Top 3 Things to do Now to skyrocket your SHop success on etsy
Over a two-year period, I learned so much from my two failed Etsy shops.
After reaching success in my third Etsy shop, I realized I was successful in that shop because I finally changed my approach.
I started looking at the clues and realized what I was doing was not working. And I needed to pivot.
Looking back, these are the top 3 things I did that made all the difference in my shop and has allowed my shop to have continued success.
#1 only create On-trend products
When I first started selling on Etsy, I would create things I wanted to create. I never cared to look at what was trending. I wanted my shops to be different than the others out there. But there was a problem with this.
No one cared about my designs. Hardly anyone wanted to buy. And not many people visited my shops.
Why? It’s simple…
My items were not in demand.
While you definitely need to create products that stand out from the crowd, the ideal way to do this is to create designs based on trends. Why?
Because that is what people want. I was right on that thinking my designs should be unique. But they needed to be unique….but in a trendy way.
That’s where the idea of combining trends comes in.
What you need to do is look at what is currently trending in the fashion world.
Research trends on:
- design elements (things like smiley faces, flowers, butterflies, etc)
- colors
- fonts (what kind of fonts are being used, how are the fonts being arranged on garments such as the popular wavey font style)
- design placements (ex: back prints, left chest print, or all-over print)
- type of garments (like hoodies, crewnecks, boyfriend tees, etc.)
From there see how you can combine different aspects of the trends together to come up with a unique design.
For example, as I write this post the elements and designs in the picture below are waaay on-trend. If you were going to create a design say for the dog niche how could you incorporate at least 2-3 of these trends in your design?
Trend combining is where the magic happens.
Use your imagination. This is where you can create amazing designs that are one of a kind that your customers cannot find elsewhere. Designs they will be obsessed with and have to buy because they love them so much.
#2 create designs for what people are currently searching for
This kinda relates to #1 above.
NEVER create designs without doing your research first to see what people are currently searching to buy. What are the keywords they are searching for?
If you don’t do this, you might waste your time. If you create a trending design for something people are not interested in then that’s not going to bring you sales.
For example, maybe you create a trendy design for something random like a tuna fish…I dunno on this one, but from the way Google trends looks, it doesn’t look too appealing.
You’re much more likely to get sales from things people are typing into Etsy search. Things they are actually wanting to spend their cash on.
This is an example of what happens when you type in keywords in the Etsy search bar.
Results will auto-populate. This means that people are searching on Etsy using these exact terms.
While this does give you insight into what potential buyers are wanting, it’s only a tiny sliver of the puzzle.
There are also other avenues you can look at to see what people are searching in general.
Google Trends Google trends allows you to search interests and find helpful data like interest over time, and interest by location, what inquiries are trending, and other related topics.
Pinterest Trends This is one of my fav places to look for what people are searching for. They show you surging trends for each week in a variety of categories including fashion. This can give you some big insights in what is currently popular and what trends are up-and-coming.
Google Keyword Planner Google Keyword Planner can help you discover more ideas for keywords people might be searching for.
Erank Erank has a huge range of tools within the program. For my business, I only use a few of the resources found inside of it and it has been a goldmine for my print-on-demand shop.
Erank is the main tool I use to search for what people are currently hunting for on Etsy. It will tell you how many people are searching for a specific keyword phrase and it will show you how many other Etsy sellers are using the same keyword. Erank makes it easy to see which keywords have too much competition, have search volume that might not be worth designing for, and keywords that are just the right competition to design for. When you use Erank in a specific way as long as your designs are what people are looking for, you will have a great chance of making sales in your shop.
#3 Stay consistent
Whatever you do, never stop creating and make a habit of being consistent as a seller on Etsy. In my old shops, I never did this, and sometimes I wouldn’t log in to my accounts for weeks at a time and sometimes when I logged in I would find that I actually made a sale…. But then it was already past the date it was to be shipped out. Not good for the customer…or my Etsy account. :-/
Etsy loves sellers who are active on their platform. So every day you want to show some sort of daily activity.
Do daily updates in your shop
- Every day I rearrange a few items around in my shop to change things up a bit (kinda like stirring a soup, getting things refreshed)
- Make sure to answer any messages in your inbox
- Follow up with customers who just received their orders to make sure all is good and ask for a review
- Renew a listing if you want
Create new listings often
Always bring fresh products and designs to your shop.
I recommend creating at least 2 new listings per week. Before you freak out this doesn’t mean you have to come up with brand new designs every week (scared you huh!?) You can leverage your current designs.
to leverage new listings you can:
- take an existing design you have on a t-shirt and put it on a tote bag or another product of your choice
- create a variation of a current design (maybe change colors or elements out)
- take an existing design and try out different placements on a crewneck (for example do a back print)
The more consistent you are, the more momentum this is going to build up for your shop, I’m picturing an image of making snowballs here. 🙂
Never give up
I wanted to have my own clothing line for sooo long. And I tried so hard in my first two failed Etsy shops.
I was so excited for my dream to become a reality. I would lie awake at night dreaming about all of the possibilities that owning my own shop could create. And also how fun it would be.
However, I lived in a world of duality for much of the time.
I’d watch many successful clothing shops I followed online and see them crushing it and I knew that if they could do it, that meant I could too.
But it was like getting slapped in the face when I would log into my shop accounts and see no sales 99% of the time. I wondered if the whole clothing company thing wasn’t what I should be doing. I knew I was missing something.
But I became resilient. I stuck it out. I decided to learned all I could about building a successful online clothing store. I invested a lot of money in courses and coaching. And it payed off.
Sooo many times I wanted to quit. But didn’t.
I changed the way I was doing things…but never changed the dream.
My Shop Must Haves
