hey everyone how's it going i just want
to show you this lens and talk real
quickly about how i didn't really have
to pay for this out of the pocket i
bought this lens based on the funds that
came in from my etsy shop last year and
in this video i want to help you start
to do the same thing here's something
really important i want to say is this
is not a get rich quick scheme this is
not one of those like make ten thousand
dollars a month on etsy and quit your
day job and go and sell prints online
none of that like that's possible and
i've you know seen people do that kind
of stuff this is more about
somebody like me somebody like you who
has 10 000
20 40 50 100 000 images sitting on their
computer and they're asking themselves
well what can i do with this one of the
things you could do is sell your stuff
on etsy and that's what this is about
using your images that you already have
putting them someplace that people could
actually buy them from and then using
those funds to buy a lens maybe buy a
new camera
pay for pay for gas which is really
important right now all these things are
possible especially if you set your
expectations to the point where you can
make maybe a thousand a couple thousand
dollars a year selling your prints and
with minimum effort let's real quickly
take a look at my stats from last year
so i can show you what i'm talking about
this is how i got my 33 1.4 one of my
favorite new fuji lenses uh this is the
last year's sales on etsy and i got this
with only 30 orders so you can see my
revenue was two thousand and twenty one
dollars
and uh i got this from 9 000 views and 4
500 visits
and
that's not too bad right if you look at
those orders i only sold 30 things but i
got two thousand dollars and i'm serious
i'm not exaggerating when i say i put 10
to 20 minutes a month on etsy and some
months like zero minutes
no joke i don't think i ever probably
spent more than 30 minutes a month on
etsy so to be able to put that aside and
get that money and kind of put it in my
bank account under my etsy money and
then buy a lens it's pretty rewarding
and pretty cool and something that's
very very possible like i said before
this is not a get rich quick scheme this
is something that i did and therefore
you can do
so this is possible i'm gonna assume
that you've already set up your store if
you haven't done that you can go do that
now or you can take a couple notes
whatever you want to do but i'm gonna go
through a list of things that i
recommend that new etsy shop owners
think about or start doing
and i hope you do the same thing so the
first thing to think about is who is
your audience
and when i say that this is like
basically marketing kind of 101
think about a person sitting at a desk
or sitting on their cell phone also very
likely
and they're typing something in to the
search engine on etsy to find something
to purchase one of the cool things about
etsy is that people go there to buy
stuff right they they're like i want to
buy something for this person or for
myself or for a room in the house
and i'm going to go to etsy and see what
i can find that's unique that i can't
find at target someplace else
and i'm going to type something in
who is that person for you
right is it a man or a woman what age
are they think about all those different
things that that person might be so then
when you're creating your shop when
you're creating your appearance and your
listings and the language you're using
you're speaking
to that person that is important and
that's something that i'm still
getting used to and still trying to
define as i go
i see that most of the most successful
shops on etsy
seem to have a very very strict idea of
who they're selling to and so their
language the way everything looks it's
basically selling to that person so
that's a really good thing to think
about is who is your audience what are
you trying to who are you trying to
reach exactly
and be thinking about that person
when you're creating everything that
you're going to do in your shop another
thing to do is research the competition
don't copy them copying does not help
anyone it doesn't help them it
definitely does not help you you're
going to be a shadow of their store if
you're just copying somebody else you
have to be your own person your own
photography
but doing some research will help you
start to get used to etsy so when you
start searching for some of the items
that you want to maybe also sell some of
the ideas for photos that you want to
put out there see what kind of shops
come up and what you'll be looking for a
little bit is you'll be looking at for
instance their reviews and you'll be
looking for how many sales they have and
then from there extrapolating what kind
of items are popular in that shop all
right so this is my shop this is how it
looks right now i just changed my shop
appearance i'm trying to reach like a
person that's maybe
trying to put some items into a
farmhouse like a modern farmhouse type
environment
so i've changed things up a little bit
to kind of maybe reflect that just a
touch
and when you scroll down you'll see
everything i'm selling my featured items
all the stuff in my store you'll see i
have 89 total sales
and admirers those are my shop sections
none of this stuff totally tells us too
much just because someone has a bunch or
a little amount of items in their shop
doesn't necessarily indicate i think by
them by itself that much
just as a quick side note i know that
through research most of the successful
shops have many many items hundreds
sometimes like 7 800 items on their
shops although that's not totally
necessary for everyone but if you look
down and you keep scrolling you'll see
my reviews and reviews are really
important because those are the people
that took the time to sit down after
they bought something and actually
puts you know a review in and it's also
a way that you could see what's selling
and how that person may be selling and
for me
looking at my stats and looking at
something like this
i'm selling to people who are looking
for location specific stuff so here's
something from kansas and when i start
looking at the rest of my listings a
nebraska sky
nebraska nebraska
and that one's just an odd one
but again nebraska
uh nebraska landscape
nebraska again so awesome nebraska house
campus you could see that my theme what
i'm selling what people are buying for
me is nebraska themed stuff and if you
apply this concept and you're looking at
what other people are doing you'll see
that
some trends like that do you see what's
selling on their shops so you can start
to get an idea of how to sell what you
have so for instance there's this one
etsy store that i look at and i really
enjoy her work she sells a ton of
bathroom art so her
entire shop is not based on locations
her entire shop is based on people who
are sitting at a computer
searching for items to put in their
bathroom or their kitchen or their
bedroom and she's specifically making
listings to reach that person while my
shop it historically has been to try to
reach people who are looking for
nebraska or kansas or something like
that so after you've done a little bit
of research and thought about your
audience you might want to think about
putting your appearance together so we
already looked at that a little bit but
i'll go here this is the behind the
scenes the shop manager if we go here to
sales channels i click on my shop this
is where we could change the appearance
of the shop so i can actually edit my
shop i can change my banner up here i
can change my little profile or
my shop icon right here
and i could also choose what items i
want to put my featured items before we
move on a really great resource is canva
and if you go to canvas c-a-n-v-a
most of what can the offers is free
which is amazing and it allows you to
create stuff like i did up here on my my
shop icon so
or on my shop my storefront so if you go
to canva you could actually go to create
a design and you could just search for
etsy
shop cover and click on that and then
right there you have that shop cover
already ready to go from there you can
go to elements for instance and you can
look for a frame
and frame mock-up bedroom
i can drag this over here
and i can put a frame right there
this is uh
something that's pretty easy to do
and then i could take a couple my
uploads
and let's say i'll put that boot in here
move that around and then if i was going
to take more time i could fit that
exactly into that frame i could zoom in
and all that stuff you could take the
time to go do that yourself but that's
basically a really easy way to be able
to make these kind of high quality
banners
um that you see on my etsy shop right
there and to be able to go and edit them
so if you look at my
things that i already have set up i
actually have a whole bunch of stuff set
up and if i click on it this is like a
shop listing i can just drag stuff right
there and it's really easy because the
canva and then i just click share and
download so that's a really quick and
easy way that you could actually create
graphics without spending time in
photoshop or indesign or illustrator or
anything else like that the point is is
to get in there and make something
imagining
your audience looking at your shop are
they gonna have what kind of a feeling
when they see it and hopefully somebody
who's looking at my shop is gonna be
like oh okay so they have a house that's
kind of
minimal like me right some some white
beige walls and all that
and they have country landscape
photography rustic rural farmhouse type
stuff that i might want to buy to put in
my house because this person is speaking
directly to me hopefully that's the
point i'm getting at now
am i succeeding i mean medium but i know
that my shop is not selling nearly as
much as i would like it to so i still
have work to do and i'll get there and
also keep sharing my journey in etsy as
time goes on so i'll be updating the
series um throughout the months another
thing to set up is your shop policies
and for instance like do you accept
returns to go to there we're going to go
back we're going to go into settings
and then policy settings and we're
already here so
my shop policy is fairly simple if
something's not right tell me and i'll
make it right and i've done that before
do you accept exchanges returns contact
me within a certain amount of time these
are things that you could fall back on
if somebody has some kind of issue or
problem with your stuff throughout my 90
sales or so on etsy i've only maybe
encountered
two problems and i've gotten both
figured out really quickly really easily
and without any kind of negative reviews
um and part of it is due to my clear
shop expectations so when somebody wants
to exchange something or return
something
we can refer to these policies but
generally like if i if somebody has a
problem with something i just do
whatever i can to make it right as long
as i'm not out hundreds of dollars so
now that you've got your policies taken
care of and you have an appearance for
your shop that's
speaking to the person that you're
looking at selling stuff to we need to
actually create some listings and at
first creating listing listings can be
an absolute time suck and i will admit
that up front it takes a little bit of
time but i'm going to show you a couple
tips on how you can do it a little bit
quicker after we go through some of the
important things about listings on etsy
so i'm going to go over here to my
listings
and you'll see
a screen that looks like here
i have all my listings here i can go and
edit them i can make them a favorite so
it shows up in my favorite
spots and all that stuff but basically
what you're going to do you're going to
click add a listing and this is for when
you first do it when we add a listing
you can put your photos in there so
i i recommend and most people recommend
that you not put it
only put a photo of the
object or the print that you're selling
but you also put mock-ups in there if
you're selling photography um or like if
you're gonna put your diabetes on a
coffee mug show the coffee mug in an
environment that's pleasing and that's
directed towards your audience
etsy
newer thing as they have videos so if
you have a video of your product in some
way i just have like a video a slideshow
of some of my images that i put in there
people
according to etsy they are loving the
listening video so
consider that although for the most of
my listings most of the money that i
made last year
it was hit or miss and whether the you
know the listing had a video or not
titles are very important so we're going
to click right here on title and titles
are
something that
of course the people see first they see
your picture you know your thumbnail and
then they see your title now one of the
things that i'm going to recommend that
you do is you go to
the etsy seller handbook and you read
the whole thing the etsy seller handbook
is really good information to get you
started on etsy you have to remember
etsy wants you to sell things they make
money when you sell stuff right so they
want you to sell
hundreds of thousands of dollars worth
of stuff if possible right they just
they want to help you in that etsy
seller handbook they really do tell
you and tell me tell everybody
what the best practices are for you to
get in there and actually start selling
one of the things that they're saying is
to put some keywords and keywords are
important to remember because keywords
is
the way that you're telling etsy what
you're selling so then they could serve
that up to people who are searching for
what you are
putting out there
so your title should include some
keywords if you do some research on etsy
you'll see some people just listing a
whole bunch of keywords in their titles
and etsy's
trying to tell people not to do that
they're saying to put some keywords into
the title so people know what your stuff
is
but but create your listing for a human
not a computer so instead of just saying
landscape photo wall art
nebraska and just a list of keywords say
nebraska landscape photo for bathrooms
or something like that
um which is kind of weird i don't know
if i put a nebraska landscape photo in
my bathroom but you get the gist as the
title it has some keywords in there but
it also speaks really quickly to an
audience member who's sitting down and
they're looking at your shop who made it
you put you know you did what is it a
finished product
you're selling something that you're
gonna print
um so it's a finished product that
you've already edited in a lot of stuff
um when did you make it and i just put
made order unless you have prints that
you already have a big stack of and you
can up to you put
what date you actually made those prints
the category you could go ahead and put
in photography for instance so if we put
in photography
um digital prints wall decor black and
white photography there's different
options you could press those all help
people understand what your item is and
serves it up to them uh
your renewal options it'll list every
time it expires for 20 cents it's not
super expensive and then your
description is fairly important as well
just recently
etsy made an update to their seo and
description actually matters a little
bit now so the first couple lines of
your description should have some
keywords and again you're not talking to
a computer you're talking to an audience
but put in your important keywords so if
i'm going after nebraska people who are
looking for nebraska gifts or to put
nebraska items in their house
i'll make sure to incorporate nebraska
into the title or into the description
i'm sorry
and then i usually put in a bunch of
other information if we go to
let's go to my listings and check it out
real quick i put my paper options in
there and i explain what they are
i make sure to tell people that framing
is not included because even though my
mockups have frames in them i'm trying
to show people sometimes what they would
look like in a frame i don't generally
include framing in my options some
people do some people don't
um i tell people to zoom into the art to
make sure that it's gonna look good so
they're not surprised by how something
looks
and a little bit about me about my
shipping
and i put in there an art sku so i know
what file that is so i could easily and
quickly
uh find it
after that i
if you are using somebody else like a
production partner so for instance if
you're using drop shipping so that drop
shipping is if somebody orders something
from you and you send a file to like
printful as one of the drop shippers
printful will send it to the person
or for instance for me most of my prints
i use a local printer that i work with
in town and so i work with him to get
really amazing quality prints and i'll
just make sure i check that i'm using a
local professional printer
and
the section you can put your shop into
sections so if you're reaching somebody
who's looking for different items in
their house like bathroom
kitchen
you know whatever living room kid's room
you might put that kind of stuff in
there or if you're going with different
categories like i am right now i have
landscape car and truck roll barns and
buildings i'll probably be changing this
soon to go more with like rooms of
people's houses but for right now that's
how i have mine set up and according to
the seller handbook this actually helps
people to find your stuff as well
the tags are extremely important the
tags are etsy's main way
of telling people what your stuff is
it's important to when you're doing your
research to kind of understand what tags
how you can find out what tags are so we
go to etsy
and we click on an item i'll just click
on this one
and we scroll down you can see their
title has some keywords
and if we scroll down to the very bottom
right here in this section
those are their tags so you can kind of
see what other people are using so this
person is using large canvas western
decor
barn photo print see how they're
changing their words up a little bit
to try to reach
that audience that are looking for those
items so that is the best way that you
could
get people to know what your stuff is
your tags you only have like 20
characters i think per tag and you don't
want to always according to the seller
handbook repeat your words over and over
again so
it's not good to just put in wall decor
five or six times you could put wall
decor in there one time and then maybe
home wall art on another one and then
etsy will combine some of those search
terms so if one of mine is nebraska wall
art and then another one is landscape
photography if somebody's looking for
nebraska landscape photography both of
those items have a chance to be seen and
remember if you're just doing this to
one item it's hard in the sea of
millions of items that are on etsy to be
found and that's why a lot of people say
that you should have hundreds of items
in your store
not all on the same keyboard but you
know a little bit of a variety so then
your stuff has a chance to be found a
little bit more than just somebody who
has a few items or maybe they're using
only the same keywords over and over
again so use your tags per item make
them
exactly what they are and get them in
front of people you have to remember
that if your tags are deceptive if
you're trying to just rip off somebody
else's tags because you see it selling
well
and etsy notices that people are looking
at your stuff but they're not buying or
they're not clicking that means that
you're using the wrong tags your stuff
should speak specifically to that item
that specific item that you're trying to
sell
materials also show up in
the etsy algorithm
make sure to put any kind of materials
so for instance textured paper canvas
those kind of things
price is tough
price is the big one i i'm not going to
go over price a lot i've tried different
price points and i think the the entire
thing is i've seen people be successful
selling stuff for hundreds if not
thousands of dollars and they're selling
a very small amount but they're making a
decent amount of money because their
prices are higher
and i've also seen people sell
literally thousands and thousands of
items at a lower price point and that
person's probably a little bit busier
trying to get stuff shipped out the door
than the person selling fewer items so
it's up to you on what you want to do
just remember that racing to the bottom
is not a great way to compete
the two thousand dollars that i made off
of etsy last year was on 30 orders which
if you really think about that not hard
to fulfill right that's worth the 10 to
20 30 minutes a month that i spent on
etsy that's where it came from is when
somebody bought stuff i just go ahead i
went ahead and
ordered the print to be sent to them and
that was most of my work but i was at a
little bit of a higher price point not
super high at all but just a touch
little a little bit higher than other
people so that was probably one of the
reasons i only sold 30 prints on etsy
last year
but that's up to you
we usually keep quantity at one if
something sells i renew it
for 20 cents and then the variations
exist if you click on variations you
could actually
make a variation for different sizes and
different papers and all that stuff i'll
show you for instance over here
um
my variations are
uh the size right here so 5x7 8x10 11x14
and then by paper type so lester
textured and canvas
and you can see my prices range from oh
geez
uh 23 for a 5x7 to 600 and something
dollars for a canvas
that's 48 by 72 and you can make those
things
so
let's see what else is there oh and then
you're shipping uh some people do free
shipping some people do a little bit i
my shipping usually cost me about ten
twelve dollars per item to ship and i
just kind of split that in half with the
people so mine's five dollars
pretty much no matter what
uh i just want to keep things simple
with shipping that's that's just me
as a cheat as a way that you can do all
this without having to do it all every
single time
is this so when you're in your shop and
you create your first listing and you
have it the way that you really really
want it to be
save it as a draft
and your draft then can be your future
template so i have this draft here and i
have 2022 and i'm going to click on here
and go to copy
now my copy is already re ready so the
video is in there some of the thumbnails
showing the different sizes are in there
i could just throw new thumbnails in
there
um and then i can create a new title
i can put in primary and secondary
colors if i want to
and then i'm gonna go into the listing
uh
and create a new beginning to the
listing because most of my items are
gonna have the same stuff later on
and
everything else
the types of papers i offer are that's
already input and then i just have to
put in the tags the listing and the
prices are going to stay the same for 99
of my items so that's a quicker way to
get in there and to be able to
easily make your listings without having
to start from scratch
every single time so now that you have
your etsy store up you have a specific
person that's
shopping for your items you're speaking
to them you have mock-ups that look like
what they're looking for you have all
that stuff going and you have some items
in your store the thing that you need to
do is start to tweak things a little bit
and start to pay attention to some of
the things that you should pay attention
to so for instance for me i go into my
etsy store quite often
and i'll just check out my stats
and so for instance for
last year if we look at those again
my conversion rate is pretty low
conversion rate is just for how many
people are looking at the item
and and kind of clicking on it versus
how many people buy so 0.7 is not great
i would like to be at like two percent
is a pretty good number from what i've
heard
if i could get there i'd probably double
or triple the amount of stuff that i was
selling now remember
i'm only putting 10 to 20 minutes a
month into this and for me to put that
minimum amount of time i'm okay and i'm
happy with the amount of money that i'm
making on etsy
i it would it would stand a reason that
if i put double triple quadruple the
amount of time into my etsy store
i would probably get much better results
and how i would do that is i would pay
really close attention to my statistics
and i would try to figure out how people
were
finding my shop in the first place and
then how to expand beyond that so we
already said earlier
my shop is found for nebraska items and
that's been true beyond a doubt so if i
go down to search my my items that are
selling more than anything else are all
nebraska items and
if i wanted to expand that reach
i could say all right well i want to
maybe start selling stuff from iowa or
kansas or south dakota you know wyoming
colorado some of the places that near me
that i go travel to that i have photos
for and start putting maybe 20 30 50
items from each of those places
out there on etsy and keywording those
appropriately and that's going to expand
my reach
it would also stand a reason that if i
was going to be a little bit smarter
about etsy i would probably think more
about because the amount of people who
are looking for nebraska items is
probably pretty small
um you could actually
go and find keywords there are some if
you just search for um something like
marmalade
marm
arma lead
um
it's it's a way that you can go in and
find what shoppers are looking for in
etsy an estimate it's like a 10 or 20
bucks a month and you could type in its
keyword for instance nebraska landscape
or something like that
and when i did subscribe to this you
know the number of people
looking for nebraska's landscape was
pretty small
so
if i wanted to change my shop up and
reach more buyers i think what up what
i'm going to be doing this year what i
want to do
is be more
conscious and more specific to what
people are buying to put in their
specific house so like i said a country
home a farmhouse a modern farmhouse
and they want to put something in a
bedroom for instance they might want a
nice beautiful calm and serene country
scene
that makes them feel like at home and at
ease and
and something that they want to go into
their bedroom with right and so
i think that in the future this year the
next six months of this year
my shop is going to be converted into
something like that so i'll have some
nebraska stuff in there i'll keep that
in there
but i'm going to expand and and try to
reach more people i also want to expand
and reach more people with extra large
art so i've seen that there's a little
bit of a niche where people are looking
for they have a big room they have a big
space they want something big to put on
their wall and i have some photos some
panoramas and some stitching and some
some newer stuff that would go well with
that really really big
and would look fantastic so that's
another
area that i'm looking to expand to get
more buyers and to get more people to
come to my shop
so for you
take the time to start to look at that
you could also think about doing etsy
ads you can do social media you can
create accounts for all that stuff and
help drive stuff to etsy to your shop
uh you could also open up your own shop
on your website just remember that
you're gonna have to do all the the the
traffic directly there and and and
that's a lot harder to do which is why i
stick mostly to etsy the last part i
want to talk about is reviews i think
reviews are important and i don't get as
many reviews as i need to and i actually
reached out to a couple etsy
people that have a lot of reviews i just
asked them hey how do you get so many
reviews and they were super kind and
they basically said that their packaging
is really really nice they put nice
packaging that's branded for them
and they also include inside like a
coupon for a repeat buyer and then they
ask in that coupon they asked
specifically hey could you please review
i'm a small shop i do this for my home i
print my own work i would it would help
me to get a review from you if you find
my stuff
great and most people say that that's a
big deal one of the
divers that um sells a high dollar stuff
said that they
put in a free like 5x5 print with
everything that's signed so people get a
more expensive print that they want to
put on their wall or put in a frame or
something like that and then they get
kind of like this cool little extra
print just a little something extra that
didn't cost the photographer that much
and that makes a little bit of a
difference and he said that he thinks
that that makes a that made a big
difference once he started doing that to
elicit reviews
so i hope this helps a little bit i
think this is just a getting starting
point that's all i wanted to make this
video for i could probably make a two
hour video delving into everything i've
learned off the last couple years
of etsy but i wanted to get you started
hopefully you find a way to actually
start to put some stuff in there
and get out there and start selling your
work
do something with the images you have
find the audience that appreciates your
work
and and allow them the opportunity to
make their home more beautiful or their
office more beautiful with your stuff
and make some money so hopefully you can
go buy
new lenses new equipment
and maybe even pay for gas which is
important right now so get started if
you have questions ask them below and
i'd love to be able to help you actually
get out there sell your work and find
more happiness with your photography