Establishing Yourself as an Etsy® Seller

After you’ve identified the perfect product(s) to sell on Etsy® and done some number crunching, you should be able to sustain a viable business by offering your product selection(s) to the target audience you’ve identified. The next step is to establish a presence on Etsy®. The steps to set up and open your Etsy® shop are pretty easy to follow, as you’ll see later in this article. But building your brand and writing the content for your shop will take time, money, and work. Make sure to fill your shop in a way that speaks to your audience and lets you show off the products you want to sell in the best way. 

Therefore, the first portion of this article is dedicated to the prep work you’ll need to do. Most of the work is research and writing drafts of all the text that will be featured and used in your shop in the end. So, before you go online to create your shop, you’ll want to complete a variety of important tasks first.

These tasks include:

• Explore Etsy® as a buyer. Visit shops and assess what you like and don’t like about the various sellers’ approaches. This will help identify who your key competition might be. Try Etsy®’s search field and enter keywords. 
• Brainstorm a descriptive, attention-getting, and memorable name for your shop. Keep in mind that Etsy® displays shop names (and establishes a shop’s unique website address) by removing spaces from company names that are two or more words because many potential customers will learn about your shop from Etsy®’s search option. One approach some sellers adopt is to create a company name that relates directly to what they’re selling.
• Please create a logo for your company once you’ve determined that your company name is available and does not violate it. Anyone else’s trademarks or copyrights create a logo. This will be displayed prominently in your Etsy® shop and in all your advertising, marketing, and product packaging. Other materials that your customers and potential customers will see. This includes your letterhead, business cards, and invoices, for example.
• Draft your product descriptions. After determining exactly what you’ll be selling and who you’ll be selling to, start drafting your product descriptions. Use an easy-to-read and upbeat style because it’s your text-based product description. That must capture the attention of potential customers and convince them to buy your product(s). Thus, you want each product description to explain exactly what the product is and what’s special about it. Answer basic questions such as why the customer needs it and what sets it apart from the competition. Focus on unique features or functions, for example.
• Take your product photos. Every product listing should include at least several product photos that are crystal clear. Showcase the detail of your product, and look professional.
• Write your shop’s story. One of the important components of every Etsy® shop is the “About” section. You can use text, photos, or links to videos to tell your story. Share your inspiration, explain your philosophy, and humanize your business. More often than not, your unique shop will pique a potential customer’s interest and help convince them to become paying customers. One that is free of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.
• Establish your online presence and be ready to promote it within your Etsy® shop. Be prepared to share links to other places where you or your business are active on the internet. As you create your shop, you’ll be prompted to provide links and website addresses for your social media accounts, blog, and website. This information all gets displayed under the “Around the Web” heading.
• Define your shop policies. This includes the types of payment you will accept: your shipping options and policies, your refund and exchange policies. As well as access to a company or product-related FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) document that you, as the seller, can also compose and publish in conjunction with your shop. Be clear about your various policies and eliminate any potential customer concerns about buying your products. 
• Think about search engine optimization (SEO) now. Provide Etsy® with a list of carefully selected words that perfectly and accurately describe your product(s) and what your company offers. The tags and wording you select are vitally important because they are displayed immediately. Below is the name of your Etsy® shop and help drive traffic to your site.
• Promote yourself. Be prepared to showcase yourself as the Shop Owner (the artist, artisan, crafter, or curator responsible for the items being sold within the shop) and tell your company’s story. Use this to share your personal story, philosophy, and values. At the same time, allow people visiting your shop to see what you look like by showcasing a really good photo of yourself within your shop.

Fine-Tune and Proofread Your Work 

Spend the time you need to make multiple drafts, edit your writing, try out different ways of doing things, and proofread your work. Come up with phrasing that will appeal to your target audience. Then ask a handful of friends or family members who fit into your target audience’s demographic to review and critique your work. Next, consider hiring a professional proofreader or editor to review all the text that will appear in your shop. Explain to the editor or proofreader what you’re trying to accomplish and who your target audience is. Then, allow them to fine-tune your work and correct all spelling and punctuation errors, plus make recommendations about your word choices, phrasing, and writing style.

Even the best writers usually make several drafts of their work before putting it out in the world. Then multiple editors and proofreaders carefully review the final draft of that work. Because so much importance is placed on the various text elements that will appear within your Etsy® shop, and it’s this text that will play a major role in converting traffic to your shop into paying customers, you want the text to be perfect. What you say is as important as how you say it.

The words you use, the style of writing you use, and the approach you take should all fit with your brand, be easy to understand, appeal to your target audience, and give potential buyers all the important information they want or need without having to spend a lot of time reading your text and trying to figure out what you meant. When writing, editing, and proofreading, take your time.

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