7 THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE STARTING AN ETSY/CRAFT BUSINESS (What I Wish I Knew) Etsy Tips For Beginners

hi everyone and welcome back to another video with amy makes that i think a lot of you are going to like this video and it is seven things i wish i knew before i started etsy or a craft business i know a lot of you really took into consideration my etsy shop video in which i got deactivated and by the way if you're new here and you have no idea what i'm talking about you might want to watch that video i really wanted to talk about the experiences that i have gone through in order for you guys to not make the same mistakes that i did because there's a lot of things that you really should know before opening a shop through a third party platform so if you are excited to find out all of the tips and tricks and things that i wish i knew before i started my etsy shop please give this video a thumbs up subscribe to my channel follow me on instagram i post on here every single day on my story and you definitely will get to know a lot more about me personally which i want you guys to know and yeah let's get into the video so the first thing that i want to talk about is something that might be obvious if you've watched my videos and it is that you can get deactivated if you used a third-party platform like the one that i did hence this video you can get deactivated the main point that i'm trying to get here if you don't have your own website if you are selling through another platform that platform owns you you don't own that platform it's very different if you have your own website your own domain it is your home base you own that website i was really kicking myself in the stomach when i only had etsy i didn't have a website i didn't sell on instagram or facebook marketplace or any other platform that was my only source of income for my craft business i really wish i had just a second back up because my naive little self said i want to start an etsy shop and then when i get bigger and when my audience grows i will definitely have my own website well that shouldn't be the case i think just having a second backup is going to help you in the long run so the second thing that i wish i knew before starting my craft shop was to have inventory ready now i actually did the complete opposite actually no i didn't do the opposite i had too much i have an excessive amount of t-shirts and apparel items in my closet already and i'm probably going to be selling those or throwing them out because they just went to waste now if you obviously are a custom design business and you do hand me pieces like say you make wood signs that are custom for weddings obviously you can't make that inventory ready but what you can do is you can at least have those wood signs stained ready to be painted on make stencils you know prepare yourself so that way when it's time for that order to come in your processing time won't be longer than two weeks we live in a world with amazon and free two-day shipping people are very impatient when they buy a package anything that you can do to help your customers get their gift or their item whatever it is faster the better so the third thing i want to talk about is know your platform's policies i'm kind of listing a few in the general area but i know people do sell on facebook marketplace instagram any like social media platform like a dme vemma kind of situation um people will obviously go to another third party like etsy shopify big commerce i think it is but then you can also just have your own website and have your own domain and sell things there know the policies because etsy for example has fees that are taken out one of the tools that i used was an etsy fee calculator now this thing was so cool because you can actually type in the amount that you're listing your item for the cost that it takes so how much it costs for all of your materials then it calculates all of the fees that will be taken out so it'll calculate that processing fee it'll take care of the listing fee it'll take care of the transaction fee as well it calculates all of that for you and that way you can see what is your profit by the end of the day i was able to determine what my margins were and if i needed them to be a little bit higher that is something that you really want to know because say if your platform like etsy takes out all these fee listings you might not like that versus shopify i know you have to pay monthly for just having shopify's platform there are obviously pros and cons to different platforms and i can do a video on that if you'd like i don't want to dwell on that but know your platform's policies and you follow their rules so the fourth thing i wish i knew before opening up my craft business was everything to do with shipping this is a huge topic and i have a few things that i want to talk about shipping the first thing is do free shipping if you can please please please do it calculate whatever it costs for you to do that shipping into your price of your item so say i used to sell door mats my door mats i think i ranged from forty dollars to forty five dollars and then i upped the price because shipping was ten dollars so i made the price at either fifty dollars or fifty five dollars depending on what the doormat was and what the price was and i calculated that into the cost of the actual item because people love free shipping and also etsy loves free shipping they will boost your products because when you go on the left-hand side of etsy you can filter out free shipping again as i mentioned before we live in a day where people are very very antsy to get their packages and i think free shipping is a great option for those and for you to get noticed too another tip that i have is i used to ship through usps i did not go through fedex or ups or anything just because usps was kind of the cheaper better option i used to do priority mail as well or ground shipping ground i think is like two to seven days and then i think priority is one to three what you can do is if you go through usps you can schedule free pickups from your house so instead of driving to the post office every single day or every other day put those packages right outside stick your label on there and you're good to go and you will schedule that online with usps create a free account it is free if you haven't registered your business driving to and from the post office is a tax write-off it's so easy to do when you just create an account on usps.com and then you can set it up for the next day you can't do it like say if it's like monday morning and you need to ship out something monday you can't do that you have to do it for the next day so just keep that in mind and invest in a label printer it's expensive but just do it because again this is a tax write-off if you are a registered business you can write off that cost for your business expenses and that way you're not getting taxed on it later on when tax season comes around in april so definitely consider all of those three things and last but not least with shipping ship through pirate ship don't go through usps.com to create your label again this is not sponsored by pirate ship i loved them dearly they overall have the best cheapest prices if you have etsy you can connect your etsy account to pirate ship and they will list all of those labels and all those addresses so you don't have to type in anything your label is ready to go you can print it set it up to your computer anything that you can do in this business to make your life easier do it and that is one of those things okay number five is to have an email list so again i am referring to what i've been scarred to the most because obviously this video is catered to what i've been through i do not wish this upon anyone but if you get deactivated unfortunately i couldn't send out a mass email to all my customers i had maybe some people follow me on social media but it definitely wasn't a big following back then say if you have a website and it immediately shuts down you have your own email lessons can say hey i'm now on this platform this is where i am if you don't have an email list that you can send coupons to all the time or you can check in with them to see if they left something in their car it saves so much hassle for you again having a backup is very very important you do not want to just depend on one platform i really cannot stress that enough number six is to have consistent new listings you know me i love the word consistency if you haven't learned anything from my youtube videos its consistency is key stay consistent in this business in your business etsy is a search engine and when you stay consistent on a platform like that on a platform like instagram youtube you will notice a big difference i've heard that 20 listings is kind of like the golden number of those are the amount of listings that you should have on etsy think about it if you have two listings versus if you have 25 listings those are 25 different ways someone can look up your account your listings your items you will get noticed more when you have more listings and i think etsy definitely favors people that are consistent on that i definitely don't suggest putting 28 listings all at once but i do suggest you know if you want to start out with three listings start it with those three and then do something monthly so every friday you will have a new listing or every month you will have a new listing that way etsy will pick up on that maybe like every week or every two weeks is definitely preferred so that way you have more listings on there and that way etsy can get accustomed to your algorithm and can see when your schedule is so if they know that you post every friday at 6 pm your new listing they're going to favor your shop over someone that only posted five listings and is like why am i not getting noticed staying consistent is something that is so so so important on any search engine platform anything like that and last but not least we have our seventh thing that i wish i knew before opening an etsy shop and it is that success does not happen overnight you may be so antsy to get your listings out there and for your first item to be purchased sometimes it might take you more than a day more than a month i am for one very guilty of that i'm always so hard on myself and i want to be perfect at everything that i do and the thing is you have to have patience in this job and in this world don't think that just because i did all this work that it's worth nothing it's not utilize your resources your connections utilize what i'm saying in this video because it will definitely help you if you are just starting out your etsy shop or you are looking to start one but at the end of the day success doesn't come overnight it takes a lot of hard work long nights not just two weeks of grinding and then expecting your etsy shop to blow up this just ties up all of the tips that i've said in today's video so don't be too hard on yourself so that is it for today's video i hope everyone enjoyed and i hope you learned something from it if you did please put in the comment section what you learned from me and if you have any advice for any other craft business owners for me not for me but mainly other people definitely put it in the comment section because i have a lot of subscribers looking to start craft businesses i'm no expert in this but i just really want to teach you guys from the mistakes that i've learned from and if i can help you with at least one thing that will make me so happy so thank you again for always watching my videos and supporting me if you did like it please give this video a thumbs up and also click my subscribe button to see more videos like this and i hope you guys are having an awesome monday i will see everyone in the next video [Music] bye [Music] you

Channel: Amy Makes That

Views: 6,936

Keywords: cricut, amymakesthat, amy makes that, what i wish i knew before starting etsy, things i wish i knew before starting etsy shop, etsy shop tips, etsy shop tips for beginners, etsy, etsy shop for beginners, etsy shop tips 2021, etsy shop tips and tricks, what i wish i knew etsy, what i wish i knew before starting an etsy shop, before opening an etsy shop, before opening etsy shop, things to know before opening an etsy shop, what to know before opening an etsy shop, craft business tips

Id: q1HIfBUdJMY

Length: 10min 59sec (659 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 21 2021