The Realities Learned About Running An Etsy Business After 1,700 Sales

Posted by Handmade Spark on 5/23/10   |   Categorized as Etsy Tips,For Sellers

Share |

orange necklace


When I started designing metal furniture in 2004, I had no idea it would become my passion and my full time job.
Running your own business will open your eyes to a ton of things. Here are a few of the things I have learned in the past 3 years of selling on Etsy. Oh, and a few other bits of useful info!

*Your passion is your passion: I have learned that not everyone will like what you make. I have sold my metal online, in galleries, art shows, and even in my own brick and mortar shop. Let me tell you, not everyone gets what I do. I’ve had people walk up to me and ask “What is that?!” or “You are asking that price for that?”. It took me months before a gallery would take my work. But I pressed on and believed in what I was making.

*Etsy is not magic: Well, almost not magic! You need to wipe this from your mind: “If I open up a shop on Etsy the sales will start pouring in”. I must say that Etsy has changed my life and can certainly change yours, but there is no magic to Etsy, which means there is hard work that has to be done to achieve your goals.

*Hard Work: Ask my wife, family, and friends if I work hard. I have been non-stop for the past 3 years. I work long hours and don’t get enough sleep… but I love what I do and that makes all the difference in the world. I am my own boss and nothing can compare to that!

*Always Improving your Product: You need to, on a consistent basis, be improving in all aspects of your business. But as I mentioned in an earlier thread, Product is King :  You need to constantly improve your product! It comes first!

*Product Photography: Your pictures can make or break a sale. They are the first thing a buyer sees when they enter your shop. Improve….Improve…Improve!

Product Photography is Priority #1

*SEO is SOOOO important: As tough as it may be to understand, SEO is vital to being seen on Google. Grasping this concept and implementing it will have the greatest and most long-lasting effect on your shop.

Etsy SEO Guide

Etsy Titles

Pump up your Etsy SEO

*Social Media Marketing: Connecting with your buyers through social media should be high on your priority list. We are living in the social media age and harnessing the power of sites like Twitter, Facebook, and even blogs will help your Etsy business grow.   Social media is more than posting links for your stuff on a page where you hope the few people that follow or fan you will read and comment. You have to interact with the people that take the time to follow, friend or fan you. People do listen if you create conversations about topics that your fans are interested in. Make your social sites interesting for your fans by posting helpful info, articles, finds, links, photos…you name it. Just like everything else I have been saying … this takes time. NOTHING about social media is magical or instant, despite what others say.

Whether you are on the phone selling ad space or in a phone book, using an email list to sell programs, or using social media to market your Etsy shop, you have to build relationships.

Awesome post in the Etsy Storque about effectively using social media.

My entire Etsy story…with video!!

Here are few more realities covered by Lisa LeBlanc, a writer for Handmade Spark. She hit some pretty real topics that hit home for me!

*Sacrifice is one of those “make you” or “break you” things that I do not think independent business owners get enough credit for. Are you strong enough to turn off your cable to afford supplies for a craft show? Are you willing to explain to your daughter the family vacation has to be postponed? Are you willing to dip into your savings or 401K because you believe in what you are doing? All of these are real questions that either I or my vendors have asked…their answers have differed between yes and no based on what they could sacrifice and yes, their businesses were affected to a degree each time.

Business Realities Part One

*Start the ground rules early in your business; I need structure, so I have a defined workday. Sometimes I have to further define my time, i.e. e-mail/social media during this time…creating new inventory during that time, etc. The better habits you develop now the better off you will be when things really take off.

*Try to get a handle on paperwork early on; I am still totally deficient in this area of my life and it is a nightmare for my accountant and I during tax time. Recognizing that my time could be SO much better spent than sorting through piles of paper months later, I am vowing to get better with this…see, it is in black and white now, so I have to!

*Lastly, make sure your family understands that, though you are self-employed, you are working! This can be tricky but if you can better define your work period, let family and friends know that you would appreciate them contacting you before or after that time to catch up. I was getting constant interruptions and having a business open to the public, it was taking away time from my customers. I probably could have been more tactful with my loved ones at the time but I made it clear that my time is money that keeps my business (and dream) viable.

Business Realities Part Two

What realities have you come to while selling here on Etsy?

  • http://metalrocks.etsy.com Sharon D. – MetalRocks

    Fabulous information! With just a little over 700 sales myself-I can’t say anything came quick or easy! I am not a marketing genius nor have I ever wanted to SELL, SELL, SELL for a living. I wanted and still do, to make jewelry and have it help pay the mortgage. That is happening by following many of the ideas put forth in this article.

    I’d say define what aspects you are good at and the ones that are challenging. Structure the challenging one so they don’t become ALL you think about and therefore you never have time AWAY from your business.

    Remember it’s one foot in front of the other and taking action is better than pondering an issue for long periods of time. If something doesn’t work, change it-it’s better to move forward than keep repeating the same thing over and over again.

    Dedication is a good thing – but self-care is essential. Know the difference and make balance your goal.

  • http://www.allybu.com Ally

    Thanks so much for sharing this info and giving links to more detail! My shop is only a little over a year old but I think all your observations are spot on. It definitely has taken sacrifices to get this business up and running and there is no way I could have done it without the support of my husband!

    Congrats to you on 1700 sales and I look forward to following you on handmade spark!

  • http://smellyrhino.etsy.com Rebecca Salcedo

    Once again, great information! Thank you so much. I do have a burning issue that never seems to get answered and I find little help on the subject.. Maybe you can help, Tim! …it goes something like this…

    1) Etsy doesn’t seem to regard artists in the same way as crafters or vintage sellers. I rarely see them in the Etsy finds and seldom on the front page. The percentage of crafts/vintage vs. art shown in emails and on the front page has to be something like 95% vs 5% (art) !!!

    2) If photography is everything, How can you make a scan of a painting interesting? seriously.

    3) Art is the overlooked and undervalued subject. How can I find an audience or am I just wasting my time?

    Thanks, Rebecca

  • http://katdesignsnyc.etsy.com Kathy Lorenzo

    Congrats on your sales! I’ve been reading so much information in the past weeks and I’ve tried quite a few ways to get myself out there. I believe in a lot of what your saying in terms of branding and making lots of sacrifices in order to make this dream real. Although not all the tips have worked for me, I’m still gonna try all I can to make it!

  • http://wendyhumphreys.etsy.com wendy humphreys

    I am so proud of you and your results show how much energy you pour into your work.
    Thank you for sharing the information with us, it is truly a gift.
    I so need to follow ALL your advise.

  • http://www.etsy.com/shop/StargazerStudios Karen Shaw Suriner

    I really identify with your experiences with time management…I think drawing those boundaries is one of the toughest aspects of business for many independent artisans. Like you, I find that defining my time helps. I also find it helpful to eliminate as many distractions in my workspace as possible and to keep a list of non-work tasks that occur to me during work hours.

  • http://whatthecraft.com Alexis

    Excellent points… I wish more customers and people thinking about opening an Etsy shop and assuming it’ll be easy would consider these things!

  • http://www.lindabutterfly.etsy.com linda

    I am glad Etsy has now agreed to capping on FP exposure.
    Etsy as a business will obviously use on FP those shops who bring them most money. They did, and probably still do, have favorites though this capping is meant to eliminate that.
    To be shown 50 times in two years is vastly unfair to thousands upon thousands of excellent sellers, who have excellent photos and a strong branding. That is what Etsy want; they told me.
    Being on FP is not the be all and end all of it. I’ve been on FP and got sales but it is far more important to get your shop in multiple places and optimised for search engines. It’s a good plan to not use Twitter too much either for links because Google Caffeine sees a high bounce rate as negative, and Twitter can lead directly to a high bounce rate.
    I’ll give you that information free; as are all the tutorials on my blog, http://linda-considerations.blogspot.com/ which have helped many. You are free to copy/paste any of my tutorials to your own blog and you don’t need to link back to me either. This means I am not an entrepreneur but am basically far too soft hearted.
    In order to get your shop in multiple places you will find a small team works wonders. When a dozen sellers work together collaboratively, all promoting each other, you will be able to split the promoting; in any one day your shop could be promoted on a dozen different sites. I work in such a team and the support is good all round.

  • http://www.lindabutterfly.etsy.com linda

    SEO is not tough. Here is the first of 3 tutorials on SEO. It merely takes a little time. Use it, share it, get your shop ready and waiting for the spider.
    http://linda-considerations.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-to-understand-and-use-seo-1.html

  • Tim Adam

    The problem with your tutorial Linda is you are missing only half of the information. Yes the more searches the better, but you have to look at the amount of competing pages. The key phrase “altered art” may have 5,000 searches in a month, but the competing pages for this search is 1.5 million, making this key word not good. If you can make it on the first page of Google for “altered art” that would be awesome, but with that many competing pages it is highly unlikely. SEO is tough and takes a good understanding of what Google wants. If SEO was easy we would all be on the first page of Google for every keyword we want. Google does this on purpose.

  • http://twitter.com/JLynnPro @JLynnPro

    Rebecca, there are sites like RedBubble.com and sites devoted strictly to fine art (I particularly like is http://fineartstudioonline.com/.) Perhaps you could seek them out and display your work there simultaneously?

    I'm not selling my paintings right now, but when I do, I most likely will not be putting them up on venues like Etsy/Artfire–at least not the originals. I really feel that the fine art market is very different from the handmade market. There is, of course, overlap, but overall, I think the markets are different.

    Hope this helps.

  • http://intensedebate.com/profiles/jacq1013 jacqm

    rebecca, can you come up with many ways to sell the same painting? can you add prints, notecards, bookmarks…all ways to use and re-use the initial painting investment..

    that would help get your images noticed more in other categories plus bring in more revenue because there could be many prints/cards made and sold per image.

    you can still sell the original, but in the meantime, all the other prints and cards and bookmarks-which have acted as promotions and ads for those originals-will have probably brought in more money than the price of the original itself.

    just a thought.

  • Patty

    As always, great advice and information to implement. Now if someone could just figure out how to add time in the day, then I might be able to get some of this done (LOL).

  • http://www.growingupjewish.com Ruth Shapiro

    I'm relatively new to Etsy, and sales are OK, figuring that I haven't spent a lot of time on it YET. I'm hungry for the ideas and advice to charge this baby up!

  • Anabolic Supplements

    Another great article about the realities of selling on Etsy – what works, and how much work it is!

  • http://www.katndrewcards.ca Drew

    Wonderful. It really does consume your days and your every thought. ETSY absolutely is not a magical solution and it is nice to hear that you agree that it needs a significant amount of effort to make it successful. In terms of realities, I’ve found that no matter how nice you think your shop looks or your descriptions are, you can always research and push to make them that much better. This includes photos. Also, the tough one, that having sales makes you seem more credible but, often times, to get sales you need to have sales – a catch 22.

    thanks for your post

blog comments powered by Disqus