I started a brand new Etsy shop selling digital art products in January 2024 and this is what I learned.
I'm not a sales or Etsy professional, nor this is going to 100% work for everyone. This is my own experience and by doing these things helped to bring customers to my Etsy store without Etsy ads or me advertising it on social media.
Tip #1 Target your customer
When selling on Etsy without marketing, we need Etsy to drive our customers, which means we need to put ourselves in the shoes of our customers.
Ask ourselves this: what do they put in the Etsy search bar? It's not likely to be as specific as "an axolotl chilling by the pond art print", and more likely to be "art print for daughter dorm room" or "unique gift for girlfriend home office".
Know that in order to reach a broader customer base, the majority of them are not going to be artists. From there we can decide if our products are mainly for girls or guys, younger generation or adults, etc etc.
Tip #2 Niche Down
It's been said over and over again, and it's still true. As artists we can do a lot of things and make a lot of things because we handle the most important part of production - our skills. We have to niche down to a very specific area of product though.
First, decide if your store is selling digital goods or physical products.
Next, decide what exactly you are selling. Stationary? Handmade products?
From there niche down even further to give your store a style. For example, if you want to sell stationary (stickers, art prints, etc.), what's separating your design from other people's design?
You can niche down based on a subject matter (animal, plants, books, etc.) or a style (scary, cute, realistic, graphic, etc.). Just be careful not to niche down tooooo much. For really competitive markets like stickers you will need to niche down a lot to stand out, but for less competitive markets you might not need to niche down as much.
It takes some experimenting to know exactly how much to niche down though, so take your time on this. If you are not seeing as much traffic or having a hard time coming up with new designs, maybe it's time to broaden your niche a bit.
Tip #3 Research
I started by watching YouTube videos on starting an Etsy store, and how to make sales. It's pretty easy to start comparing to Shopify. Still I can't find everything on YouTube or online in general. I still have to physically start the shop and experiment on my own.
Market research:
Use some kind of market research tool like Allura, Everbee, eRank, and Sale Samurai can show you what tags is a particular listing on Etsy using. to choose a category of product for sale, and look up your niche. You don't want a really saturated category which will result in too many listings and too little customers, or a really "niche" niche which will result in little or no customers looking to buy it at all.
Once you know what to sell, look at similar listings on Etsy for how they title their listings, descriptions, photos, etc. Try out different tags - what could people potentially be searching?
I was reached out by Sale Samurai recently to try out their service. What I like the most about it verses other market research website is how modern and simplistic their user dashboard looks.
These tools are not meant to be 100% accurate, but it gives you a good place to start. So choose whichever tool that you like personally. If you decide to try out Sale Samurai, I do have an affiliate link and 20% off code:
https://salesamurai.io/
(Using this link will give me a small commission fee at no extra charge to you o(*￣▽￣*)ブ)
Tip #4 Have a good selection of product
People like having choices, well at least a lot of us do. When a customer click into a listing, they might not like it 100% and want to see if there are other options in your store.
Having a wide variety of the same niche can greatly boost your sales, and your product have more chances to be seen by potential customers.
Tip #5 Have some kind of sale all the time
A listing with sales can stand out a little bit more from the crowd. A limited time sale is even better, but I don't want to spend the time to create that many sales. I tried but I feel like it's too much time for not so obvious results. If you have the time and are willing to try absolutely anything that can help with your sales, definitely try it out.
*whipsper* And I raise my price so the after sale price is the price that I wanted. I know it's scammy, I feel like an evil businessman, and I'm not 100% sure that it helped, but I need to do whatever I can to keep driving traffic to my store.
Tip #6 Keep tracking your progress
There's a saying in China that goes something like: a good memory is no better than a broken pencil.
I keep track of my sales and the number of orders on a monthly calendar tracker I saw in a tiktok video. This is an easy way for me to see my progress and how's the store doing. My brain is just not that reliable. Logging into Etsy is sometimes distracting, so I rather spend a little time each month to write down the stats which takes about 5 minutes.
Since making this tracker, I can see how my numbers become static after April and therefore I start making changes to hopefully make it better. That's how I found out I forgot to renew 38 listings (I have manually renewal turned on to avoid being charged if the store goes on vacation).
Tip #7 Take advantage of the new store boost
Spend the most time BEFORE opening the store, and the first month. Observe the first month and see what can you do better to increase traffic and sales. Low traffic = not enough listings/change tags/change title/listing photos. Low conversion rate = add more listing photos and make them more attractive/ more listings.
No ads needed for the first three months at least to not sabotage conversion rate. Also keep "just visiting" traffic away by not talking about it to non buyer audience.
Tip #8 Be realistic
Your store might not be as successful as others, and may not take off as fast as you think it will. In fact it might take months if not years. If you watch my other Etsy store update video, it takes me six months so far to make 3 figures a month. This is a tip I tell myself as well.
Don't expect to make a living off of this any time soon. It might be super successful right away, but be prepared that it may not and don't give up!
Tip #9 Have faith!
In the beginning it's super hard to wait for that first sale and that first review. Nobody wants to buy from a shop that has no reviews after all. I thought I was going to wait a long time before that happens, but it actually took me about a week for my first sale.
So have faith that it WILL happen. If it doesn't happen in months, then maybe it's time to update your listing photos, adjust your price, etc.
This journey is full of uncertainties, but I believe that if I really put my heart into it I can make any happen \(@^0^@)/
Tip #10 Don't put all eggs in one basket
At the end of the day Etsy owns your shop. Many people have had their listings flagged or even taken down. Some people even had their entire store shut down because of a policy change or a mistake. From what I heard it's really hard to dispute.
If that were to happen to your one and only income source, it could be devastating. I used to only rely on my income from working in the animation industry as a visual development artist, but this year the industry is in a very bad state. Luckily I also occasionally teach online at CGMA, that that kept me afloat along with my savings.
I realized how important it is to have a side business especially as an artist. In fact I'm developing several side businesses at the same time. Instead of devoting all my energy finding a studio job, I'm focusing on this Etsy store, my website, and two youtube channels.
Out of all of these side businesses, my Etsy store has been making me the most money so far 😂 I prepared myself for the other things to take way longer, and hopefully one day they will starting making profits!