I want to start an Etsy shop but focus on creating seasonal craft type decorations. Christmas ribbon tree toppers, Halloween fall wreaths and garlands. Because of my ADHD and being a multi passionate creative, can it be profitable to earn extra side cash, but only for a few months of the year. Like I'd lose focus and drive all year long with the same stuff, but dang, give me a smaller time frame to sell, sell, sell. Before the holiday season gets me excited. I could spend the other months of the year creating more leisurely and enjoy discounts on holiday materials. Okay, sorry for babbling, but I know you get me. Absolutely. Okay, so it's fine to have a seasonal shop, but get those listings up for Christmas. Like if you're going to do Halloween, list them in July. If you're going to do Christmas, list them by September. So don't say I'm going to do a holiday shop and list them in November. That's when you're going to get a smack on the hand from me. So that's how I would do it. Otherwise. Yeah, I think that's fine. And you know, make things through the year. And then, and then what I would probably do is I make things through the year and then starting, you know, July 15, I'd start adding a, like a listing a week. It would depend on how many you had. If you had a ton of stuff, you could add a listing a day. I wouldn't just list them all at once is my point. That can actually Look a little spammy to the algorithm. They don't like that. So I would stagger the listing of it. One a day or three. You know, three. No more than three to five a day. But if you only had 10, I would rather you do, you know, three a week for several weeks to feed the algorithm. Next up, this isn't an AI question, but are you able to help someone making polymer clay earrings become more successful on Etsy? Is it a saturated market? It is a saturated market, but I know it can be done. Well, absolutely, because I started in handmade, so I'm one of the folks out there. Like, yes, I'm doing a lot of digital products now, but I actually do still have the physical product shop open and my bread and butter was always handmade. So the six figure secrets course could definitely help you. Let me make sure I link that for you guys with a coupon code. But you were asking about the market saturation. Yeah, Paul, I, I think what I would look at first is to see how much demand there still is for polymer clearings. I genuinely don't know the answer to how much demand there is for that. But jewelry as a whole group is. Would be considered saturated. I don't really agree with that word though, because the deal is okay, so jewelry has a lot of sellers in it. The way that you compete is by incorporating the trends. So, you know, don't just go create whatever you feel like. Like, let's pay attention to the trends. You know, let's do. Let's do raccoon cowboys for your earrings. Let's do coquette skeletons for your earrings. Let's do the postage stamp. Probably wouldn't really cross over, although maybe it would. What if you could do postage stamp style earrings with sardines in them? I'm just thinking that's a slay. What if you could do boho style mixed with coquette? What if you. So I'm saying the way to beat quote unquote market saturation and anywhere where there's a lot of sellers selling a particular thing is to incorporate the trends. That's the way after it. So I hope that that helps. I'm thrilled that you're making a handmade product. Just look into like if you don't have ever be yet, you'll. I would grab ever be and even just try the free. The free version. I'll make a note here and find out how many searches there are per month for polymer clay earrings. Because if there's not thousands and thousands of searches a month for that big Keyword polymer clay earrings. Then there's not enough demand to, to warrant it. Okay, next up, I'm so confused about the changes to how the main listing image is shown on mobile and desktop. What the heck size orientation are we supposed to use now? I am with you. They change it constantly. They change it constantly. So here's the thing. Follow, follow what the Etsy handbook says. Always like whenever, when in doubt, go back and check it. Right now it says that we should use an aspect ratio of 4 by 3. So not a square, longer horizontal, shorter vertical. And pay attention to how you lay out your images because sometimes Etsy is going to crop it as a square, sometimes they're going to crop it as a horizontal image, sometimes they're going to crop it as an up in a landscape image. So you're going to see, you're, you're going, it's gonna, it's gonna get cropped out. So just be paying attention to how your, if your first image makes absolutely no sense, if it's cropped any of those ways, adjust it even if you have to back up a little bit on the, on the photo so that when they do crop it on whatever platform they're showing it on that it looks okay. So four by three access ratio, aspect ratio. My apologies. I'm so with you, number 15. I have a print on demand store that's been inactive for six months and sales have flattened. Well, yeah, okay. Been trying to revive sales by updating titles, keywords and thumbnail pictures without much luck. Oh yeah, stop, don't worry about that. Stop worrying about updating your titles, keywords and pictures. Create new listings, create new designs. What's trending? What was trending six months ago? Most of that's different now. So rather than. I almost never go back and mess with old listings, especially for Print on demand or digital. For handmade, I, I would, sometimes I would duplicate them. I'd go back and update if I found a really good keyword or if I needed to make something more seasonal. But for Print on Demand, you've just got to add more listings. That's you feed the, feed the algorithm with activity. Can you add a new listing a day? How many new listings could you add a day? I don't know what your goals are, so I can't give you like suggestions. But don't worry about those old listings. They're not going to sell now. Most likely some of them might if you get going with new listings. You could have actually had this happen recently where, you know, when I'm creating new listings and turning some out. Some of my old ones are all of a sudden selling that I thought were never going to sell well. So add new listings. That's what you got to do to, to revive or to get, to get more sales. Next up, how do taxes work with Etsy? So I'm not a tax expert so this isn't, you know, official advice. I'll get us both in trouble. I don't even do my own taxes. My husband does. But what I can tell you is that for most places you need to check the Etsy Seller's Handbook based on where you live. For most places Etsy's collecting sales tax for you on your behalf. So when a buyer makes a sale, Etsy collects sales tax and pays it to the appropriate authorities. But make sure they do it in your country. And then for the other, the other thing you have is income tax. So if you're making income as a, it depends on how you are, have your shop set up or if you're an LLC or if you're a sole proprietor but either way it's self employed income. It'll just depend on how you're going to file. Then they're going to give you a 1099 Etsy will and you'll have to declare your taxes and pay. They're not going to hold back any for you. Right, like a job would. They're not going to withhold taxes. You've got to be with and technically, I mean I don't know where you live or any of this. Again, I can't be giving you tax advice. We're supposed to be paying it quarterly though, especially once you're above a certain income threshold. So if you're, if you're unclear on any of that, the Seller Etsy Seller handbook will have some information for where you live and then I would otherwise talk to maybe like a tax expert in your, where you live, someone who understands the rules local to you. If you aren't sure like how you should be structuring your business or anything like that. So just remember you've got sales tax, that's one factor and then you've got income tax and that's a separate factor and you've got to pay the, you've always got to pay the income tax yourself. Next up says a deep dive into shipping settings. There are so many choices to check and uncheck. It's very confusing. I sent a more detailed email from your website. I did not see that. Okay, well that would not be something that I can cover on the podcast because it's so visual, most people are listening to it. I will say if you have my Six Figure Secrets course, there is a click by click tutorial of shipping settings in there. So I'm going to refer you there just because there's never going to be a, like a, a way for me to show you here on the podcast of what they could be. It's also going to depend on what you're selling. It's going to depend on where you live. It's going to, it's going to be different if you're using print on demand. So I'm going to refer you if you really would like to learn from me the shipping settings, grab my Six Figure Secrets course for the click by click and then you can literally sit with me, you know, and watch the tutorial. I agree with you. It's not like the clearest thing on the planet though, is it? Like the shipping, I think can get kind of complicated. But also the Etsy handbook, if you want to just look in there, they are really, really helpful about, you know, helping you set that up correctly. Next up says, my products are handmade, recycled crafts. They're small and to my knowledge no one else is selling them. How do I price them? This is one of the issues holding me back with all the fees. I'm not sure if in the end it will be worth it. Please help. I love your podcast. Okay, so, so sorry, I had a coughing fit. So if no one else is selling them, they're probably not going to sell on Etsy. That's, that's kind of what I was saying earlier. Anything that no one else is selling it sound. I know we were always taught in a way in the world like that ingenuity is one of the most valuable things on the planet. But you will be better off then going to a craft show where people are going to walk by and see and be wowed by what they see or doing social media so that you have a way of showing what it is. Because if no one else is selling them and no one's searching for them on Etsy, it's not going to matter how you price them or what SEO you use. There's just no demand for it on the platform. It's when you're using a marketplace, there should be competitors to be able to compare against. If you still wanted to try it, which I always encourage people to try it, why don't you find out how they're being priced other places on the Internet? So I would go find Other like standalone websites that sell things like that. Find out what they're pricing them at. Find out what if maybe they're on maker place and there's demand there and you can see how people are. So I would just do a Google search and find out what people are selling elsewhere. And you're right. This is the thing with handmade products. Sometimes with the fees and when things are small, it's not worth it financially. You need to pick something else. I'm not going to tell you don't sell on Etsy. I'm gonna tell you pick something else because there's a reason you're here. But yes, that's something that we have to pay attention to and the marketplace does eat up some of the, some of the profit right up to 10%. Next up is Allura Ever be E ranked. So many choices. What's the best? I know I will not be productive doing all three. So I personally use Everbee. It is my go to. It's how I find opportunities, it's how I pick my like find the keywords that I need to use. The others I'm sure are great. Sometimes I do use Erank when I can't find what I need on Everby. But the way that Everbee lays out the keywords and the data on the listings for me is the most user friendly. I like how fast and easily and at a glance I can see everything that I need. So I'm going to link below in the Show Notes a tutorial that I have on YouTube showing you how I use Everbee. It's specifically like written, I think, I think I recorded it for digital products. But the, the same thing would work for no matter what you were selling, uh, it's gonna be the same. You're just gonna change what you're searching. If, if I was searching in the example for PNGs, you're gonna search for T shirts or signs or whatever it is that you make using the exact same method that I'm teaching in that tutorial. So hopefully that'll help. I've never used Allura at all. I do know that E rank is amazing. But Everbee is like I'm, I have only to this point, like at this point I don't use Sales Samurai. I used to. I'm really excited to see what Profit Tree is coming out with. They're literally this week launching a new tool that, that apparently like competes with Everbee. And so you can be sure that I will be upfront with you guys because if, if it does compete With Ever be to the point where I feel like it could replace it. I will tell you guys because Profit Tree is a one time fee of $67 for lifetime access and you means you could cancel the Ever Be subscription. But as of right now, I haven't seen the tool yet. So I'm just going to tell you guys. I'll keep telling you what I'm using for right now. I'm still using Everbee. I haven't seen the new tool yet from Profit Tree, but standby. Okay, I'm gonna do one more for new beginners. I've heard you and so many others say just start. Whether it's wall art, templates or any digital product, can you go over again as far as how to pick what we want to sell? I know we're not supposed to just pick something we like, but to do the research and see what people are asking for, what people are buying. I think that's one of the main reasons I'm stuck on getting started is I just don't know what to start, where to start. I believe I also heard you say it's more of mastering Etsy on how to post and how it all works rather than say the design or the product. Correct. Well, okay, so first of all, I don't want to forget this. I have a free product picker tool. It's a custom GPT that I built that anyone any of you guys can use. It's free. I will link it and it will take you through some questions to make suggestions on what to sell. You could tell it, I already know I want digital products. What should I sell? And it'll take you through some questions to help you figure that out. Or you could go in not knowing whether you want to sell handmade, physical, pro, you know, physical products, print on demand, digital, you don't know what you want to sell and you can start there and it'll help you make that decision. Just like I've trained it. Just like if you and I were sitting down for coffee and you're like I want to start an Etsy shop, what should I sell? It's going to talk you through it the way that I would. So that tool is there to help you and that might be, that might be great in this instance. But when you said mastering Etsy and how to post is more important than the design or the product, that is not accurate. I want to make sure I clear that up if I've made that sound cloudy before. So the number one most important thing is the quality of the Product. You have to have something in demand. That's amazing. The design. Poor design is one of the number one reasons that people don't make sales. I think poor design outranks bad SEO. It outranks not having a lot of listings. It outranks the age of the shop. The design has to be really strong. And the bottom line is you're going to suck at first. Not you necessarily. You might be a graphic designer. Most people are going to suck in the beginning at their designs. I sucked. I still sometimes suck a little bit. I'm just starting to really get it. It's starting to get really fun. I kind of want to encourage you guys because, you know, I did. I'm not naturally talented at, at design. I never had any graphic design experience. I'm self taught on everything and man, I look back at my old designs and they stink. They really stink. I'm only just starting to get really good where I list. I listed something last week and it started, it's almost got a bestseller badge. It's flying off the shelves. And I knew like it was one of those things too. I was like, okay, I hit the trend right on the right niche at the right time. Let's go, this is gonna work. And it was, it was right, so give yourself time there. But so yes, you do. So you do want to have a phenomenal product and you need to have an outstanding design. When I say Master Etsy, I'm usually saying that in the context of people are like, well, should I start my own website? Should I? Like, I'm, I'm just starting to open this business, what should I do? And I say figure out Etsy first so that you're not adding too many things to your plate. So if you're trying to pick what to sell, try the product picker. I think lean into one of the general things so you already know like wall art, templates, PNGs, coloring pages, SVGs, these are all things that are in demand. Does one of them sound the most fun to you? Does one of them resonate the most with you? And then go create 50 to 100 listings of that type of a product until you get really good at it. And as far as. So those things, I can already tell you right now, those things are all in demand. The question is going to be, you know, if you're like, okay, I'm going to make a template, but it's something super, super random like the mating rituals of ants, I'm going to make a template for, I don't know, you Know what I mean? And maybe it's for homeschool or something, who knows? That actually could do super well. You'd have to do the research, but it's probably so random and obscure. It's like so ultra, ultra niche that it may not. That's where I want you to do the research to find out what people are buying. It doesn't matter. Like all of those digital products are fine and the product picker can help you decide what niche to go after and give you some ideas on some things that you could create for it. But what I want you to do is before when you're, if you're going to, if you, let's say you land on templates, I want you to go look at the best selling templates and get inspired by what's already selling really well and then bring your twist to it with the current trends. I like to look for, if I'm filtering by best seller, I like to look for the ones from the newer shops so they have under. You can look at the, when you're looking at the search results, it'll tell you next to the shop name, like how many reviews they have under 500 reviews. Because if a newer shop is ranking with a best seller, that's probably still something that I could create my own version of. And there's a lot of current demand. There's enough demand that new shops can hit it big with it. So let me see if there's anything else I missed in what you said. You're. Yeah, it sounds like you're just going through kind of some analysis, Analysis paralysis. You need to just get out there and crank out 20, 50, 100 listings. You need to just pick one of these, one of these, one of these particular types of digital product and create a whole bunch of them. And what's going to happen is it's going to become a compass for you. So in the very beginning of my digital product shop, I listed some, some Tumblr apps, I listed some PNGs, I listed some clip art. The Tumblr apps barely sold at all. Interestingly, now they're starting to sell. My old listings are starting to sell because my shop is stronger. But PNGS and Clipart ended up being my sweet spot. I listed some coloring pages because I was testing them for you guys. I definitely have sold several of them, but they're not my like, knock it out of the park sweet spot. The I need to stick with the PNGS and the clip art. That's what does really well for me and that's the thing that I listed last week that immediately is like already almost a bestseller. So hopefully that helps. Don't worry so much about this general product. Any of those are going to do fine. When you go to design, spend 20 minutes, at least 20, 30 minutes looking at the best sellers of who's already selling in the niche you're going to design for. And that is how I want you to make database decisions. I hope that helps and the product picker will be great for you as well. Okay, I'm going to have to do another part two because there are still a lot of questions I didn't get to. So sorry about that guys, but I've now been yapping at you for an hour. So thank you so much for hanging out with me. Hope that this was really helpful that your, you know, questions got answered. I hope I was already able to articulate things clear enough. Most of the brain fog is gone, but I'm not at 100% just yet. But love, love, love the time with you. So you can continue to submit FAQs, because I tend to do these a couple times a year, usually like, I don't know, three, four times a year. And jump into that coaching group with us if you want to be hanging out on the regular, getting your shoulders rubbing with people who are both in the same phase as you, where they're in the beginning, they're not making any sales yet, or they're making sales but they haven't figured out how to really blow it up yet. And then you can hang out with those of us who've made hundreds and thousands on the platform. And we are here to just, you know, break open our hearts and help you as much as we can. So I'll see a bunch of you guys in there and otherwise I'll see you guys next week. Go make something awesome. Take care. 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.