← How to Sell Your Stuff on Etsy
Loading summary
Transcript45 lines
- [00:01]
Lizzie Smiley
Hey, my name is Lizzie Smiley and I absolutely love helping people connect with.
- [00:05]
Lizzie's Co-host or Friend
Their calling and all the tools they.
- [00:07]
Lizzie Smiley
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.
- [00:59]
Lizzie's Co-host or Friend
Hey guys. Welcome back to the podcast. We are doing an unusual replay this week.
- [01:04]
Lizzie Smiley
I know I don't do these very.
- [01:05]
Lizzie's Co-host or Friend
Often, but you will not believe what happened. Okay, like, first of all, context. I appreciate that I live in first world problems and these things compared to what a lot of other people are suffering in the world are nothing. Okay?
- [01:20]
Lizzie Smiley
So I do.
- [01:21]
Lizzie's Co-host or Friend
Please understand. I realize I am ridiculously privileged, but I'm going to tell you what's been going on because A, we're friends and that's what friends do and B, I need to give you context for why we're doing a replay. So first of all, we just had fall break. Our amazing school, great hearts online does a fall break every year and it makes me really happy. And so my parents and I and my sister had decided we were going to take Lorelei on her first trip to Europe to. I'm trying to like broaden her horizons. I don't know if anyone else, like, understands the preteen just attitude, worldview and all of that. Sometimes it could use some broadening. And we're like, what better than a trip to Europe? And then also, I mean, we also take her to other places to see how people struggle. But like, Europe will really open up your eyes to how big the world is, I think. And so we had this trip planned to Italy. We were super excited.
- [02:09]
Lizzie Smiley
We were going to do Venice and.
- [02:10]
Lizzie's Co-host or Friend
Florence and at the last minute, like a week out beforehand, British Airways, which was the airline that we were taking, canceled our one of the legs of our return flight that was going to get us from London back to Chicago, and they literally would not get us on another flight.
- [02:29]
Lizzie Smiley
We gave them.
- [02:29]
Lizzie's Co-host or Friend
We were like, here, we can stay three days longer. We can leave two days earlier. Like, give us a return flight. And they were like, no, we can't. Or you can pay $7,000 a person and we'll do it. And we're like, wow, you are terrible. Terrible. And we ended up having to cancel the entire trip to Italy over this. So a word of the wise. I recommend against ever using British Airways because they will apparently ruin your travel plans at the last minute. I mean, I guess, thank goodness we weren't stranded over there. I don't even know what that would have looked like, but holy moly. And I went, I'm not like a big complainer. I'm someone who will kind of like, you know, I get it. People have hard days. Things happen.
- [03:06]
Lizzie Smiley
Like, I really, as, especially as an.
- [03:07]
Lizzie's Co-host or Friend
Entrepreneur, have perspective about that. But I like, went over to their Twitter page just like, see, I was gonna maybe say something. And I'm seeing just like a flood of the most terrible review. Like, think people saying how terr this airline is. In fact, one woman had said that they. She took a British Airways flight from Canada to London and then also back from London to Canada. And on both trips, they had no functioning bathrooms or running water. I don't know if that's true or not. I'm just reading it off of Twitter X. But I was just like, well, maybe. Maybe we were. Maybe we were protected from something. So we ended up not. Not being able to go at the last minute. Our amazing travel agent. Shout out to Claudia.
- [03:48]
Lizzie Smiley
You know what?
- [03:48]
Lizzie's Co-host or Friend
I'm gonna link Claudia, you guys, using a travel agent used to be something that was like, for, you know, only if you had a lot. I mean, I guess traveling generally, like, there's a certain privilege, right? You have money to be able to travel and take vacations. That's a huge luxury. I will just say, to me, it used to seem like a travel agent meant you had to be, like, really wealthy. And now you save money when you use a travel agent. And if you're like me and you're not good at logistics and things like that. Claudia has done multiple trips for us now, and she just saved our bacon on this, this most recent trip with my family. She's incredible. I'm gonna just put her information below. She's literally the most amazing travel agent. Tell her I sent you her way if you use her. I. I would Feel comfortable recommending her. She's so professional. She's incredible. Anyway, last minute, my parents were able to use Claudia to get us onto a cruise and we had. Okay, so first of all, you need to know that Lizzie Smiley has never been on a cruise. Was never gonna go on a cruise. I. I try not to make vows because, you know, lol. I was never gonna go on a cruise. I am an introverted person. I don. I don't like crowds. I don't like noise. I like to be very in the middle of nowhere if you can't tell based on where I live throughout the year. Okay. But we needed a last minute trip. I was trying not to break my daughter's heart. I was like, okay, actually, she's going to have the time of her life. Because we ended up on the Royal Caribbean Star. Star of the Seas. It was the most incredible experience ever. You guys. Like, I cannot tell you. I am a cruise girl. I am a cruise Lizzie.
- [05:14]
Lizzie Smiley
I am a cruise girl.
- [05:15]
Lizzie's Co-host or Friend
I fell in love with this ship. It was brand new. It's the biggest ship in the world right now. It has like, there's another one, the icon that's the same size. And it had only launched in like August. Like we were on one of the inaugural trips of this. It was literally the most magical I the way you need to know. I cried walking off that ship. I'm walking through the lobby, leaving, like I'm leaving my best friend and never going to see them again. Like, it was. It was ridiculous. You need to know how extra I was about it. And then you're like walking down the. I don't know the thing to go through customs and it says, we miss you already on the wall and I am just a mess. So literally, the trip was incredible. The cruise line is incredible. The Star of the Seas. If you go, you better tag me because if that is my ship, I'm obsessed with her. The only bad thing was on the very last day, I ended up with norovirus, which is a very terrible stomach bug. I don't know if I got it In Honduras. We were washing our hands with like.
- [06:08]
Lizzie Smiley
I was meticulous.
- [06:10]
Lizzie's Co-host or Friend
Will tell you, just because I didn't know this. Norovirus is not killed by hand sanitizer. You have to wash your hands with soap and water. It's resistant to sanitizer. So, like, lol. Lesson learned there. But the point is all of that to say, I know that you're getting like the besties version of Lizzie's story here. All of this to say the return trip was horrible and my daughter and I were stranded in Chicago for four days like writing this out and I really didn't want to bring it home to my 3 year old or my husband. So we stayed in Chicago, rested up, came back when we should have been like, you know, good. But then my daughter ended up having another bout when we got home. Now my husband has it. All of this to say this has just been like the trip that keeps on giving thanks Italy? No, they actually thanks British Airways. And you guys know I never dog on anybody but this is really bad. So point being, I have not done work in almost three weeks now. Yeah because of the travel and then the two weeks of sickness and not being able to have child care and it's been bad. So that is why we are doing a replay today and I hope that you enjoyed my story and hearing a little bit about the background and again.
- [07:20]
Lizzie Smiley
Totally, totally appreciate that this is.
- [07:22]
Lizzie's Co-host or Friend
I'm like not meaning to whine about it, just share with you because I know people are.
- [07:27]
Lizzie Smiley
It would be very tone deaf to.
- [07:28]
Lizzie's Co-host or Friend
Act like what was me. No, no, no. That's just the drama that your bestie is sharing with you. So you understand why we're doing a We don't have a new episode I haven't gotten. Today was the first day actually I was able to record for next week's episode three weeks. And that is what's going on. So seriously though, love Royal Caribbean, love the star. I don't think it was their fault. And. And that's where we're at. So here's what's happening literally on Monday, November 3rd is when the Template Drop membership is going live and many of.
- [07:59]
Lizzie Smiley
You are already signed up ahead of.
- [08:01]
Lizzie's Co-host or Friend
Time to what's going to happen is this is a new thing. I'm creating templates. You're going to get one a week, every single week that you can use for commercial purposes. I'm trying to take something off your plate. If you're in digital or you want to add them to your shop, you're going to get a gorgeous template from me every single Monday that you can customize for your niche. You can change fonts, colors, elements, use it however you want to sell in your Etsy shop, and hopefully it just makes your life a little easier and provides something. When I sat down with my team and I was like, what else can we do to support Etsy sellers? We've got trendspotting, we've got our coaching group, we've got the podcast and YouTube tutorials. We've got the courses and the workshops. It's like more things that, that save you time is like the best thing I can do. So lots of you are already in it. There is a early bird pricing where you can just get it for $15 a month if you sign up before the third. So right now if you get in, you won't get billed until the first November 1st. And then you'll get your first template November 3rd. So you can get, you can get grandfather niche, just $15 a month. It's typically going to be 20amonth. And if you're in trendspotting, it's going to correspond with that sometimes. So when we find a template that we talk about as one of the product opportunities and trendspotting, we'll often use that as the that we give away that week that we provide in the template drop because you're already going to know the opportunity, you're going to know how to position it and you're going to have the SEO from trendspotting. Plus, we know it's a hot thing for right now. I don't want to give you guys templates that are not like, relevant and in demand at the time. I'm giving it to you. So jump in on that if you.
- [09:27]
Lizzie Smiley
Want to join us.
- [09:28]
Lizzie's Co-host or Friend
It's going to be amazing. I'm like super, super excited about it. I love finding other things I can do to make it easier for you. So we are going to launch into the replay of all the beginner mistakes that I recorded earlier this year. It was a really popular episode. It's a good to re listen to or if you're new around here, it's going to be a great start to like, let you know some of the things that I've learned along the way. Lots of Etsy shops, lots of listings, lots of talking to, you know, thousands of Etsy sellers. The, the kind of the pitfalls that you can avoid to help you get a leg up. So thanks for listening to my story. Thanks for the hugs and the encouragement. I am just rooting for you guys, anybody who's dealing with sickness in their family right now or, you know, financial challenges. My husband was recently laid off and then I know a lot of people are really struggling with the government shutdown and my heart goes out to every single one of you and I'm so sorry for what you're going through. You are in my prayers. I am trying to just produce as much free content as I can on YouTube to just help you get a leg up. Anything I can do to support you. I always say don't use Etsy as like an emergency situation because it needs to be something you build over time with energy and creativity. But I do think it's a worthy investment of your time to help like, as you go forward because we just don't know what lies ahead. So I'm here for you guys and I love you so much. So here we go.
- [10:47]
Lizzie Smiley
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, 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 Holst, who comes on the podcast regularly, talks about this much better than me.
- [12:15]
Lizzie's Co-host or Friend
So go back and look at some.
- [12:17]
Lizzie Smiley
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 well. 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 like, let's say you get away, you're like, well, it'd be worth it.
- [14:07]
Lizzie's Co-host or Friend
I could get away with it.
- [14:07]
Lizzie Smiley
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 intellectual 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? 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 way 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, their 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 are number three.
- [17:03]
Lizzie's Co-host or Friend
Right?
- [17:03]
Lizzie Smiley
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 gonna 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 it, um, that can help you break into the niche which is otherwise super saturated. It's called trend combining. You're 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 perform well. 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 product 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, there's tweaks that need to be made, they need to be sharpened that the seller needs to practice.
- [22:35]
Lizzie's Co-host or Friend
So you know, when you get really.
- [22:37]
Lizzie Smiley
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, and 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, of the work that it takes or, 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 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 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 going to. I'm going to. These numbers are going to 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 going to 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 use 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.
- [25:47]
Lizzie's Co-host or Friend
And.
- [25:48]
Lizzie Smiley
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 mock up 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?
- [26:26]
Lizzie's Co-host or Friend
Is your, is your arch.
- [26:28]
Lizzie Smiley
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'm 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, 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 constantly. This is why I spend so much time scrolling on Etsy. I'm not there shopping. I am building. Oh, she says mental archive.
- [27:49]
Lizzie's Co-host or Friend
She says mental archive.
- [27:50]
Lizzie Smiley
I say brain cache. 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 sure, in the designs. Aren't good enough. It also extends to paying attention to the mockups 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 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 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.
- [30:13]
Lizzie's Co-host or Friend
It's really, really interesting.
- [30:14]
Lizzie Smiley
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 mockups. 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 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, 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 cultural event. Like you'll like like things on this happens a lot where there's a tick tock 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 gotta 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 buy 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 mockups.