A One-Woman Marketing Department

Running a shop on Etsy has it's fair chunk of upsides – namely access to a large audience and name recognition for the platform, but unfortunately the trade-off is some significant downsides, such as the inability to truly build your own brand within the platform, including such important aspects for e-commerce as re-marketing to previous customers. Luckily, with some hard work and careful planning, if selling on Etsy is the best track for your business, there are some ways you can build a customer list and re-market to those who have already shown their interest in you by making a purchase! The Do Not's: Let's start with these first, because they are important. Etsy is a community that has a list of rules for its buyers and sellers. Furthermore, Etsy has proven time and again that they are not shy to ban users (particularly sellers) who do not follow their rules. So here's a few things you cannot do: Do not send messages of solicitation to users. This would ...

Whether you are someone who is just getting started in the world of online sales or you are a seasoned veteran making many sales a week, you may feel yourself getting pulled in different directions for what you should be doing for your business. It can be a little confusing, especially if you consider yourself more of a crafter / maker than an online salesman. Etsy wants you to do their business on their marketplace, but companies like Shopify want you to migrate your shop over there and host a stand-alone site. They've been so successful at getting new sellers, that now Etsy even offers "Pattern", they're own version of allowing you to have a stand-alone shop. But all you want to do is grow your business and make sales, so what's the best way to accomplish that? Well I'm sorry to say that there's no one answer that fits every situation. You'll have to evaluate your business and goals for yourself, but what I am going to do for you is to...

Let's talk Etsy traffic. Etsy is obviously an excellent site for makers who don't have the time / knowledge or desire to create their own brand or stand-alone site. However, even though Etsy comes with a whole lot of built in traffic and users, simply putting your products up on Etsy and waiting for the sales to roll in, isn't quite how it's going to work. Etsy is essentially a search engine – albeit a much more targeted search engine – and to be successful you'll need to learn how to optimize your posts and listings to get views and traffic. Etsy will encourage you to pay for ad placements to increase your views, which may be a viable option for you, however, I want to talk about how you can optimize your posts to earn as much organic traffic through Etsy as possible. 1. Know your keywords. The most important thing you'll want to start with is establishing the keywords you are going to target.