Etsy Journey

[cutelariabr]

So guys, this is my Etsy Journey I just started! As you can see, I am not the best writer out there and I will try to keep this post as smooth as I can. This journey will be a nice way to set future goals and also keep track of the milestones.

A brief story: I moved to US in Sep 2017 with my wife, here my diploma and I being from a Shit Country (as Trump says) is not worth a penny, so, I am current opening my company. In the end of last year (2018) a friend of mine, who has a small factory of handmade products in Brazil approached me and told me about how he was being butchered by American wholesale buyers (they paid US$ 20/kg of products and sold here at US$250/kg) and asked me if we could build a partnership to diminish this gap and I said yes, (why not?!). After getting back from Brazil, I started to set up my company here in US (I thought it would e easier, but it isn't, there are some BS legislation, specially in NY, I thought the process would be much more advanced). So, in February I was set to sell online but I didn't have any products as my friend is battling cancer and was not able to work. But now the planets aligned and I first received my first shipment at home!

The products are top notch and I think/hope it won't be a pain in the ass to sell them.
I am doing everything by myself: pictures, SEO, marketing, pricing, cataloging, web tools, social media, country/state/city bureaucracy, and I know I need to do much more, specially with web marketing and tools to use so I can make it grow.

My goals for now are (goals will be update montly/yearly):

- Sell US$ 1.000 on the end of the first month (starting today 30/04/2019) - Total sales: US$ 0
- Increase the Total Views to 150/day on the end of the first month: Current AVG: 47 Views/day
- 1000 Shopping Favorites on the end of the first month: Current: 8
- Sell US$ 30.000 on the end of 2019 (starting today 30/04/2019) - Total sales: US$ 0
- Long term goal: Become top10 on my category: Current: On a place far far away

Stats
- Pictures taken: 1971
- Active Listings: 121 - I still have 200+ items to publish
- Inactive Listings: 0
- Itens Sold: 0
- US$ Spent on Etsy: US$ 24.40
- Instagram followers: 3755
- Pinterest followers: 2156
- FB Followers: 25

Price Range
My products are selling from US$ 9.00 to US$ 75.00 where the avg price is US$ 29.00. My markup selling on etsy is 73% (avg)

Marketing I'm doing
Etsy:
- Using Promoted Listing on Etsy with minimal cost (US$ .02)

Pinterest:
- Using IFTTT to share my Instagram posts direct to Pinterest
- On the near future I'll start pinning my Etsy pictures on pinterest (probably using IFTTT and google Calendar, I'm trying to be cheap on tools (it might be a mistake))

Instagram:
- Bot running (instabot) on my computer 24/7 using the following settings: 1100 likes/day - 300 following - 350 unfollowing
- Giveaways: 100/500/1000/2000/3000/5000 followers. Every milestone I'm setting a giveaway, last GA brought 600 followers on items costing US$10.00
- Will soon start with IG Micro Influencers

Facebook:
- Not much, only using same pictures as Instagram and posting on some groups

Offline:
- Sell the products on Shows and Street Fairs, always giving my business card (old school)

Questions:
- Should I start a different aproach on Pinterest?
- Is it safe to bot/macro following users on Etsy?
- Etsy is not giving me good positions, any tips
- General tips on the journey

I would like to thank https://www.blackhatworld.com/members/william702.1048826/and https://www.blackhatworld.com/members/billy-batts.1027941/for the amazing support they do on the community!

​

And now it's time to get back, Time is money!

 

[Tishina]

Good luck, man! Will surely follow you.

Can you tell how do you bring followers with GA on IG? I did it once with 3k followers and gained only 50 followers :\ lol

 

[cutelariabr]

Good luck

Thanks!

Good luck, man! Will surely follow you.

Can you tell how do you bring followers with GA on IG? I did it once with 3k followers and gained only 50 followers :\ lol

Sure, Mostly is manual work and a good Give Away, I always try to improve on the thing I'm giving so the followers have to have what I am giving and then they will share/comment my publication, the GA format with best results I tryed is the following:

To enter:⠀
1. Follow us (if you're not following yet)
2. Like this post
You can have up to 100 entries:⠀
3. Tag up to 5 friends per comment in the comments below. One entry for each friend you tag. (if you share in your story, your chances are gonna be x2) (if you share on your story+timeline x3)
4. Up to 10 comments each.
5 The winner will be chosen at random on one week

After set the GA the manual work starts: I publish stories every day for 7 days, reminders and "how to's" so the new followers know about the GA and explain what they need to do is a good way to make it. I PM my best followers to subscribe.

 

[necromancer]

good luck

 

[William702]

So guys, this is my Etsy Journey I just started! As you can see, I am not the best writer out there and I will try to keep this post as smooth as I can. This journey will be a nice way to set future goals and also keep track of the milestones.

A brief story: I moved to US in Sep 2017 with my wife, here my diploma and I being from a Shit Country (as Trump says) is not worth a penny, so, I am current opening my company. In the end of last year (2018) a friend of mine, who has a small factory of handmade products in Brazil approached me and told me about how he was being butchered by American wholesale buyers (they paid US$ 20/kg of products and sold here at US$250/kg) and asked me if we could build a partnership to diminish this gap and I said yes, (why not?!). After getting back from Brazil, I started to set up my company here in US (I thought it would e easier, but it isn't, there are some BS legislation, specially in NY, I thought the process would be much more advanced). So, in February I was set to sell online but I didn't have any products as my friend is battling cancer and was not able to work. But now the planets aligned and I first received my first shipment at home!

The products are top notch and I think/hope it won't be a pain in the ass to sell them.
I am doing everything by myself: pictures, SEO, marketing, pricing, cataloging, web tools, social media, country/state/city bureaucracy, and I know I need to do much more, specially with web marketing and tools to use so I can make it grow.

My goals for now are (goals will be update montly/yearly):

- Sell US$ 1.000 on the end of the first month (starting today 30/04/2019) - Total sales: US$ 0
- Increase the Total Views to 150/day on the end of the first month: Current AVG: 47 Views/day
- 1000 Shopping Favorites on the end of the first month: Current: 8
- Sell US$ 30.000 on the end of 2019 (starting today 30/04/2019) - Total sales: US$ 0
- Long term goal: Become top10 on my category: Current: On a place far far away

Stats
- Pictures taken: 1971
- Active Listings: 121 - I still have 200+ items to publish
- Inactive Listings: 0
- Itens Sold: 0
- US$ Spent on Etsy: US$ 24.40
- Instagram followers: 3755
- Pinterest followers: 2156
- FB Followers: 25

Price Range
My products are selling from US$ 9.00 to US$ 75.00 where the avg price is US$ 29.00. My markup selling on etsy is 73% (avg)

Marketing I'm doing
Etsy:
- Using Promoted Listing on Etsy with minimal cost (US$ .02)

Pinterest:
- Using IFTTT to share my Instagram posts direct to Pinterest
- On the near future I'll start pinning my Etsy pictures on pinterest (probably using IFTTT and google Calendar, I'm trying to be cheap on tools (it might be a mistake))

Instagram:
- Bot running (instabot) on my computer 24/7 using the following settings: 1100 likes/day - 300 following - 350 unfollowing
- Giveaways: 100/500/1000/2000/3000/5000 followers. Every milestone I'm setting a giveaway, last GA brought 600 followers on items costing US$10.00
- Will soon start with IG Micro Influencers

Facebook:
- Not much, only using same pictures as Instagram and posting on some groups

Offline:
- Sell the products on Shows and Street Fairs, always giving my business card (old school)

Questions:
- Should I start a different aproach on Pinterest?
- Is it safe to bot/macro following users on Etsy?
- Etsy is not giving me good positions, any tips
- General tips on the journey

I would like to thank William702 and Billy Batts for the amazing support they do on the community!

​

And now it's time to get back, Time is money!

Well done! Seems like you are covering a lot of bases and I hope it all goes smoothly for you. Thank you for the shoutout I'm glad the info shared is helping other users.

As for a few questions you posted:

1) There are so many approaches you can take on Pinterest, so maybe you should explore engagement groups, things like tribes and also some facebook groups for pinterest engagement.
2) Yes it is very safe. I have accounts with 20,000 - 40,000 followers from doing this action but it does not happen over night, especially now with the limits of following 300 people per day. i used to be able to run a bot over night following 1080 people and then unfollowing right away and following more from another feed, but now with the limits it's less effective. That said I would strongly advise taking advantage of the daily following limit. I use a simple macro that repeats on every page to bot the unfollowing and following.
3) Make sure your keywords are on point. renewing listings works well to show at the top of the feed. it wont take long before you can see a good correlation to sales from renewing so that you can see if the ROI is good enough for you. It works with some products but not for others. But being at the top of the search will take a lot of factors, like sales, favorites, traffic, social shares, renewing etc.
4) as for general tips, depending on the products you sell and their category I would consider working with micro influencers on youtube. I had astronomical ROI's with doing that and it was essentially free with just the cost of the products sent. I feel rude in saying that I can't remember if we have spoken about this before or not lol, so feel free to jog my memory if we have and if you have already showed me details in a PM and I will try and find it.

 

[shakher]

Truly a commendable piece of work pal! The best part is how u handled most of d work single handedly which is an eye opener for many dese days who try n hire ppl for every small aspect of IM. Keep it going and keep growing pal!!..will surely follow ur journey!

 

[winstrol]

Looks like you have a good plan! Have you thought about your own ecomm. store instead of using Etsy? You've probably considered it already but depending on how much they cut from you it might be worth it. Especially when you start getting sales.

 

[cutelariabr]

good luck

Thanks!

Well done! Seems like you are covering a lot of bases and I hope it all goes smoothly for you. Thank you for the shoutout I'm glad the info shared is helping other users.

As for a few questions you posted:

1) There are so many approaches you can take on Pinterest, so maybe you should explore engagement groups, things like tribes and also some facebook groups for pinterest engagement.
2) Yes it is very safe. I have accounts with 20,000 - 40,000 followers from doing this action but it does not happen over night, especially now with the limits of following 300 people per day. i used to be able to run a bot over night following 1080 people and then unfollowing right away and following more from another feed, but now with the limits it's less effective. That said I would strongly advise taking advantage of the daily following limit. I use a simple macro that repeats on every page to bot the unfollowing and following.
3) Make sure your keywords are on point. renewing listings works well to show at the top of the feed. it wont take long before you can see a good correlation to sales from renewing so that you can see if the ROI is good enough for you. It works with some products but not for others. But being at the top of the search will take a lot of factors, like sales, favorites, traffic, social shares, renewing etc.
4) as for general tips, depending on the products you sell and their category I would consider working with micro influencers on youtube. I had astronomical ROI's with doing that and it was essentially free with just the cost of the products sent. I feel rude in saying that I can't remember if we have spoken about this before or not lol, so feel free to jog my memory if we have and if you have already showed me details in a PM and I will try and find it.

1) Thanks, I'll be checking out these facebook groups for pinterest engagement. I already read some material about pinterest groups but never did anything, I have a follow/unfollow macro and this is the only thing I'm doing now.
2) Thanks! This is the next step to work with
3) I am still figuring this out, I'm pretty sure I'm doing best than the competition on SEO, but it will be a long journey to get on top
4) I am sure I saw some post somewhere about it, it was probably you who did it, I'll PM you.

And that's why you are the MVP here!

Truly a commendable piece of work pal! The best part is how u handled most of d work single handedly which is an eye opener for many dese days who try n hire ppl for every small aspect of IM. Keep it going and keep growing pal!!..will surely follow ur journey!

Thanks! This is a nice journey for me as I am learning different things everyday. I need to be assertive, I need to build the best store out there and have no or very little budget to work with. Things I don't know, as accounting and some copyrighting, I needed to hire, otherwise I would be screwed. Would be good to hire everybody I need, but first I need to see that I really cannot make the thing (hopefully it will happen when I get so many sales and I cannot work by myself anymore =D )

Looks like you have a good plan! Have you thought about your own ecomm. store instead of using Etsy? You've probably considered it already but depending on how much they cut from you it might be worth it. Especially when you start getting sales.

Yes, I did consider it. But right now I needed a web platform where there was traffic, leads and people buying what I have to sell, and Etsy has all these stuffs.
The e-comm will come next, as Amazon Handmade. Now I need fast results as I already have my products and need to sell them =D

 

[kweiss]

Good luck, man!

Have you made any sales although you just started 2 days ago?

 

[cutelariabr]

Good luck, man!

Have you made any sales although you just started 2 days ago?

Thanks Kweiss!

I indeed did 3 sales, one was my wife, one a friend and another one a Real one. I need to build a 5 stars reputation, so I need the better feedback I can get.

So far, so good.

My pinterest was shut down (spam). I'm building another ones, maybe 2 now...

 

[cutelariabr]

Tuesday Update:
The week was full, lots of things going on, I spent most of my time doing my Business Plan, organizing my thoughts and setting my goals. Right now my business plan is 50% done and I'll present it to the NY Small Business Council next week. I noticed I spent more money than I thought (Next update I'll leave the amount here) on the business, but could not be different: I set the business, did all the paperwork (fucking expensive here, much more than Brazil), bought inventory, etc.

So, as expected my week was full of ups and downs:
UP's:
- Got 6 sales on Etsy, totaling US$ 108,00 (2 of them were fake sales so I could have 5 stars reviews)
- Sold a Bulk order to a UK customer who found me on IG, I'll make a little bit less than US$ 200,00 on that
- Subscribed to my first Crystal Show, which will be on 1st and 2nd of June on a small town near here (low cost, very small city, hopefully it will be good)

DOWN's:
- Etsy ate all my money on AD's (I have 18 dollars there now)
- My IG (4K followers) is not redirecting sales as expected
- Etsy is slower than I thought
- Lost my Pinterest Account (they said it was SPAM, motherfu). But now I'll start a new strategy to it.

Last 7 days:
Views: 856
Clicks: 273
Orders: 5
$: 69
Money on Etsy Ads: 22,9
IG Followers: 3882 (8% increase)

Anything else?

 

[cutelariabr]

Tuesday Update:
The week was crazy, maybe not that productive. I had some problems with my buyers in Brazil, I needed to get rid of two of them, but thankfully, two days after I found two new buyers, old friends and much more reliable.
My wife is another problem, she doesn't know what she wants out of our relationship, it's driving me crazy. I'm trying to focus 100% on the company to make it work.

UP's:
- Got the sale number 10 on Etsy,
- 3 5Stars reviews, 7 items shipped waiting for the review
- Follow/Unfollow macro done, working smooth
- Shipped the bulk order to UK, straight from Brazil
- Sold a small bulk order from US, totaling 75 dollars
- Created a 1 month working plan
- Subscribed to a small expo (will be a offline marketing tool)
- Improved my SEO in a way which I can FUP the best results
(wow, I did a good amount of things)

Down's:
- Lost way too much time talking to suppliers/sellers (2 days and a half) whom screwed me up
- Wife driving me crazy (it's crazy how this can affect a business, it's mentally stressing)

For next week I need to:
- Complete my long term Business Plan
- Post 45 new items on Etsy
- Rebuild my Pinterest strategy
- Rent everything I need for the small expo
- Buy my stuff from Brazil, which needs to arrive by may, 30.


Views: 1209 41.24%
Clicks: 320 17.22%
Orders: 4 -20.00%
$: 99.76 44.58%
Money on Etsy Ads: 24.83 8.43%
Items Listed 171 -2.29%

 

[cash4auto]

i dont think you mentioned it but how about joining a network as a advertiser and maybe there is an affiliate that aligns with your interests. Hit up some bloggers and niche youtube channels for shoutouts

 

[trappstarr82]

Much success to your journey. I am also on an Etsy journey selling graphic downloadable templates. I have only 17 listings and want to put at least 100 listings before I start advertising. I already sold $70 with no advertising at all with only 17 items.

1.What are some effective advertising methods?

2. I hear people saying make sure your etsy SEO is good. Are there any guides or good resources discussing how to do this?

 

[aristocratic]

I was going to do the same thing as you !!
Now im going to wait for your results

I wish you good luck !!

( are you selling jewelries small things? I was about to order 200 different silver rings model ! )

 

[kevin tan]

good luck man

 

[cutelariabr]

Tuesday Update:
Another crazy week, not as much as last week but still. My wife is making my life sucks, she is talking about divorce and so on and no reasons for that. Ok, this is not a reason to fail on my Journey.
Brazilians sellers are still making me crazy, they have their own buyers and I am a small fish to them, so they don't care a lot about my business, but it's ok, my brothers helped me buying directly there and today the products will be sent to me by Fedex.
Etsy has some problems, the Etsy Ads is crashing, I was going to change my advertising strategy there but was not able because the page is not working since last Thursday, should be back today or tomorrow and since last week I had only two sales there, two good ones btw.

i dont think you mentioned it but how about joining a network as a advertiser and maybe there is an affiliate that aligns with your interests. Hit up some bloggers and niche youtube channels for shoutouts

Hi Cash4auto, I'm not into affiliates right now, maybe in the future. I have a pretty smooth Insta (which it's starting to generate some income now)

Much success to your journey. I am also on an Etsy journey selling graphic downloadable templates. I have only 17 listings and want to put at least 100 listings before I start advertising. I already sold $70 with no advertising at all with only 17 items.
1.What are some effective advertising methods?

2. I hear people saying make sure your etsy SEO is good. Are there any guides or good resources discussing how to do this?

1 - I started advertising because I had no sales and my Instagram alone was not bringing me enough traffic to Etsy, so I did that. My strategy needs to get better and I will change this week and let it run for 2 weeks to test it
2 - I'm using basic SEO and building my texts on wordpress so I can have better tools to help me with SEO.

I was going to do the same thing as you !!
Now im going to wait for your results

I wish you good luck !!

( are you selling jewelries small things? I was about to order 200 different silver rings model ! )

good luck man

Thanks buddy!
I'll update the results weekly, so you can have idea of what works and what doesn't. From now, direct sales on Instagram is working well with good return, more than Etsy as I'm doing direct sales from Brazil.

Ups:
- Finally solved the shipment problem from Brazil (thanks to my brothers)
- Success on my Instagram GiveAway, +- 300 followers this week
- Rented car and stuff for the Show

Downs:
- Probably won't receive shipment to the gem show next week
- Not being able to concentrate 100%
- Could not follow the weekly to do list 100%
- Wife driving me crazy (it's crazy how this can affect a business, it's mentally stressing)

For next week I need to:
- Complete my long term Business Plan - Not done yet
- Post 45 new items on Etsy - Not done Yet
- Rebuild my Pinterest strategy - Not done Yet
- Measure my Etsy Ads strategy - Etsy is out, Will start when it gets back
- Organize the merchandise to the small expo
- Rent everything I need for the small expo - Done
- Buy my stuff from Brazil, which needs to arrive by may, 30 - Done

Views: 696 -42.43%
Clicks: 238 -25.63%
Orders: 2 -50.00%
$: 104 4.25%
Etsy Ads: 34.75 39.95%
Items Listed 172 0.58%

 

[EarthboundImmortal]

Good luck and watching. I buy my soap from Etsy. Smells great. You goal setting and adaptation with your store will take you very far and sounds excellent. Offline will help a lot with your sales and increase them.

 

[William702]

I'm telling you now that you wont get anything close to the ROI you will get if you work with small to medium Youtubers. Send out a few bars of soap to these people and you will get a ton of traffic and sales. You can easily do a search for "soap reviews" on YouTube and filter the search to show new videos, decide on a size for the influencers and just send them all emails, some will take you up on your offer. I found that I would get several review requests for each review we had go live so it turns into a snowball effect and as long as you can keep up its a great way to grow a business like this. I hope the stuff in your personal life settles down too. All the best and good luck.

 

[cutelariabr]

Good luck and watching. I buy my soap from Etsy. Smells great. You goal setting and adaptation with your store will take you very far and sounds excellent. Offline will help a lot with your sales and increase them.

Thanks buddy!

I'm telling you now that you wont get anything close to the ROI you will get if you work with small to medium Youtubers. Send out a few bars of soap to these people and you will get a ton of traffic and sales. You can easily do a search for "soap reviews" on YouTube and filter the search to show new videos, decide on a size for the influencers and just send them all emails, some will take you up on your offer. I found that I would get several review requests for each review we had go live so it turns into a snowball effect and as long as you can keep up its a great way to grow a business like this. I hope the stuff in your personal life settles down too. All the best and good luck.

Thanks William! It's already did a research with 40 youtube channels to try to send the products! And I added to my to do list this week. Let's see how this goes!