One piece of constant advise the Etsy influencers give is “get started.” Which is, of course, obvious advice. At over 40 days in since I created my store, I am still only hovering around 80 items for sale, and a lot of them don’t generate any notice. So, how much time does it take to build a store that will at least look better than a one-hit wonder?
I am sure it differs for everyone, but to give you an idea, let me break it down by approximate numbers (I didn’t start keeping track of actual production hours until later).
First you need to name your shop. And I am sure you want to sound clever and cute. But don’t. I can’t say my shop name is very good. It’s an homage to a partnership between myself and my teenage child whom I keep showing my ideas to. But it doesn’t really define what I am selling.
At first, I wanted to use the word Tee’s in the name, but Tee’s was taken using my overall shop name (so you know, it’s dadandmegifts). But first, it was dadandmetease. Reiterating, I couldn’t get Tees, T’s or other sensible choices. I thought I was being clever. Until someone pointed out that the shop name sounded like the name for an Only Fan’s page.
At that point, I had already experimented by added some customizable phone cases, so I found I was able to change the name to dadandmegifts. Its generic enough, but not very memorable.
So, choose a name that tells people what you are selling, and I suggest avoiding personalizing the name too much. For example, I would avoid something like “AbbysEtsystore,” and instead aim for something like “CustomShirtsandBags,” or some such. It will help you in searches as well, as it includes custom, and a product (at least in my example).
Store Front Day One: 101
Wait! You need to decorate your shop window. When you open a store on Etsy, they give you a shop page. You need to create a banner, add your bio, add an image (I use an AI mockup – yeah, not very honest, but I am also protecting my kid’s personal image and my own).
How much time does that take? You need to ask yourself: Are you good at graphic design? If you plan to sell POD t-shirts, you will need some skill at typeface and graphic design. I used Canva, which does have template sizes for banners. You can drop frames, text boxes, images and graphics. It took me about 20 minutes to design a passable banner and (in the process) created a simple two-tone brand color scheme (maroon and white), which I based on a drop logo I grabbed some the Canva Pro library and altered to my own interests.
Overall, setting up a quick storefront design took about one to two hours. Then I needed to build an inventory. This is where I began to truly understand the pain of Etsy.
You Need Listings!
My first five shirts were ideas I came up with on my own. Some were my own takes on already existing shirts, such as Ewe Tube (YouTube, but with a female sheep, get it?). I made five shirts and posted each to Etsy.
Then I looked at other listings and said, “where did they get their shirts on models?” But after a few searches, I saw the same models over and over and the light went on. They were using prefab images.
Some YouTube surfing and watching some how-to’s and I was onto the trick. Now I had to invest in a few mock-ups. I ended up buying about $15 worth of mock-ups. Then I needed to craft my artwork onto these new realistic images.
Total time spent was around 30 minutes of watching videos; 15 minutes (and $15) to download a few image files. Another 2 hours creating better mock-ups and replacing the ones in my listings.
I am going to cut out a lot of chatter and save you from having to go back and redo. Etsy likes listings that have all the image slots filled in. There are 10 image openings. Use all of them. Oh, and if you are selling apparel, buy (or make) a size chart. Your listing should have a size chart.
You Need 13 Tags
You could get away with less, but again, higher ranking for using all 13. But use them effectively.
Let’s cut to the chase. Here are the latest rules according to Etsy, eRank and a few smart YouTubers.
Your Tags need to be relevant to what you are selling.
They should be more than one word. But, be aware, no tag can have more than 20 characters (including spaces).
You don’t need to repeat the same word over and over. Ex: Mom Gift, Team Mom Gift, Mother’s Day Gift. Etsy plays mix and match, So, if Gift is used in one tag, then Etsy will match Mom and Gift, as well as Team and Mom, and Team and Mom and Gift. Also, you don’t need to use plural words and singular words. Etsy looks for the singular root word.
Do tag research. Meaning, look at others selling the same thing you are. The best sellers and highest ranking sellers come up first (not including those buying ads). See what Tags they used, as well as look at their Title. Yes, being a top seller gets you noticed. But they also have to have a listing that is relevant to the keyword search.
I recommend opening a Free eRank account. You get a few searches a day. You can’t see the deeper data, but you get an idea of what popular keywords are. This will help you choose your tags.
I will dedicate posts in the near future to go into more detail about building a listing that meets (or should meet) the standards needed to show up properly in Etsy. But right now I am just skimming the surface so we can discuss timeframes.
Over the course of two weeks, I posted a total of 10 listings. I had spent at least three to four hours on each listing. In balance, I spent more time on the first few and less time on the next few. But in the weeks to come, I would discover that those first listings were not going to get views.
What needed to be done to make them better? As of this point in the process, I had received some views (thanks to Etsy policy regarding new listings), but no sales.
In my next post, I am going to break down the process of creating a listing in more detail. There are plenty of YouTube videos showing you what I am going to put down in writing. You could watch those like I have. I encourage you to do that. I am simply going to put down in writing what they are showing so you won’t need to do that yourself.