What Is Etsy?

Etsy is a community of online sellers and sellers similar to eBay, except that it focuses on handmade items or antiques. Most sale products fall into arts, crafts, jewelry, paper goods, household goods, and artisan candy or baked goods. Vintage products must be less than 20 years old to qualify, ranging from costumes, clothing, jewelry, photographs, and household items.

What Does Etsy Have for Your Home Business?

While selling on this website is another avenue for selling your items, many items can help you with your business. Do you use Erin Condren, Filofax, or The Happy Planner to schedule your days and organize your business/life? You can purchase downloadable sticks and stickers to use in your schedule. Do you need items for promotion with your logo on them? Many sellers can produce custom swags. Not just a pen or coffee cup, but also jewelry, bookmarks, cosmetics, and much more with your name and logo.

Why Sell On Etsy?

Most artisans and craftsmen have previously sold their goods at fairs, open markets, and shipping goods. While the Internet opens different paths for reaching consumers outside their local area, many artisans don’t want to set up their website, credit card processor, or e-commerce platform to sell their goods online. While eBay and other e-commerce DIY sites have helped, Etsy provides a niche market for crafters.

Etsy allows each seller to set up an online customizable “shop” with full e-commerce capabilities using its simple set-up wizard. This is an easy, fast, affordable, and effective way to reach consumers.

The Cost

Etsy offers a comprehensive e-commerce platform and a payment system where individuals can sell products. Creating a shop costs $ 0.20 per item listed. For example, if you sell a handmade necklace and list four of the same kind, the cost will be $ 0.80 (4 X $ 0.20). There is a 3.5% transaction fee, and if the seller chooses to use Etsy’s “Direct Checkout” feature, a 3% fee is charged on each transaction. In comparison to the cost of setting up a website with a shopping cart and getting a merchant account (which also charges a processing fee), Etsy is an affordable alternative. Furthermore, because Etsy is a well-known market for manufactured goods, it has a ready-made market.

How to Start an Etsy Home Business

1. Decide what you are going to sell. You probably already have something you want to sell if you’re sneaky. But it allows a wide variety of products. People sell jam, jewelry, and more. Some people sell craft supplies, not finished goods. It may be better to start with one type of item than how the browsing people work, just for easier marketing and organization. As your business grows, so will your offering.
2. Set up your account. Creating an account starts with selecting a username. Consider using a name representing what you want to sell while remaining open to expanding your product line in the future. Next, fill in the account set-up fields it asks for.
   Don’t forget to read all terms of service and policies.
3. Set up and stock your shop. Esty offers many features for your online shop. Once your shop is set up, you will need to add your products. Make sure you take high-quality photos and provide a compelling description. The price of your item is such that you have covered the cost of your supplies and the time it took you to manufacture them.
4. When the item is sold, set it up and ship it fast. Like eBay, buyers can leave reviews about you as a seller and the quality of the product. If you sell downloadable items (e., Printables), Etsy allows you to save files with it, whether buyers can download it from within their account after the sale. For the best judgment, provide professional customer service.

Owning a successful Etsy business is about balancing the time it takes to create and sell items. If you have a product in demand to stock your Etsy stock, you can build a successful home craft business.

Types of Fees You Must Pay

Before joining other discussions, you also need to know that selling online on Etsy is not free. There are several kinds of fees that you have to pay to sell online. However, these costs are very cheap.

The following are some of the fees you have to pay to sell on Etsy:

Listing Fee

Etsy charges a listing fee per product of $ 0.02. By paying the listing fee, one of your products will be advertised continuously for a maximum of 4 months or until your product is sold out. You must pay a listing fee again if your product is sold out before four months.

Fee for Withdrawing Funds Into a Paypal Account

The last fee you must pay when selling online on Etsy is the fee for withdrawing funds into your Paypal account. This fee is not a fee from Etsy but a fee from Paypal.

4 Ways to Succeed in Selling Online in Overseas Marketplaces

From the conditions alone, selling online in foreign and domestic markets has changed. However, you can earn a much more significant profit by selling goods online in international marketplaces. Then how do you sell online on Etsy? Here are five ways to sell online that you can apply in the Etsy marketplace:

Product Selection

Etsy is very different from local marketplaces. Therefore, the products sold are also every other. If you can sell anything on a local marketplace, that’s not something you can do on Etsy. Etsy only accepts your product listings (at least it looks like a handmade product, not a factory one). Therefore, don’t let you sell products such as clothes that you buy from suppliers. Most products selling well on Etsy include handmade jewelry, a wide variety of handmade clothing, handmade home decorations, and handicraft materials.

Interesting Use of Photos

Selling on Etsy can’t be said to be easy. The reason is that Etsy’s market share is foreign people who are far more advanced. Therefore, they are not easily attracted to the products you offer if the product photos don’t sell at all. So the second way to sell on Etsy that you must pay attention to is in the product photo section. Make the best possible product photos but don’t do the editing too extreme. As much as possible, make product images as real as possible, especially in terms of lighting. Besides, never take photos from Google to upload pictures of your products.

Set Reasonable Product Prices

Again, Etsy’s market share is the much more developed overseas crowd. Therefore, those who want to sell on Etsy must also be careful in setting product prices. Selling products at an unreasonable price is not a profitable way on Etsy. Selling on Etsy is not a price war. Why? Because most prospective buyers are very competent at distinguishing which products are of quality and which are not by looking at the selling price. So for product pricing, be sure to sell your product at a reasonable price. For those who want to sell homemade products and are still confused about determining the product’s selling price, you can read how to calculate a reasonable product selling price through an article entitled Tips for Determining Product Selling Prices on Etsy.

Promoting Your Online Store

Etsy is visited by many prospective buyers every day. However, there are tons of people also selling their products online on Etsy. Therefore, if you want to get a buyer quickly, it’s a good idea to do a promotion again. Promoting is also one of selling online, which can increase product sales and catapult your brand in the eyes of other consumers. You should learn Etsy SEO tips for promoting your online store. Etsy SEO will improve product visibility, and it supports your promotion process.

Conclusion on Etsy

Etsy is a complete platform, beneficial to saving on our first creative works. However, you should consider creating your website if you want something more professional. Although there are customization options, the design of each online store on Etsy is quite limited, and you will not be able to show the essence of your products or creations.