Starting up an Etsy shop

hellohkb · February 2015

For those who have ever started an Etsy shop, what advice would you give? Was it difficult or worth it? Did you find another platform that was better than Etsy? What did you do with taxes? I'm considering starting up an Etsy business and selling bath bombs and natural skin care products. I'm allergic to half the stuff in the stores so I thought this would be totally up my alley.

Also, I have a question. I see a LOT of stuff on Etsy that are blatant copyright breeches, whereas other stuff are more grey-area and not as black and white. Use of images of celebrities or from movies or tv shows, quotes, and "inspired by" products are all available on different goods throughout the site. Where is the line drawn? Could one say that a nail polish is inspired by a movie? I'm not going to do that but I saw a lot of nail polishes and lipsticks that were "inspired by" different tv shows or movies so I was curious.

Any advice or tips are appreciated.

NavyBlue143 · February 2015

Etsy can be frustrating as the market is so saturated with certain items, so it's hard to make sales. I tried my jewelry and lotion bars, and no dice. But at least each listing is cheap so it sucks less.

The long and short of it is, Etsy generally does not care about Chinese resellers, knockoffs, or copyright infringements unless someone powerful threatens to sue over it. Then they care. A lot of artists and crafters have had their designs blatantly ripped off, reported it to Etsy, and had their accounts shut down for "Calling out" or not conforming to the community. Basically so long as Etsy is making money, they don't care. So as long as the original artist does not threaten to come after you and potentially Etsy for giving you a market for selling your items, it's probably not a big deal. Tat being said, Inspiration type items should be fine anyway, so long as you clarify it's not affiliated in any way with the inspiration source material

artbyallie · February 2015

Etsy fucked up their search algorithms recently so you practically can't find anything but cheap mass-produced crap.

But your products would be in a section of the market that generally doesn't have that kind of competition. On the flip side, it is still a super-saturated category and you will have tons and tons of legitimate competition.

It's to the point that in order to sell on Etsy, you have to market yourself like crazy outside of the site.

I love the site but man it's gotten so much harder than it used to be for actual craftspeople to sell and for buyers to find quality handmade product.

theartistformerlyknownas · February 2015

artbyallie said:
Etsy fucked up their search algorithms recently so you practically can't find anything but cheap mass-produced crap.

But your products would be in a section of the market that generally doesn't have that kind of competition. On the flip side, it is still a super-saturated category and you will have tons and tons of legitimate competition.

It's to the point that in order to sell on Etsy, you have to market yourself like crazy outside of the site.

I love the site but man it's gotten so much harder than it used to be for actual craftspeople to sell and for buyers to find quality handmade product.

Loved because I agree. Etsy has gone way downhill.

Cookie Pusher · February 2015

I was recruited by a site call TheCraftStar that is supposed to be more stringent about only allowing hand-crafted/craft supply items, but haven't bit the bullet with them yet. Has anyone had experience with them?

hteverywhere15 · February 2015

Technically a lot of Etsy sellers are subject to being sued for what they post, but like another posted said, they get away with it unless/until someone gets angry and makes a threat. I used to love Etsy but now I feel like there's less special/crafted items and more mass-produced items.

ETA: sorry, I don't really have any advice but I like your idea for a shop and I think stuff like that does sell. Would you make the products yourself?

novella1186 · February 2015

I agree with PPs about how over-saturated Etsy is.

A few years ago, I was trying to down-size my huge collection of paintings (like, paintings I did) and my friends kept encouraging me to sell them because random people kept trying to buy them from me anyway, so why not sell online?

I set up an Etsy shop and listed 4 paintings. Right after I listed them, I went to search for them to see how the listing looked, and they were like 9 pages back and lost in the mammoth sea of other paintings being sold-- and they were in order by most recently listed. It seemed like there was no way anyone could even find my stuff to buy it, and the only way to really sell would be to list tons and tons of stuff to get a better shot at being visible, or paying to promote my "shop" which I didn't want to do.

So that was the end of that.

Not saying it will be the same for you, especially since you'd be selling a different type of thing, but I just thought I'd share my experience.

paperpusher · February 2015

I make baby quilts all the time. I decided to try and sell one, setting up the shop and listing the item was super easy. However, because the market was so saturated it took a year for the item to sell. I tried promoting it so it would show up in the ads, but in the end I think I spent more on posting/promoting and the materials than any profit I got from selling it. I didn't want to list it for a lot, but I didn't want to list it for as cheap as some of the others. I made that by hand and it took time.

You might have better luck if you were to list multiple items and then promote outside of the website.

MIL actually started her own Etsy shop and she's made a few sales already, but it's been to people she knows outside and has given her business card to.

levioosa · February 2015

Didn't @Haileydancingbear just start an Etsy account a few months ago?

redoryx · February 2015

NavyBlue143 said:

Etsy can be frustrating as the market is so saturated with certain items, so it's hard to make sales. I tried my jewelry and lotion bars, and no dice. But at least each listing is cheap so it sucks less.

The long and short of it is, Etsy generally does not care about Chinese resellers, knockoffs, or copyright infringements unless someone powerful threatens to sue over it. Then they care. A lot of artists and crafters have had their designs blatantly ripped off, reported it to Etsy, and had their accounts shut down for "Calling out" or not conforming to the community. Basically so long as Etsy is making money, they don't care. So as long as the original artist does not threaten to come after you and potentially Etsy for giving you a market for selling your items, it's probably not a big deal. Tat being said, Inspiration type items should be fine anyway, so long as you clarify it's not affiliated in any way with the inspiration source material

Saying "inspired by" or including a disclaimer will not save you from legal trouble should the owner of the movie or TV show or whatever contacts Etsy. You're still using their trademarked name to sell your items, it's still infringement. Some people on Etsy don't realize what they are selling is illegal or they don't care and Etsy is legally unable to do anything until the trademark holder comes to them with a complaint. Some of the big companies, like Disney, do frequent sweeps of shops and you're only given a certain number of times before Etsy will shut you down completely.

It's frustrating, I know. I sell items where I know I could make a killing if I used trademark characters but I absolutely refuse to and have turned down custom order requests when asked because I respect the intellectual property of other people too much.

hellohkb · February 2015

Iiiinteresting.. Thank you all, for the words of advice and your thoughts as well! I completely agree that Etsy seems to have gone down hill, especially in recent years. A lot of it seems to be knockoff stuff. A lot of people also use the website like eBay and will sell their store-bought used crap in both the Vintage and Handmade sections. Sorry, but 2010 isn't "vintage", people!

Although, I made my first Etsy purchase back in 2007 and the purchase went awry. I never received my item and a few other people also mentioned they didn't receive their purchases. Etsy NEVER did anything about it, and when I reported it to them they said, I shit you not, "Well, the user told us she sent it to you!" They basically didn't give a shit that this user has not sent out items to several people either. They just cared about their money and that was that. The user is still on Etsy to this day. It pisses me off that Etsy seems to care more about making money then making their sellers and buyers happy. That should be #1 priority.

I had a feeling as much about the copyright issues. I don't plan on selling anything that is even "inspired by", but it seems like half of what's available on Etsy today are total copyright breeches!

redoryx · February 2015

Yeah, Etsy's kind of a hot mess. I just stick to my little corner and do my thing and pretty much ignore the rest of it and it seems to be working, my shop gives me a good chunk of play money each month.

vulpiepop · February 2015

I had an Etsy shop for the chainmaille jewelry I made. I think it's still up, actually.

Starting it up is easy but getting your first sale is the hardest. The best pieces of advice I could give are to have at least a couple of really cheap products because people who like your stuff but are unsure of your credibility because of your lack of sold items are more likely to buy the really cheap stuff to test you out.

Really be detailed in your shipping and return policies and include a card or note for every purchase to remind your buyer to give you feedback/rate you. I did that with a 10% coupon code to encourage them to come back and buy more stuff. The more [good] ratings you have, the easier selling items get.

If you buy anything from an Etsy shop, give positive feedback or none at all because for some reason the rating you give others affect your rating too, at least when I was on it last (I don't know if they fixed that yet, it's been too long).

lovesclimbing · February 2015

Re: copyright breaches. I was just reading an article the other day about Etsy sellers receiving cease-and-desist letters from Taylor Swift's lawyers for tshirts and stuff they were making. I don't think Etsy cares, but people still could go after you.

I highly doubt anyone would sue you, at least not at first. They would start off with cease-and-desist letters.

There is a lady in my town (who I really can't stand. She's been a real pain in the butt and general not nice person in my and my company's professional interactions) with her who has a custom embroidery business. Around Christmas, she was doing Frozen embroidery on kids fleece blankets. The evil side of me considered sending an email to Disney (Pixar? Can't remember who did that movie) and reporting her. But I didn't. Who knows if they'd do anything. I reckon they mainly go after the big stuff.

With Taylor Swift, I know she's been cranking down on everything with her copyright and brand.

doeydo · February 2015

I know someone who created their Etsy shop four years ago and has been "trending" on Etsy multiple times and on magazines like Seventeen Magazine. I know she has had issues with Chinese knockoffs stealing her pictures of her items and then trying to sell knockoffs of her items. Etsy basically said they couldn't do anything about it. Overall though, she likes Etsy and has been successful.

HaileyDancingbear · February 2015

Hope nobody minds I'm commenting so late…

First thing, the items you see that look like they aren't legal, usually aren't. The problem is that Etsy doesn't remove a listing unless the copyright holder asks them to, so even though shops that sell copyrighted merchandise are usually taken down eventually, they aren't being taken down fast enough to completely remove the presence of copyrighted merchandise on the site.

WHICH IS REALLY IMPORTANT TO KNOW WHEN SHOPPING AS WELL AS SELLING- there are a lot of posts throughout the Etsy forums where basically people buy something (usually copyrighted like an Elsa dress,) and between them purchasing and the seller sending out the item, Etsy shuts down the shop due to a copyright complaint. It leaves the seller actually incapable of even seeing their incomplete orders, and it makes the buyer incapable of contacting them. It's a big pain, so if you MUST have something that is copyrighted, buy at your own risk because the shop could be taken down at any time.

Now about running a shop:

Etsy is really competitive right now. There are a TON of sellers on there and getting your stuff found can be really tricky. If you want to open a shop that has any success, the following are a MUST:

1. Good photos- no shitty lighting, no unflattering angles, you get 5 photos so use them wisely. Keep your photos brightly lit (white backgrounds tend to do best) and aesthetically pleasing. Also make sure you get at least one photo of the texture of your stuff if you're selling bath products.

2. Clear descriptions. How much is in one container? How do you use it? What does it smell like? What does it feel like? What's in it? Don't weigh people down with a giant mass of text- I like to do a short description of the thing I'm selling, then bullet points with important facts such as size, texture etc.

3. Clear policies. Which shipping methods do you use? How long does it take for an order to be shipped out? What is your return policy? Do you accept custom or bulk orders? Be VERY CLEAR and detailed, people are often very uncomfortable about buying from a shop if the policies are either nonexistent or confusing.

4.About page. People really tend to prefer a shop with an about page over one without. The about page has room for 5 photos, so get someone to help you take artsy photos of the process of making your bath stuff. If you have a workspace that you can set up to look all artsy fartsy and aesthetically appealing, do it. Tell a story about your shop, explaining how you personally can't use a lot of bath products because of your allergies, so you decided to make your own would be a good thing to include. Explain the process of making your stuff a bit. Think of this page as a blog post about your shop.

5. Search engine optimization. I struggle with this one tbh. The idea behind it is that you should come up with a bunch of good keywords that people will search to find your stuff, such as "hypoallergenic soap" "Sensitive skin bath products" etc. Etsy allows you to have 13 "tags." you should choose the 13 keywords you think would bring a lot of traffic to your shop, AND are specific enough that the people finding you are likely to buy (for instance someone who is searching for hypoallergenic soap may be more likely to buy from you than someone just searching for soap) you want to echo those keywords in your titles, which should be pretty long- having your item title be "Soap for sensitive skin" doesn't get as many hits from search as "Hypoallergenic soap- Bath Products for Sensitive Skin, Mild Soap, All Natural Body Wash" (Although I don't sell bath supplies so those keywords may need a lot of tweaking)

6. Once your shop is ready, you're going to have to promote it off Etsy. Set up an instagram, twitter, Facebook, tumblr, pinterest, any social media you can think of. Post about your stuff and the process behind it, get people interested in your stuff, send them to your shop. I find that marketing your shop has sort of a snowball effect, once you start getting a few people interested they share it and more people become aware of your shop, then they share and it goes on like that.

Getting started is a pain in the ass but once you start getting views and making sales it kind of keeps going from there. I'm at 36 sales in my own shop right now and all except 9 of those are just since November. Those first 9 took like 8 months though. Starting is definitely the hardest part by far.

dcbride86 · February 2015

I have no advice, but I have sensitive skin and love bath bombs and stuff - so if you do create a shop, please let me know your shop name

hellohkb · February 2015

Thanks everyone! @HaileyDancingbear That was super helpful! @dcbride86 I'd be happy to! Thanks!

arrippa · February 2015

HaileyDancingbear said:
Hope nobody minds I'm commenting so late…

First thing, the items you see that look like they aren't legal, usually aren't. The problem is that Etsy doesn't remove a listing unless the copyright holder asks them to, so even though shops that sell copyrighted merchandise are usually taken down eventually, they aren't being taken down fast enough to completely remove the presence of copyrighted merchandise on the site.

WHICH IS REALLY IMPORTANT TO KNOW WHEN SHOPPING AS WELL AS SELLING- there are a lot of posts throughout the Etsy forums where basically people buy something (usually copyrighted like an Elsa dress,) and between them purchasing and the seller sending out the item, Etsy shuts down the shop due to a copyright complaint. It leaves the seller actually incapable of even seeing their incomplete orders, and it makes the buyer incapable of contacting them. It's a big pain, so if you MUST have something that is copyrighted, buy at your own risk because the shop could be taken down at any time.

Now about running a shop:
Etsy is really competitive right now. There are a TON of sellers on there and getting your stuff found can be really tricky. If you want to open a shop that has any success, the following are a MUST:

1. Good photos- no shitty lighting, no unflattering angles, you get 5 photos so use them wisely. Keep your photos brightly lit (white backgrounds tend to do best) and aesthetically pleasing. Also make sure you get at least one photo of the texture of your stuff if you're selling bath products.

2. Clear descriptions. How much is in one container? How do you use it? What does it smell like? What does it feel like? What's in it? Don't weigh people down with a giant mass of text- I like to do a short description of the thing I'm selling, then bullet points with important facts such as size, texture etc.

3. Clear policies. Which shipping methods do you use? How long does it take for an order to be shipped out? What is your return policy? Do you accept custom or bulk orders? Be VERY CLEAR and detailed, people are often very uncomfortable about buying from a shop if the policies are either nonexistent or confusing.

4.About page. People really tend to prefer a shop with an about page over one without. The about page has room for 5 photos, so get someone to help you take artsy photos of the process of making your bath stuff. If you have a workspace that you can set up to look all artsy fartsy and aesthetically appealing, do it. Tell a story about your shop, explaining how you personally can't use a lot of bath products because of your allergies, so you decided to make your own would be a good thing to include. Explain the process of making your stuff a bit. Think of this page as a blog post about your shop.

5. Search engine optimization. I struggle with this one tbh. The idea behind it is that you should come up with a bunch of good keywords that people will search to find your stuff, such as "hypoallergenic soap" "Sensitive skin bath products" etc. Etsy allows you to have 13 "tags." you should choose the 13 keywords you think would bring a lot of traffic to your shop, AND are specific enough that the people finding you are likely to buy (for instance someone who is searching for hypoallergenic soap may be more likely to buy from you than someone just searching for soap) you want to echo those keywords in your titles, which should be pretty long- having your item title be "Soap for sensitive skin" doesn't get as many hits from search as "Hypoallergenic soap- Bath Products for Sensitive Skin, Mild Soap, All Natural Body Wash" (Although I don't sell bath supplies so those keywords may need a lot of tweaking)

6. Once your shop is ready, you're going to have to promote it off Etsy. Set up an instagram, twitter, Facebook, tumblr, pinterest, any social media you can think of. Post about your stuff and the process behind it, get people interested in your stuff, send them to your shop. I find that marketing your shop has sort of a snowball effect, once you start getting a few people interested they share it and more people become aware of your shop, then they share and it goes on like that.
Getting started is a pain in the ass but once you start getting views and making sales it kind of keeps going from there. I'm at 36 sales in my own shop right now and all except 9 of those are just since November. Those first 9 took like 8 months though. Starting is definitely the hardest part by far.

That happened to me. I bought a wallet from a leather store on ETSY that shut down before I got my item. Since I used PayPal, I was able to get my money back.

novella1186 · February 2015

dcbride86 said:
I have no advice, but I have sensitive skin and love bath bombs and stuff - so if you do create a shop, please let me know your shop name

Ditto this!

And if you want some help with the key words, I MIGHT be able to help. I do research for my job so pretty much a lot of my time consists of using key words to search databases and whatnot. I've gotten pretty damn good at what words to use, so I could pretend to be your customer and want to search for what you make, and let you know what I would search (if that makes any sense). It might give you some ideas of what to use. PM me if you're interested!

Starting up an Etsy shop

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