Selling on Etsy: 9 Tips To Make Etsy Sales All Year

Hey Friends! This post is full of my best tips on how I consistently make Etsy sales – even during the summer slump. If you’re a small business owner, Etsy seller, or considering starting an Etsy business, this post will be helpful for you!

I’m going to share with you the steps that have catapulted my online success and helped me get more sales consistently on Etsy – without using Ads!

Do 2-3 of these things in your shop EVERY DAY

Etsy wants to and will promote shops whose owners are active on the platform. Responding timely to messages (in less than 24 hours), shipping orders on time, and adding new products regularly will get your shop elevated in the algorithm.

You NEED to do 2 to 3 of these things every day (or at least very consistently):

• Renew a listing
• List a new item
• Edit listings (except title or tags once optimized)
• Use the Etsy app – do a shop update, respond to a message, or make an edit to a listing
• Rearrange listings on your home page
• Make a sale or fulfill an order

Doing these things tells the Etsy algorithm that you are an active seller and boosts your shop and listing when customers are searching for an item you sell which then leads to more Etsy sales.

Do product research to make more Etsy sales

Figure out what the market wants and how you can make your item unique. When you find something that works, keep doing that. Do that again multiplied by 10!

I don’t know how many times I created a design that I LOVED, but had 0 sales. I forgot to do the “real” research into what people were actually buying. What colors were popular, and what graphics or fonts they wanted.

Even a small amount of research goes a really long way in helping to understand your target customer and what they want to buy. Once you figure that out and use that to offer a unique item that people actually want to buy, your sales will skyrocket!

Now, I make it a point to do a MINIMUM of 30 min of research every day. I troll Pinterest, look at Etsy to see what is selling in other niches, or even just trends in major retail stores – it all counts!

Photos are more important than you think

So, you’ve done your research, have a few kick-ass products to sell, and incorporated amazing SEO, but still crickets. Your listing photos could be to blame. You’ve got to knock the socks off your potential buyer, make them stop scrolling, and fav or click on your listing. You do that with a high-quality photo.

You want to make your product look so appealing, your customer doesn’t hesitate to add it to their cart. After all, you don’t want your hard work to go to waste with poor-quality photos that don’t show off the quality of your goods.

Take a hard look at your current photos. Better yet, recruit someone else to give you their honest opinion.

If something starts to sell, don’t change your title or tags

You don’t want to lose all the good mojo you created by messing around with your SEO. I learned the hard way that you are essentially starting over in the Etsy search algorithm when you change things up.

“But I did more research and found better keywords to use,” you say. That’s great! Copy the listing and use the NEW listing to experiment with. Change your images around (or add new ones) and add new keywords to the title or tags of your copied listing. Take note of which listing performs better and track those keywords to use for other similar listings.

Respond to negative reviews

The reality is that no matter how well you run your business, there are always going to be people who leave bad reviews, give negative comments, or do other things that make your confidence sink. And as your business grows, it’s probably going to happen more and more often.

Reach out to the customer and be OVERLY polite. Ask them what went wrong and how you can improve. DO NOT GET DEFENSIVE.

If you are able to come to a satisfactory resolution, ask them if they wouldn’t mind revising their review to focus more on the customer service you provided.

If they don’t respond to you or say no to an update of their review/rating, you have the option of replying to the review. Just be careful if you are going down this path. The review may be bad, but you don’t want to scare off any potential buyers with a response that paints you in a bad light.

PRO TIP: Write out 2 responses. In the first, put down everything you would want to say to that person. Go crazy and get your emotions out. This one isn’t going anywhere, so really let it all hang out. Take a few hours or days and then write out the second (real) response. Be professional, polite, and thank them for leaving feedback. It also helps to let them know you are still willing to assist them if they so choose.

Update your Shop Announcement every 2 months

An Etsy shop announcement should say something that’s new, exciting, and encourages a sale.

A few tips about your announcement:

• Don’t lead the shopper away from your shop. Sales don’t happen on social media that often, so keep them on your store. The longer someone stays on your page, the more sales you make.
• Don’t be too generic. You need to speak to your target market and what they might want to know about. Let shoppers see your brand’s personality and make it crystal clear who your products are for.
• Include a Call-To-Action, but keep things simple. Choose one main point to focus on, and be sure it’s one that is the most relevant and important to shoppers at the moment.

The announcement counts toward your Google SEO, so you want to make sure this stays fresh but also relevant to your shop. It never hurts to get an extra boost from Google!

Bring in outside traffic to your shop or listings… but not right away

Social media is important to help drive traffic and make more sales. So important that you should have a PLAN when you first open your shop about what platforms you want to promote your business with and how often you want to post. Notice I said “plan” and not to post 20 times on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and TikTok every day. You will burn out really quickly if you do too much too soon. Not to mention, sending traffic to a listing that might not convert will hurt your listing and shop performance score.

It is a good idea to develop a strategy and create accounts on all the platforms you eventually want to use, but don’t get carried away just yet by creating pins or stories. You are still growing your brand and audience at this point, so you don’t want to take away valuable time that could have been spent doing product research, creating new products, and updating your SEO.

Start with one or two platforms (like Pinterest and Instagram) and grow only when you feel like things are under control.

Avoid putting your shop on vacation

No one wants to lose potential sales by actually leaving their shop unattended, so conveniently you can put your shop in holiday mode.

This does, however, affect your Etsy performance score, and a non-active shop is not great. Etsy doesn’t know you are on a family vacation or visiting relatives. If you are not active in your shop, your score lowers and it will take a while to get back to normal.

To combat this, put a notice in the shop announcement area, extend your processing times, and add a message to buyers on Auto-Reply. This way, everyone knows you are out and what to expect and you can still make Etsy sales even on vacation!

Invest in yourself

First: if you ACTUALLY want to know what you’re doing, you should be taking courses. That’s right, paid courses. To keep it in perspective, so many businesses spend thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on marketing or to boost their websites and businesses. It is crucial to gain the right knowledge from people who have been there and done that because knowing what you’re doing is priceless.

As small business owners, we must never stop learning. The more you know, the more you (and your business) can do. The number and quality of online business courses keep growing. From binge-watching TED talks to online learning, if you’re an entrepreneur, you’ll find that there are so many places with content aimed at helping you achieve your business goals.

I have personally found that coaching groups work best for me. I get to meet with like-minded people and receive actionable advice that is way more personalized to my business and needs

Want to learn about the top mistakes you could be making in your Etsy shop? Check out this article where I discuss the most common mistakes people make and tips on how to fix them!

Looking for ways to save yourself time, money, and headaches on designing your own business branding or marketing materials? Check out our editable template shop – Trendy Fox Studio or visit us on Etsy.