Hi there!
I want to share a story with you. The story of how I got my first Etsy sale in 24 hours since the moment I launched my Etsy Shop. But first, let me tell you how I failed two other times in the past to make a single sale on Etsy.
What did I do wrong?
Everything! When I first joined Etsy back in 2008, I was working full time in an advertising agency, spending the rest of my day as a striving freelancer. Trying to find an additional source of revenue, I thought it was a good idea to devote my weekends selling on Etsy, which only supported physical products at the time. I thought I had figured everything out in regards to the selling process, such as credit card charges, shipping costs, safe packaging, even a thank you card packed with the product.
So I decided to sell an original illustration to test the waters out and added just a single listing of my illustration with one photo and a two sentence description. Of course, I didn’t have the time to promote it and my listing expired before the internet discovered my well-hidden product. Deciding that this was a clear message, I left it to that.
My second try was a couple years later when Etsy had just started to support digital products. Back then, you actually had to manually send a download link to the customer, after each purchase. And for another time I thought I had figured everything out creating and selling digital cards, I had uploaded my files to the cloud, I made my files accessible and printer friendly to everyone with PDF formats, and so I added my single listing and waited for the miracle to happen. For a second time, my listing expired before anyone knew about it.
Third time’s a charm! How I got my first Etsy sale in 24 hours
Third time’s a charm, they say and they have right. I was flirting with the idea of selling my fonts and vector graphics on Etsy for quite a long time, but I was quite reluctant due to my previous failed attempts. The time was right, Etsy now supports instant download of digital products and many Etsy shops are thriving selling just digital products. Thus, a couple weeks ago (and after some more thorough preparation) I made a proper launch of my store, created some promo codes, I posted on Instagram some promotional graphics and in less than 24 hours, ka-ching I had nailed my first sale on Etsy.
How did I do it? Let’s get to the point and get practical.
” Treat your Etsy shop as a business, not a hobby. How I got my first Etsy sale in less than 24h”
Tips and tricks on how I got my first Etsy sale in 24 hours
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Treat your Etsy shop as a business, not a hobby
You need to invest time and effort on your Etsy Shop. An Etsy Shop is not that different than a physical store. If you don’t work enough it won’t run properly. Work hard and be dedicated to your Etsy Dream and all your hard work will pay off eventually. That’s why I worked hard on my shop launch, planned it to the detail and it paid off 24 hours later.
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Join a community
Join a community about your craft, or a group for Etsians like you and be nice and helpful to them. Share your knowledge and be open minded to new ideas. Don’t copy other people work, be inspired by them. There are a lot of selling groups on Facebook that you can list your Etsy products and gain some exposure.
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Create well-crafted products, physicals or digitals
Take your time to make quality products, learn your craft and don’t stop educating yourself about it. A well-crafted mainstream product can sell better than a bad-crafted innovative product. For digital products, try to make them accessible to all operating systems and provide easy guidance on how to use them. For vector graphics take the extra mile and provide several file formats, such as SVG, PNG or PDF for easy usability. Remember that you’re trying to make your customer’s life (and work as many will buy your files for commercial use) easier.
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Upload a cover photo that matches your brand. Don’t forget to upload a nice photograph of you too.
Make your shop look professional and neat and upload a nice cover photo that reflects your brand. If possible, arrange a mini photo shoot for yourself too and take a professional looking photograph. Uploading a profile photo can increase your credibility. Think how you would react as a customer if you visited your shop.
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Photograph your product perfectly. Make nice, alluring graphics for your digital products
Etsy is a huge marketplace. In order to stand out from the crowd, your photography should be close to perfection. Use natural lighting or a lightbox for physicals products. Make sure that the lighting is not altering the colours of your product and don’t use filters on your photographs. If you are making digital products, use mockups and create some examples of how the product could be used. Clients are curious about what they could do with your product, so provide them with different practical applications of your aesthetic.
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SEO is Everything!
Educate yourself on SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), this is perhaps the most important thing you have to do. If you want your Etsy Shop to be found by potential clients, take a minute to fully fill out your profile, your titles and product descriptions and use plenty of tags. There many ways to find the best matching tags (let me know in the comments if you would be interested in expanding this in another post!). Don’t forget to fill out your shop title and announcement. Not only your shop will be more professional looking but this is a good SEO move too.
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Add enough listings so your store doesn’t look empty
The one thing I learned from my past mistakes is that no one will buy from that lonely shop with the one listing. The potential customer would not take you seriously. The best tactic is to add at first at least 10-20 listings (depending on your products) and then add new products frequently as your shop grows. For my third Etsy attempt, I added 8 listings for my shop launch and I keep adding every week a fresh product.
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Make some coupon codes
Etsy has an excellent tool for creating discount coupon codes for your shop and you should use it. Great deals rarely go unnoticed. Coupon codes can be a great way for fresh shops to get noticed without even having any reviews yet. So grab the opportunity to make a nice discount, such as 50% off everything for your launching day and clients will surely love it! This tool is super customizable. Choose the name of the code so it can match your branding needs. See an example below where I used “NANTIACO“:
Use your announcement space to promote your coupons It might be difficult to do large discounts on physical products, but you can also even give away free shipping.
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…and promote!
Find your social media network(s) that matches your personality and promote your listings. Everyone has their niche and their audience, so there is no wrong or right in this part. I personally posted on Instagram my promo coupon code and the feedback was positive!
Etsy has evolved dramatically over the last few years. A new shop can get plenty of exposure, and shop owners have many options to better manage and promote their products. Hopefully, this gave you some fresh ideas and you learned something new! Let me know if you succeed in getting a first Etsy sale in 24 hours! Have a creative day,
– Nantia
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