etsy

How Is Your Small Business Doing?

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How has it been marketing your Etsy Shop on your social media platforms?

To help with gathering ideas for your content, we are going to take a look at some of the best Etsy shops. BussFeed created an article called 28 Beyond Cool Etsy Shops You’ll Probably Wish You’d Known About Sooner (Suazo, 2021). This article is perfect to gain inspiration from the different types of Etsy shop. This is a super relevant read that highlight many cool shops that you will not only want to pull inspiration from but also shop at. One of my favorite shops from the article, is their number “24. handcrafts sustainable wooden toys so truly adorable (and pretty!) you won’t mind leaving them out in the middle of the living room”(Suazo, 2021). You literally can buy anything on Etsy. If you can think of something, there is probably a shop selling that product.

Etsy also puts out articles for their small business owners. The Ultimate Guide to marketing is a great article to learn how to market your small business effectively. “Marketing is a critical component of running a successful small business. Even if you make the most earth-shatteringly brilliant product ever invented, if no one knows about it, no one is going to buy it. Effective marketing solves this problem by raising awareness of your brand and establishing your reputation. This, in turn, helps shoppers discover your items, builds buyer trust and confidence, and leads to sales and opportunities” (Staff, 2020) Having an Etsy shops puts you in a community with many other sellers and connecting with them and their strategies could help you build your brand awareness.

You can join an Etsy team, which is a support system for you. The group will have other sellers and everyone in the team will support you and help with word of mouth.

You can create a blog, like this one. The only difference is that is will be focused on your brand and products.

You need to take advantage of every social media platform that you will reach your target audience in. This also give the ability for customers to interact with your post, get updated on any new products, and the ability to share your post with potential customers.

I tend to find brands and products that I have seen the people I follow preach about. When products seem more relatable to me, I am more open to get interested by them.

References:

Marketing your shop. (n.d.). Retrieved February 15, 2021, from https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000344068-Marketing-Your-Shop?segment=selling

Staff, E. (2020, January 7). The ultimate guide to marketing. Retrieved February 15, 2021, from https://www.etsy.com/seller-handbook/article/the-ultimate-guide-to-marketing/211784836636

Suazo, Kayla. (2021, February 12). 25 beyond Cool Etsy shops you’ll probably wish you’d known about sooner. Retrieved February 15, 2021, from https://www.buzzfeed.com/kaylasuazo/cool-etsy-shops

How To Market Your Small Business On Social Media

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Now that you have created your small business on Etsy, you will need to start marketing it.

“According to a study by DEI Worldwide (2008), 70% of customers they surveyed have visited social media platforms to obtain information about products and services. Using the information found on social media platforms, 49% of these consumers made a purchase decision. 60% indicated that they use social media sites to pass along information to friends; and 45% who social media engaged in electronic word-of-mouth (DEI Worldwide, 2008)” (Khan, 2018).

Hootsuite has a great article called How to Use Social Media for Small Business: 11 Simple Tips by Christina Newberry. It advises small business owners with 11 tips on marketing their small business through social media.

  1. “Start with a plan
  2. Decide which platforms are right for your brand and products
  3. Know you audience
  4. Expand your audience
  5. Build relationships
  6. Share compelling visuals whenever you can
  7. Focus on quality over quantity
  8. Use the right tools
  9. Monitor and respond to all relevant social media conversations
  10. Schedule your content to free up more time for engagement
  11. Track and refine your performance” (Newberry, 2020)

The goal is to increase traffic to your Etsy shop and increase sales for your business.

Some social media platforms that I see many Etsy shops use to market their shops are Instagram, Pinterest, and now even Tiktok. On Tiktok, many users post reviews on products. Once the video goes viral and the video increases the shops word-of-mouth, more Tiktok users start to buy and review their products as well. Many Etsy shop owners also promote their small business by making videos on how they make their products.

I found this Etsy shop on Instagram called Damlarose_uk, she has a lifestyle shop. I would love to purchase the pearl mirrors for myself! This is such a great find! Her Etsy shop is linked on her Instagram. You can check her out at https://www.instagram.com/Damlarose_uk/ 

On Tiktok, I found many videos that stood out to me. The first small business owner that I saw get a big following from posting Tiktoks of their shop was Fizzysoaps, she has 479.8k followers on Tiktok. She post videos of how she makes her homemade soaps and her users love it!

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMedpYYKW/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMedp2PF4/

I also found videos on users reviewing and recommending their Etsy purchases. The following video is of a girl talking about her top 10 Etsy finds.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMedgwhHj/

 

References

Khan, G. F. (2018). Creating value with social media analytics managing, aligning, and mining social media text, networks, actions, location, apps, hyperlinks, multimedia, & search engines data. Seattle: CreateSpace.

Newberry, C. (2020, November 03). How to use social media for small business: 11 simple tips. Retrieved February 09, 2021, from https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-tips-for-small-business-owners/

How To Start A DIY Business On Etsy

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Welcome back!

Now that you have chosen what products you would like to sell and you know where to buy your materials, you can start working on creating your shop.

You could sell them on Esty, Shopify, eBay, craigslist, and even Facebook marketplace.

Why Etsy?

For this blog post I will be going over the steps on how to create an Etsy shop. The reason I believe Etsy is the best platform to sell DIY products is because Etsy is known for selling many custom product as well as homemade products.

 

How to start an Etsy Shop?

Step 1. Create an account or sign into an existing account.

Step 2. Find the CTA and click “Sell on Etsy”.

Step 3. Find the CTA and click “Open your Etsy shop”.

Step 4. Customize all your preference, for example “Shop language”. Then Press “Save and Continue”.

Step 5. Pick and enter in your shop name. Then press “Save and continue”. (Make sure it is from 4-20 characters)

Step 6. Start adding your products to your shop.

Step 7. Choose eligible payment method that customers can use to buy your product with.

Step 8. To be able to get billed, you must set it up with a debit or credit card. Remember there are Etsy selling fees. To read more about it, go to Etsy.com.

Step 9. Now you may click “Open Your Shop”! You can decide how you would like the URL to look like.

Step 10. Advertise your shop on social media.

You did it!

“The average attention span of any millennial is approximately 8 seconds” (Marketing to Millennials, n.d). Separating how to open an Etsy shop in 10 steps makes it feel easy for millennials to start their own business. If you have time to scroll through Instagram, TikTok, or saving Pins on Pinterest than you can open your own Etsy shop.

 

References:

How to Open an Etsy Shop. (n.d.). Retrieved February 02, 2021, from https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/115015672808-How-to-Open-an-Etsy-Shop?segment=selling

Marketing to Millennials. (n.d.). Retrieved February 02, 2021, from https://socialfactor.com/blog/marketing-millennials/

How To Pick Your DIY Business Idea

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The first step of starting a business is figuring out what products you would want to create and sell. Creating a small business from homemade/ do it yourself projects is quite common now. In the article 20 handmade Business Ideas With Little Money to Start give 20 great idea that could help you start your business. You can pick to create items that you are passionate about or items that are trending.

Below is the following list of ideas:

  1. Furniture Makeover
  2. Greeting Card Maker
  3. Jewelry MakingBeaded Assorted-color Necklace Lot on Shelf
  4. T-shirt Designer
  5. Scented Candle Maker
  6. Soap Maker/SPA Product
  7. Abstract Painter/ glass painter Girl in White Shirt Sitting on Chair
  8. Handbag Maker
  9. Knitting
  10. Studio Photographer Woman in White T-shirt and Blue Denim Jeans Sitting on Brown Wooden Bench Holding White
  11. Quilter
  12. Scrapbooker
  13. Bead Maker
  14. WoodworkingHeart-shape White and Black I Love You-printed Decorative Board
  15. Candy Bouquet
  16. Ornament MakerFree stock photo of accessory, amulet, art
  17. Mason Jars
  18. Ebook Author
  19. Décor Making Parties
  20. Handmade Blogger (Williams, 2017)

Where could you get your materials?

To get the materials that you would need to create the products, you could go to your local home improvement store like Lowe’s and craft store like Michael’s and Hobby Lobby. To items that you would like to renovate and repurpose you could go to a thrift store.

How do I learn how to make DIY projects?

You should be able to learn online but watching YouTube videos, reading how to blogs, and even online course like on skill share.

Where can I sell my products?

You could sell them on Esty, Shopify, eBay, craigslist, and even Facebook marketplace.

“How do I price crafts and homemade goods?

There are simple formulas for establishing a retail price for your products that factor in all of your costs (materials, labor, overhead) plus a markup. But there are also several more involved strategies for setting price, like psychological pricing, premium pricing, and penetration pricing” (Winter, 2020).

Where should I market my business?

Pinterest and Instagram are the best platforms to promote pictures of products.

To get more ideas check out the following articles:

https://medium.com/@accaprof/20-handmade-business-ideas-with-little-money-to-start-32da16760a2d

https://www.shopify.com/blog/things-to-make-and-sell

 

References:

Williams, L. (2017, September 18). 20 Handmade Business Ideas with Little Money to Start. Retrieved January 26, 2021, from https://medium.com/@accaprof/20-handmade-business-ideas-with-little-money-to-start-32da16760a2d

Winter, D. (2020, July 06). The Business of DIY: 14 Things to Make and Sell Online. Retrieved January 26, 2021, from https://www.shopify.com/blog/things-to-make-and-sell

Photo by Artem Beliaikin from Pexels