Wendy - The listing fee at etsy is .20 for 4 months(or until the item sells). So giving it a try will not cost to much up front.

If a quilt sells its 3.5% transaction fee on etsy. There's also a processing fee from PayPal or etsy depending on the check you choose, which is another 3% (and $·25 for direct check out on etsy.)

Etsy can be a great way to make money if you get known, but marketing yourself can be a challenge at times. For now it's just a nice little trickle of extra income that I'm hoping will get us through the winter/spring until my husband can start working again.

I have two different Etsy stores. One is for selling my art and jewelry, and the link is www.etsy.com/shop/nimilystreasures . The other store is for fiber like wool and alpaca ( I have SO much alpaca! ) and dyed art batts. I've also got a ton of yarn I hand spun that I'll be listing in a few days. Edit: Forgot to put the link to my fiber store! It's called Spinning Lollipops and the link is www.etsy.com/shop/spinninglollipops .

If you see anything you like on there feel free to use the coupon code HOMESTEAD10 for a 10% discount. =-)

I just listed a new painting in my Etsy shop. I have had a shop at Etsy since 2006, sales have been very slow.

Here is my shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/barbaralucore

Lovely art! I started following you on etsy.

we list on etsy..... sales are slow, I think our pics are not great, and perhaps need to pay more for better advertising. has anyone done that? they send emails regarding getting a front page ad....

Love your art batts! yarn too. (are you on Ravelry?). and paintings, Nimly!

I have heard that paying extra for the Etsy advertising is not worth the price. You pay for impressions which show at the tops of searches. Depending on the keywords that Etsy selects for you( this in itself is frustrating) and your product type ( popular product types might have more people advertising) depends on how many impressions you will receive. This is not meaning that you will get views, hearts, or sales by advertising, but that someone searching sees your product at the top of the search pictures.

As for getting on the front page at Etsy it doesn't always mean sales either. I have seen a few who have gotten on the front page and they found out because of a dramatic spike in hearts and views, however the item did not sell.

If you really want to put effort into advertising then start for free other than your time. Work on your shops SEO. I am not on my laptop so I cannot see the source code to see what keywords you have selected,however just based on what I can see your store would get a lot more views through etsy and google if you work on SEO which would be for y o it titles, descriptions(for the products and store), and keywords.

Given that you are selling products that others etsy sellers could use in their final products. I would also recommend promoting in team discussions, joining at least one SEO team to get good ideas of what SEO is for etsy and some promotions teams. Also roving, spinners,crochet/knitters, felting,ect teams could provide customers and ideas. Show off your items. Circle people and they will circle you back in some cases. As the number of people circling you grows you will have the possibility of having your products spread through favoriting. Personally I get a lot of people who view my items because I favorite one of their items. I have a few people who are favorite happy in my circle. This is to my advantage, because I can go to my activity and depending on the time of the day I have a list of 100-200items,treasuries, or shops to favorite. Favoriting or hearting as it's also called from this list usually takes 10 minutes, but the next hour my views and favorites increase dramatically for my store.

Ok now you have people coming to your store. YAY! You said your self your not sure about your pictures. There are light boxes you can build using a large clear tub, two clamp lights, cheese cloth or thin muslin, and a poster board. Given you are not going to be able to fit a sheep in it, but it looks like your products will fit.


I am by no means an expert, but this is what I know to work for me. I started my store in December 2012 and I have sold 8 items, so I just keep developing my items and looking at what people are searching to tweak my SEO and items.

What is an SEO? Do you mean on the about page, or the information just under your shop name?
Editing- went and looked up seo- search engine opt- so does it help to include more info just under your shop name? Also, how can you find seo teams to join on Etsy?
FurBaby- love your etsy banners! If I didn't have one, I surely would have bought one, as it took me forever to figure out. Great idea...

Yes it can. The first few words should be keywords your going to use through out your store. If I am not mistaken this is something google picks up on.

At the very top of the page on etsy look for the community link. Then teams. You can search teams via keywords. Each team has different rules. A lot of then give instant access others you have to wait for a team monitor to approve you.

Thank you. I really need to make more and post them. I have been proficient in Photoshop since I was young, so doing digital work is easy for me.

Can you all please critique this for me? I am so challenged when it comes to stuff like this. How can I do a page just for etsy stuff? https://www.facebook.com/profile.php...39&ref=tn_tnmn

BTW I am in the process of looking at the etsy shops in this thread and following you guys. Some talented people here!

RebelDigger~oh my *covers my eyes* how lude!!! Giggles sorry I could not help myself. I like your face book. Do you also sew period dresses and accoutrements? I liked the action shots of reenactments. There are some at Etsy whom blog, I know that there is a large following for reenactment maybe you could take advantage of the time reenacting to get pictures much like you did and narrate them. Perhaps with Dutch oven and coal recipes or typical daily lives for women of that time period. Like a woman's reenactment side, I would not doubt there would be a large following for that.


I use an app on my Facebook t o link my store to my Facebook. https://m.facebook.com/EtsyItems?id=...279601258&_rdr

LOL thanks! Underpinnings are so fun. Yes, I do dresses, the ones I am wearing in the action shots are made by me. I do need to get some dresses listed don't I? I will check out the app. Thanks for telling me about it. Facebook confuzzles me so I have not gotten a lot figured out yet and they just changed it on me too :mad:. Going over now to look at yours. This is fun!

Here's a site to consider... www.fiverr.com Everything sells for $5. If you have something you make and can price point it at $5 then this might be another venue for you. I use a cad system to take people's concept, idea, product, invention, etc to final drawing. You can charge more than $5 if the order is complex. I've been on the site a short time and already have had 2 gigs (jobs, as they call it). Check it out.

I'm just getting started selling. I plan to list homemade beauty products, bulbs & cuttings from the garden, homegrown herbs and salves, and angora wool from my bunnies. I had to price things a bit higher than I'd like to cover all the etsy and paypal fees, but it was still a cheaper option than getting my own storefront which was my original plan.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/ViggiesVeggies

I have had more luck with eBay than with Etsy.

We sell quite a bit on Etsy. It is easy to set up a nice little shop and the learning curve isn't too hard. I think the secret is having a unique item and to promote your shop as much as possible. Etsy brings quite a bit of traffic to our product, but our sales improve when we are showing our wares and passing out cards. The Etsy community forums are a big help when you are first getting started. I think Etsy's Great!

Kevin

Your brooms are awesome!! Everyone I've shown them to gets all drooly over them :D

For me, Etsy is just one venue for me to sell my products. I have been selling off of Etsy for a few years. Each year my sells have gone up. My beginning was slow...... I haven't tried EBay, so I can't compare. My big "fear" (probably never happen, but....), someone for Etsy and a different person from EBay buys the same thing at the same time........ Right now I don't have the inventory to stock 2 stores.

Enjoy

http://www.etsy.com/shop/pkbrownwoodworking

I opened an Etsy shop at the end of December to sell hand carved rubber stamps. I was really surprised at how quickly people found my shop even with no advertising. I don't do the Facebook or Twitter thing so was expecting to wait months to make a sale. Wish I'd done it sooner now. I'd encourage anyone to give it a go.

CntryDaydreamer gave me a great idea of packaging using rubber stamps- here is my etsy link to the new pkg.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1258433...peppermint-tea
Love those rubber stamps, will check yours out, Pigeon lady!
editing- checked those out- they are great stamps!

I really ought to get a shop back up and running. I'd love to be able to sell some of my crafts, as I love creating things more than my family can use them. I sew, crochet, lots of kids' stuff, primitive crafts, etc.

I sell on Etsy as well!! Hand spun wool Yarns and hand made items!! Feel free to check me out!!
Everyone has such lovely things!
https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/TheLindsaysHomestead

I want to sell things on Etsy! My time will come :D

I sell stuff on Etsy all the time. It's probably the cheapest online storefront you can get.

It used to be better because they kept the resellers off of there, but now it's starting to get overrun. Hard to sell a knife when someone is selling a "handmade knife" for $2 that's actually a Kershaw they bought at a garage sale. And Etsy doesn't seem to want to do anything about policing that.

If you want to do it as your sole income (as I do) and not just a side project, then I would suggest having a "Plan B" just in case Etsy ever cuts you off. Ebay is hard to sell on (at least for me) because it's flooded. If you search "knife" you'll come up with 30,000 hits and mine will be #29,990. They promote search hits for their "premium sellers" above the regular guys like me.

So while it's not optimal, eventually you can build up your business and your reputation to the point that people will come looking for you.

You've got the same grips my wife has about Etsy any more Ernie...

She's been selling on there for several years and doing really well. Thankfully though she only sells vintage, so doesn't have to compete with those selling new "handmade" items that really aren't..

She has however started to notice a lot of flaky buyers lately... Will buy something, then half a day later say they changed their mind... twice now she has been given the wrong shipping address, USPS returned, then the buyer then backed out after she sent an invoice for reshipping after they give her the correct address

I won't even get started on the stupid questions she's started getting lately about items. If they took a half a second to read the descriptions, they would have saved everyone the time asking a question that didn't need to be asked...

We're both losing faith in humanity.... Idocracy at it's finest any more it seems..

Heh. Well, as far as random sales from Etsy, I think in the years I've been doing it I've only had 3-4 people actually find me via Etsy and purchase something. I get lots of views through Etsy, but almost no real buyers.

Most people who buy my knives find me through other sources, such as the radio show, Facebook, or internet forums. Etsy is not the sales vehicle for me, it's simply the shopping cart and display gallery. :)

I want to set up my own website separate, but managing inventory and a shopping cart just seems like such a hassle right now, and sales are down in general. My understanding is that it won't really pick back up until after April 15. When the government is about to take their big bite, nobody is really free with their money.

You might also want to try Local Harvest for farm products. I did very well selling honey and other hive products when I had a larger bee operation.

Etsy sellers, is the home made bath and beauty market saturated? I am okay but not great at making soap, lip alm, body butter, tooth paste, etc... As I have made it for family use only for some time. However I just put products in whatever I can find, ie old tubes or jars. I don't really have money to loose buying containers and labels if there really isn't much of a market, you know. I daydream of making enough on etsy to purchase booth space at the year round farmers market a couple hours away....

Well I'm going to spend some time scavenging up different ingredients and try to toss together a batch of soap and lip balm and bath salts to take to the local health food store and see if they will carry my things. If not then perhaps I will see if easy isn't saturated with similar products...

I have lip balm, bath salts & soap @ a local boutique type store. Can't go the natural route there though. They want to strong scented stuff like at bath body works.