Selling on Etsy in 2023: Everything You Need To Know

When you are making a living selling products online, it helps to know the ins and outs of any platform that might be useful. While Poshmark, eBay and Mercari hold a near-monopoly, Etsy is not to be counted out as a strong contender for selling items you either produce or supply.

Here is why you should give Etsy attention, how to get the most out of your Etsy listings, and how to cross-list on Etsy saving you time and making you money!

What is Etsy?

Etsy is an online buy-sell platform where you can find a little bit of everything. Importantly though, the way it is presented makes you feel like you are entering a boutique marketplace. It is well known for vintage items, handcrafted goods, unique pieces, and gifts. Because of its niche and boutique presentation of items, products can sell for more money than they would on, say, Ebay.

Let’s say you are a reseller selling clothes that you bought elsewhere. The way you present a Thunderbirds T-Shirt on Etsy would be different to that of eBay to appeal to the audience. On eBay you may sell it as a fun geeky item. On Etsy it might carry more appeal as a vintage t-shirt. You reach a different audience and maximize your selling potential by showing the shirt on both.

Because Etsy is already an established marketplace, it already has more than 61 million people online buying its products. . If you are looking to find potential clients, it is not a platform to be ignored.

Getting Started With Etsy

It is a simple start up process to begin selling with Etsy, and it walks you through every step with easy navigation tools.

1. Sign up for an account with your email address or by linking your Google or Apple account.
2. Set up your shop preferences and name your shop. (Pro Tip: Type your potential shop name into the Etsy search bar first to see if anyone else has a shop with a similar name or the same name.)
3. Once you have chosen your shop name it will take you straight to your listings page. From here you can start the process of adding your listings into Etsy. More on that below.
4. Now you will be given a chance to fill in your payment details. This is where you will receive money from any sales made.
5. Does Etsy charge per listing? Yes. The Billing section is next and this will be how you pay for your selling bill. ($0.20 per listing/ £0.15 per listing). You get charged for every listing renewed and you get a 5% transaction fee and a processing fee of 3%.

Once all the above has been completed you will have a shop on Etsy. Congratulations!

Etsy Shop Pro Tips

Edit your shop.

Add a Backstory. Create a brand or a strong backstory and add it into your shop. It is important to think of your Etsy shop as a brand. This will enable you to think clearly about your shop and hold a cohesive theme with what you are selling

Choose what you sell with care.

With Etsy feeling more like a boutique online store, you will make a better impression with your customers if you keep your shop on theme. If you are selling clothing, it is not wise to suddenly start selling music. To diversify your offerings while maintaining your shop brand, consider opening multiple Etsy stores.

Shop owner profile

This is where you can introduce yourself. At the very least add a photo so people can understand that you are a person and not a company. People shop on Etsy for the smaller boutique stores, not mainstream corporations. You will want to present yourself as such to increase your store’s popularity with the clientélé.

How To Promote Listings on Etsy

When you are selling anything online, it is important to keep your online presence fresh. Allowing your shops or your listings to sit in a stagnant state is going to prevent you from maximising your sales. They will fall into the list of the forgotten, never gaining exposure, attention, or making money. There are a few ways to prevent this, and most of them pass through relisting or cross-listing your items  on Etsy – two very time intensive tasks that are simplified by automation software like PrimeLister.

Refresh your listings.

If a listing has been sat there for 30 days and not sold, take it down. It is time to renew the listing on Etsy. Take a look at it, maybe change a keyword or a photo. Re-list it. Now it is NEW and will be on a NEW list. Here it will gain fresh exposure. With PrimeLister, you can re-list or delist your items on Etsy and other platforms as frequently as you wish – and it's much easier than doing it through Etsy itself.

Share your listings.

Sharing your listings through Etsy or other online marketplaces also brings them back to life as people start viewing and clicking on them. Sharing to social media can also bring you some new customers.

Product Roundups.

This requires a bit of work. Pick 2 or 3 of your items. Find a seller on Etsy that has items that compliment them perfectly. Create a graphic with pictures of your items and the other items. You may have 10-12 items in total. For example: If you are selling clothes, pick out a top, some jeans and a jacket that you want to market. Visit other sellers to find bags, shoes, jewelry etc. Make a graphic with a number next to each item. Include links to the shops in the description of the graphic. Now post this on your social media and send it to the other shops you used. As it also benefits them, they too will post it on their social media platforms, increasing your exposure as well as their own.

If you want to get extra sneaky with this, you can link to your own shops on other platforms like Mercari and Poshmark. By cross-listing your Etsy inventory to these stores effortlessly with an Etsy cross-listing platform like PrimeLister, you can list on other stores easily and quickly. PrimeLister will synchronize your inventory between platforms and allow you to list and delist whichever products you like on whichever platforms you like, for a cohesive strategy. Cross-listing helps you gain more exposure with less market share cannibalization.

Mailing Lists and Newsletters

Use contests and giveaways to start creating a mailing list. Then use that mailing list to your benefit by sending out regular newsletters – though not too often, you don’t want to scare your customers off! This approach will enable you to market some of the pieces you are trying to sell.

How To Make A Good Etsy Listing

• Etsy recommends starting with at least 10 listings, but you only need 1 to open a shop. By cross-listing items from other platforms you already sell on, you can get set up on Etsy much faster. Simply use PrimeLister to import your inventory from platforms like eBay and Poshmark into your Etsy store, bulk!
• It is important to include quality photos. In order to make the listing you will need at least 1 photo. 1 of those photos will be the thumbnail that entices people to click on your product. Ensure you have a photo that fits into that thumbnail size and looks good, is eye catching, has been taken in good lighting and is of high quality. It’s the thumbnail and the title that are the two most important aspects to your Etsy listing. Cross-listing with PrimeLister means if your items are already on another store, you will not need to manually upload new photos, they will be readily synchronized and imported.
• Your title needs to include keywords. To find the right keywords you can use software like Jaaxy to see what people are searching for most commonly. Or you can search Etsy yourself and watch what people are looking for and buying. Keep an eye on the things that are trending to maximize your selling potential.
• Choose your category and subcategory. This will make it easier for clients to find your item.
• Description. Be honest and to the point. This is also another place you may want to include good keywords. To maximize the SEO for your Etsy store, don’t use the same descriptions you use on other platforms like Poshmark, Mercari and Facebook Marketplace. Instead, use a tool like PrimeLister to manage your listing descriptions from a central dashboard, making sure all is complementary.
• Break your shop into categories (Pro Tip). While there is nothing wrong with having all your items on one page, especially if you are only selling a few items, humans like to look. Having your items organised into categories makes the shopper more likely to browse other products in that category, giving you the chance to increase your sales.
• Tags are optional, and Etsy does not put a lot of focus on them. However, tags are being used more and more online and becoming more relevant. So, it may pay off to get ahead of the game and fill in your tags.

How To Create A Custom Listing

If you already have the shop and wish to add a listing, here is how.

1. Go to your Etsy shop manager.
2. Down the left-hand side of the page find the listings tab.
3. Click on add a listing.
4. You now have a blank template which you can fill in.
5. Follow the above directions, filling in all the boxes and ensuring your buyers know everything they need to know about the item.

To create custom order requests listings:

1. Go to your shop manager.
2. Go to settings down the left-hand side.
3. Tick the Enable custom orders box.
4. Hit Save.
5. If a custom request comes in, you can create a custom page just for them - use the build a custom order button in the message. Hit publish and the buyer will receive the order form to complete the purchase.

How to Edit Listings

Occasionally, you may need to get into a listing you have already completed to change some details. You might want to renew the listing, lower the price, add another keyword, remove keywords that are no longer flourishing or provide updated photos. Here’s how to edit a listing on Etsy.

1. Go to the shop manager.
2. Go to the listings.
3. Click into the item you wish to edit.
4. Edit the Item.
5. Update the listing.

How to Deactivate Listings

There are times you may wish to delete a listing. If you have been cross-listing on eBay and Etsy and sold a unique item on eBay, for example. This would require you to delete the item on Etsy so you don’t accidentally sell it twice.

1. Go to the shop manager.
2. Navigate to listings down the left-hand side of the page.
3. Click on the listing you wish to delete.
4. The delete button is at the top of the page, click on it to delete the listing.

Using a cross-listing software for Etsy like PrimeLister takes the hassle and risk out of cross-listing, allowing you to automate store management from a single dashboard and save time.

Cross Listing on Etsy

There is a way to do all of the above in a few easy steps if you have products on other platforms. A method called cross-listing.

Cross-listing allows you to place the same products on multiple platforms increasing your exposure and your chances of making sales. For example: If you have a list of items that are not selling on Etsy, you can cross-list to Mercari with a few easy clicks doubling your marketplace exposure. You can then repeat this to Poshmark or eBay. Your exposure and sales potential has now tripled.

This method doesn’t just work from Etsy either. If you are a seller on another platform who wants to try selling on Etsy, with a few clicks on PrimeLister you can copy your items from another platform into Etsy. While you may have to adjust title length and wording to suit the platform, this will save you a lot of time as the little details have already been copied and placed into the listing for you.

Here’s how to cross-list manually and with the help of PrimeLister.

Manual Cross-listing to and from Etsy

To cross from Etsy to another platform:

1. Open the item you wish to cross-list on Etsy.
2. Open the platform you wish to cross-list to and navigate to the add a listing section.
3. Copy across the vital details. Name, description, size, price, etc.
4. Re-upload your pictures to the new platform.
5. List the item.
6. Repeat for every item you wish to cross-list.

To cross-list from another platform to Etsy:

1. Open the platform that has your items.
2. Find the item you wish to cross-list and open it.
3. Go to shop manager inside Etsy.com.
4. Navigate to listings down the left-hand side and click add a listing.
5. Copy across all the little details. Name, description, size, price, etc.
6. Re-upload your pictures to Etsy.
7. List the item.
8. Repeat for every item you wish to cross-list.

Cross-listing With PrimeLister

To cross-list on Etsy using PrimeLister you will need to install the extension to your browser. This extension will allow you to cross-list multiple items from multiple platforms at the same time, saving you hours of work.

1. Install the PrimeLister extension. (TRY FOR FREE HERE)
2. Open the listings on Etsy. (Or if you are cross-listing to Etsy, open your source listing on your platform of choice. Poshmark, eBay, Mercari, Facebook Marketplace, Instagram or Depop).
3. Get started by importing your product list. To do this, select the listings you wish to import (by using the little tick boxes beside each listing) or use the bulk select option by clicking the checkbox at the top of your list.
4. Click on the PrimeLister Actions button found on the left of the listing search bar, then choose “import” from the drop down menu. The system will now import the listings.
5. Go to your PrimeLister inventory page.
6. Click on the item you wish to cross-list, click on the action’s dropdown then click cross-list, choose the platforms you wish to cross-list to and confirm.
7. This will open new tabs as it works. DO NOT CLOSE THEM.
8. Check the tabs to see if you need to make any changes - it’s unlikely. All of your descriptions and titles will have been copied to each - saving you precious time to use on growing your Etsy store.
   

To start cross-listing your items from any platform to Etsy within half an hour, try PrimeLister. Click the link below to start your new trial on PrimeLister.

https://primelister.com/free-trial

Contact us if you have any questions about the PrimeLister and if you would like to know more about how it could assist you.