if you want to find out what mistakes to
avoid at all costs when selling on etsy
then just keep watching
[Music]
[Applause]
welcome back to my channel friends if
you're new here i'm kate
i'm a wife mom etsy seller and business
coach and my goal on this channel is to
share with you guys what i've learned
in my past six years of selling on etsy
and the strategies that i've used to
bring my shop to six figures
so in addition to sharing tips on what
you should be doing on etsy it's
important that i let you in on
the things that you shouldn't be doing
so in today's video i'm gonna be sharing
the top four mistakes that i see
so many etsy sellers making and how you
can avoid them
but first let's take a quick moment for
our etsy shop shout out
congratulations to angered accents co
thanks for being a part of our channel
family
make sure to comment down below for a
chance for your etsy shop to be featured
on our next video
all right let's go ahead and dive into
the first of the four things that you
should never do on etsy number one is
never
put your shop in vacation mode if you've
never heard of it vacation mode on etsy
is something that you can turn on for
your etsy shop
when you're either on vacation or you
have an emergency come up and you need a
little break from the sales coming in
so what turning on vacation mode
actually means for your shop is that
you will no longer appear in the search
at all someone can find your shop if
they search for it specifically by its
name but if they're just searching for a
certain item
it won't appear in the search it won't
rank at all people will not be able to
add items to their cart even if they
find their way to your shop
because the add to cart section will be
grayed out therefore meaning that people
will no longer be able to
purchase anything from your shop as long
as it's on vacation mode
sometimes etsy sellers will turn on
vacation mode if they're feeling really
overwhelmed and they just need a break
or they want to stall their orders for a
little bit to catch up
it sounds like a good option right but
in reality
the problem comes in when you return and
you take your shop
off of vacation mode you'll realize that
your listings have been knocked
way down in search you may no longer be
ranking on the first or second page if
you were before
and actually i've heard many stories of
sellers whose shops pretty much
died they were brought to a point where
they were unrecoverable
so i would recommend that you think long
and hard before putting your shop on
vacation mode
the reason for this is because etsy
works off of momentum we've talked about
this a little bit in our previous videos
but the momentum of making continuous
and steady sales
is what boosts your listing's quality
score and helps you to rank higher in
search
being more easily found when people are
searching for your niche or your product
category
and every time you make another sale it
just boosts it again and again so you
want to have that ongoing momentum
and when you put your shop in vacation
mode it completely halts that
completely stalls it so that when you
come back your momentum is gone and it's
like starting all over
so this is the reason that we've
actually never put either of our shops
on vacation mode and
hope to never have to and i would really
recommend that you only use the vacation
mode as a very last resort like
emergency situation
some things that you can do if you're
getting overwhelmed and you do feel like
you need a break
is to extend your processing time so
that you have a longer period of time to
space out filling your orders or to even
raise your prices a little bit that will
slow down your sales naturally and
you'll be making more profit for sale
okay the second thing that you should
never do on etsy is never focus on
quantity
over quality and what i'm talking about
here are listings now i want to address
some strategies that others have put out
that are very outdated and they're not
true but i hear people say them all the
time there's a strategy that says you
need to be
listing new items every single day you
need to be getting up into the hundreds
of listings for your shop
you need to be renewing every single
item every single day
and the people who are teaching these
strategies are claiming that by doing
all of this extra manual labor
every day that it will boost your
listings which just isn't true
and etsy has even said not to focus on
that now i'm not saying that having a
lot of listings is bad
i'm just saying that you should never
sacrifice the quality of your listings
for just trying to rush and create
all these listings just for the sake of
having quantity now here is a more
in-depth strategy that i really want you
to lean into and get right now
so listen to the logic of this etsy lets
you have drop down menus
for options when you have a listing so
what i suggest is if you have similar
listings with different options
a lot of people would say well let's say
you have seven create seven different
listings so that you can have more
listings out there more chance to be
seen etc
but i would argue you should create one
listing and have all of those different
seven variations
in the drop down menu on the one listing
and the reason for this is that you'll
end up getting more sales
on that one listing therefore boosting
that listing's conversion score and
boosting it in the search that it's
found more easy it's on the first second
third page
and the more sales you make on it the
higher it ranks if you had put each
variation up as a separate listing and
you had
seven different listings then in essence
you're splitting the total sales
that item could make between seven
different listings and each one
has a lower total of sales not
optimizing the opportunity of having
all the sales focused on one listing to
really boost
that one listing so to give you an
example of this if i
offered a bracelet in red white black
and blue i wouldn't need to do a
separate listing like one for the red
bracelet one for the black bracelet one
for the blue bracelet etc
i would just do one listing for that
bracelet and have all of those color
options listed
in the drop down menu therefore all the
sales no matter who's buying a red one
who's buying a black one
who's buying a blue one they would all
purchase through that listing
now don't get me wrong you do need a
healthy amount to start but i would
suggest to start off your shop
shoot for 12 to 15 listings and then
grow
as you go making sure that every listing
you put up is a quality listing and has
good photography
you take the time to research seo and
what it should be titled
that's what makes it really good quality
and then as you go you can build up to
40 or 50 listings you don't need
hundreds upon hundreds of listings in
your shop okay friends we're about to
dive into mistakes number three and four
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alright the third thing to never do on
etsy is never
price your items too low now i have two
main reasons that i recommend this the
first one and most important one is
burnout there have been so many etsy
sellers that price their items too low
because they just want to make some
sales and then once they start making
the sales they're working themselves to
death to try to fill the orders and
they're not even making that much profit
and that is a quick way that leads to
burnout that's not a sustainable way to
run your business
and it's not a long-term plan because
you're gonna get too tired you're gonna
get worn out at some point
if you raise your prices a little bit
yes you may get less sales but think
about it you'll be making more profit
per sale and the second reason i
recommend this is because
buyers subconsciously connect price with
quality
so think about it when you're a buyer
you probably don't even know that you do
this but most buyers assume
that a low priced item means poor
quality and a high priced item means
good quality most buyers want a good
quality item for a reasonable price so
they end up
landing somewhere in the middle they
usually don't buy the highest price or
the lowest priced item in that category
you want to try to find that sweet spot
in your pricing where people feel
comfortable that your item is of good
quality
but it's also not just way pricey so
that nobody can afford it
also raising your prices leaves room for
you to offer discounts which will drive
traffic
and promote sales and last but not least
the fourth thing that you should never
do on
etsy is never start halfway you need to
give yourself the time you need to start
well
this doesn't mean that everything has to
be perfect before you launch your shop
it just means that you're taking the
time you need to research and prepare
well before you start
if you want to make a substantial income
from your etsy shop you can't go into it
thinking it's just a hobby or it's just
something you're going to do for fun you
have to think of it as a business and
it's going to require some focused
effort
one thing you definitely need to take
time to do is to research what sells
before you choose what your product type
is
and then once you choose what product
you're selling research
and hone in on your process to ensure
that you can make that product in a
consistent and efficient way
so you know for sure that it's
streamlined and you can send out a
quality product each and every time
another thing to think about is that you
don't want to just go for the easy
product you want to choose something
that's a little harder to make that
requires some skill because that means
that there'll be less competition
and not everybody and their brothers
would be on etsy selling the same thing
this means that you may have to watch
some tutorials you may have to pay for
some classes you may have to talk to
some people
who've done it you may have to take some
time to learn a new skill and develop it
and fine-tune the process of making it
but trust me if you invest the effort
that it takes in the beginning to learn
the new skill
then you'll eventually be able to offer
a product that's in high demand with not
a lot of supply and that's the place
that you want to be in
you want to research and find out what
sells and then figure out how you can
make it and make it better than
any of the competition around you now
disclaimer here i'm not saying that you
should stop paying your mortgage or use
your grocery money
to invest in new equipment i'm not
saying any of that definitely focus on
the things that are needed in your life
and of top priority
but any surplus you have whether it be
financial effort
time you name it it's great to invest
the extra of what you have
into making this a full-time business
when we opened our second etsy shop last
year
we took a lot of time to learn a brand
new skill and to fine tune it we had to
buy the equipment first
then we had to watch so many tutorials
on how to actually do this and how to
run the equipment and then we had to
fine-tune the process
we had to work out the mistakes we were
making and figure out how we could make
this
consistently every single time and it
took a while to get to the point where
we felt comfortable listing it and
launching it but once we did
we felt really confident that we had
done the research and the preparation
needed so
it's better to wait a month or two if
you're in that process of fine-tuning
rather than just to rush and try to get
a bunch of listings up in the beginning
so there you have it friends those are
the four mistakes to avoid when selling
on etsy now
if you would like some more etsy
strategy and tips you can click or tap
the screen anywhere right now and it'll
lead you to our etsy playlist
and i do want to remind you guys we're
starting live q a sessions soon so the
first one is this saturday
january 16th at 11 a.m eastern time
right here on our channel so don't miss
it
bye