Ask me Anything About making money on Etsy (Etsy AMA)

[pablo51]

My etsy shop got suspended for dropshipping.
They have mentioned in email that I can't make new accounts to sell.

Any way around it?

 

[William702]

My etsy shop got suspended for dropshipping.
They have mentioned in email that I can't make new accounts to sell.

Any way around it?

Please read through the thread. I believe that has been asked and answered.

 

[Rebo]

Don't forget....
If your shop falls below 1% ODR (Order Dissatisfaction Rate) you are at risk of losing your account
Try to find items with low cost/high transaction rate to work around this. Craft supplies, Vinyl, etc are good things to get into on Etsy nowadays. Drop-shipping is not allowed, but importing items and selling is. This is a very common practice in the "craft supplies" department. Broad terminology

 

[Deleted member 1374001]

Hey, my family owns a pretty succesfull etsy shop with over 280 5 star reviews, and rank within the top 100 of all stores globally.

I began making a website for it, got some neat plugins from festinger, a good theme and etc, but i have trouble importing my etsy prodcuts(around 500 unique one)

i kinda imported all of them thanks to csv, but it did not include the lenght width weight, which is a bother to do for all 500 indiviudally. any help pls?

 

[William702]

Hey, my family owns a pretty succesfull etsy shop with over 280 5 star reviews, and rank within the top 100 of all stores globally.

I began making a website for it, got some neat plugins from festinger, a good theme and etc, but i have trouble importing my etsy prodcuts(around 500 unique one)

i kinda imported all of them thanks to csv, but it did not include the lenght width weight, which is a bother to do for all 500 indiviudally. any help pls?

That's funny as I had a shop with 82,500 5 star reviews and still have one with over 68,000 that does not show up in the top 100, how is your 280 review shop showing up in the top 100? Do you mean in a very specific niche or in your category? Or do you mean every shop on etsy, as both mean very different things.

You just answered your own question, as you say you didn't do it when uploading so now if you want to do it you will have to open each listing individually and insert any variations you want included. There is no way around that sadly. The bulk importer is famous for messing stuff up like this and in most cases one would have to go in anyway to make sure everything is in its right place and it carried all the info across. My advice would be to open up the listings and edit them by hand, 500 should not take you more than a day.

Most of these apps and tools to bulk upload dont work on Etsy and eBay because each section or type of products has a different page and a whole bunch of different options and variation so you are shit out of luck as far as I know.

 

[BrandingCat]

Do you think selling from an east European country > global is a good idea? Do people have patience to wait up to 10 days?
My father`s passionate about old/vintage stuff, he retires this year and I am thinking to help me sell some stuff just for fun, and why not some profit for him.

Thanks in advance.

 

[William702]

Do you think selling from an east European country > global is a good idea? Do people have patience to wait up to 10 days?
My father`s passionate about old/vintage stuff, he retires this year and I am thinking to help me sell some stuff just for fun, and why not some profit for him.

Thanks in advance.

It's a good idea in theory but honestly with Etsy I just don't think the traffic is there, if he will be doing it just for fun and as a hobby then great but not for profit and i know for a fact that long shipping times will dramatically lower the amount of willing buyers.

 

[Deleted member 1374001]

That's funny as I had a shop with 82,500 5 star reviews and still have one with over 68,000 that does not show up in the top 100, how is your 280 review shop showing up in the top 100? Do you mean in a very specific niche or in your category? Or do you mean every shop on etsy, as both mean very different things.

You just answered your own question, as you say you didn't do it when uploading so now if you want to do it you will have to open each listing individually and insert any variations you want included. There is no way around that sadly. The bulk importer is famous for messing stuff up like this and in most cases one would have to go in anyway to make sure everything is in its right place and it carried all the info across. My advice would be to open up the listings and edit them by hand, 500 should not take you more than a day.

Most of these apps and tools to bulk upload dont work on Etsy and eBay because each section or type of products has a different page and a whole bunch of different options and variation so you are shit out of luck as far as I know.

thank you so much for the reply. also, I think I should've mentioned the fact that i sell rugs, which on average goes for like 200-300 dollars, so I think that might be a reason I rank so high. also yeah, ig I have to do all manually , I better get to work lol.

I meant to include this to my first post so sorry if I'm spamming but couldn't edit it in. Etsy is soon changing the way they advertise their product, esp with promoting listing across the web on behalf of the seller. what do u think about this change and how do u think we can get ahead of this curve.

Also, do u recommend any already posted threads regarding getting big on social media for healthy traffic to my site. Despite doing good so far on Etsy, I have literally done the bare minimum in terms of social media so i probably missed out on a lot of potential customers. I paid someone to set up my Pinterest with SEO, keywords and everything else along with the pins, and right now I'm using tailwind but get like 2k monthly views on my page. With Facebook as well, I got a couple of hundred followers on my page, but I don't know how to go about it and make it grow.

I'm sorry if this is just too much to answer, i would understand ty for reading.

 

[Rebo]

thank you so much for the reply. also, I think I should've mentioned the fact that i sell rugs, which on average goes for like 200-300 dollars, so I think that might be a reason I rank so high. also yeah, ig I have to do all manually , I better get to work lol.

I meant to include this to my first post so sorry if I'm spamming but couldn't edit it in. Etsy is soon changing the way they advertise their product, esp with promoting listing across the web on behalf of the seller. what do u think about this change and how do u think we can get ahead of this curve.

Also, do u recommend any already posted threads regarding getting big on social media for healthy traffic to my site. Despite doing good so far on Etsy, I have literally done the bare minimum in terms of social media so i probably missed out on a lot of potential customers. I paid someone to set up my Pinterest with SEO, keywords and everything else along with the pins, and right now I'm using tailwind but get like 2k monthly views on my page. With Facebook as well, I got a couple of hundred followers on my page, but I don't know how to go about it and make it grow.

I'm sorry if this is just too much to answer, i would understand ty for reading.

Hey @fardin
Look into @William702 threads's on "ranking pins on pinterest"
Your on the right track using Tailwind but I'm sure you can do everything yourself. Paid tailwind will have hashtag suggestions for you that make it easy to rank for search terms on Pinterest.

@William702 has laid the groundwork for most all of this. Be unique, creative, and provide good customer service

 

[vamnt1]

I'm following. Thanks for your instructions William

 

[iktheavus]

So I've opened a new shop, and uploaded 7 listings.
With 0 marketing done, the shop had around 100 EUR in sales in 2nd day and whopping 500 a 3rd day (see screenshots attached).
The weird thing is it all comes from one listing, and on the 4th day I am suddenly getting literally 0 visits / 0 sales, the "20 people have this in their cart" nudge was removed as well.

I can still search and find my listings on the search new, but the abrupt cut off from sales seems very awkward.
I did not change the listing in any way, didn't receive any disputes or negative reviews, already shipped out most of the orders within 2 days of order approved.

My question is, is such irregular traffic normal on etsy ? Are there any lessons to be learned for fresh shops, for instance ways to have a longer starting selling streak?

It seems I was provided with free traffic and sales without any efforts at first, then everything was taken away abruptly and now it seems anything I do has no affects on the visits.

 

[Darien4]

Thank you @William702 for this AMA!

I started a shop on Etsy some days ago after reading your thread and got a couple of sales with organic traffic!
I have a website with a good .com URL, made of a strong KW for my niche. That URL is my brand name.
I wanted to give the same name to my shop but it was already taken and I chose whatever seemed relevant to quickly give a try to Etsy since they say I can change my shop name in the future.
Now that I know I want to invest more effort into Etsy, I would like your opinion on the following:

In the case my brand name is already taken by another shop, what would you recommend me to name my shop? Should I go for a shop name made of strong KWs for my niche, but unrelated to my brand name, or just do something like:
- MyBrandNameOfficial
- MyBrandNameX
- MyBrandNames (with an "s" at the end of the keyword).

Both ways have their pros and cons. Once I have some good reviews, I plan to add links of my Etsy shop to my website so people can check more reviews from another more trustable source than my website. Hence a cohesion between my Etsy shop name and brand name seems to be the best.

What would you do in that situation?

This same things happen for social media account names too. However I could managed to get something good since characters such as "-" and "_" are allowed on these social media (unlike Etsy).

I can change my shop name only once so I will wait for your opinion, advice or ideas if you have any.

Thank you so much for taking time to read my post!

 

[iktheavus]

@William702 I have read everything on this and pinterest thread. Is there a way to access your etsy facebook fiverr thread? Don't have the post count for VIP :/

 

[William702]

thank you so much for the reply. also, I think I should've mentioned the fact that i sell rugs, which on average goes for like 200-300 dollars, so I think that might be a reason I rank so high. also yeah, ig I have to do all manually , I better get to work lol.

I meant to include this to my first post so sorry if I'm spamming but couldn't edit it in. Etsy is soon changing the way they advertise their product, esp with promoting listing across the web on behalf of the seller. what do u think about this change and how do u think we can get ahead of this curve.

Also, do u recommend any already posted threads regarding getting big on social media for healthy traffic to my site. Despite doing good so far on Etsy, I have literally done the bare minimum in terms of social media so i probably missed out on a lot of potential customers. I paid someone to set up my Pinterest with SEO, keywords and everything else along with the pins, and right now I'm using tailwind but get like 2k monthly views on my page. With Facebook as well, I got a couple of hundred followers on my page, but I don't know how to go about it and make it grow.

I'm sorry if this is just too much to answer, i would understand ty for reading.

Etsy have changed the ads back to just Etsy, but hey are still garbage. The days of free traffic are no longer what they were 5 or 10 years ago. it is still possible but making a social media presence for a business takes a lot more manual work these days and it is harder to just play the numbers game and sit back.

I'm following. Thanks for your instructions William

My pleasure, I hope it helps.

So I've opened a new shop, and uploaded 7 listings.
With 0 marketing done, the shop had around 100 EUR in sales in 2nd day and whopping 500 a 3rd day (see screenshots attached).
The weird thing is it all comes from one listing, and on the 4th day I am suddenly getting literally 0 visits / 0 sales, the "20 people have this in their cart" nudge was removed as well.

I can still search and find my listings on the search new, but the abrupt cut off from sales seems very awkward.
I did not change the listing in any way, didn't receive any disputes or negative reviews, already shipped out most of the orders within 2 days of order approved.

My question is, is such irregular traffic normal on etsy ? Are there any lessons to be learned for fresh shops, for instance ways to have a longer starting selling streak?

It seems I was provided with free traffic and sales without any efforts at first, then everything was taken away abruptly and now it seems anything I do has no affects on the visits.

Etsy change their algorithm almost daily so don't be surprised at this. one change could do amazing things for one shop and destroy another so i is ups and downs. there is no real way of checking to see what caused it from the Etsy analytics. so to answer your question yes it is very common for this to happen, just check the etsy forums and teams, you will find thousands of people saying the same thing.

Thank you @William702 for this AMA!

I started a shop on Etsy some days ago after reading your thread and got a couple of sales with organic traffic!
I have a website with a good .com URL, made of a strong KW for my niche. That URL is my brand name.
I wanted to give the same name to my shop but it was already taken and I chose whatever seemed relevant to quickly give a try to Etsy since they say I can change my shop name in the future.
Now that I know I want to invest more effort into Etsy, I would like your opinion on the following:

In the case my brand name is already taken by another shop, what would you recommend me to name my shop? Should I go for a shop name made of strong KWs for my niche, but unrelated to my brand name, or just do something like:
- MyBrandNameOfficial
- MyBrandNameX
- MyBrandNames (with an "s" at the end of the keyword).

Both ways have their pros and cons. Once I have some good reviews, I plan to add links of my Etsy shop to my website so people can check more reviews from another more trustable source than my website. Hence a cohesion between my Etsy shop name and brand name seems to be the best.

What would you do in that situation?

This same things happen for social media account names too. However I could managed to get something good since characters such as "-" and "_" are allowed on these social media (unlike Etsy).

I can change my shop name only once so I will wait for your opinion, advice or ideas if you have any.

Thank you so much for taking time to read my post!

If it is taken on all social media i would consider changing it or thinking of a name like the suggestions you made above with the word shop on the end or beginning of it. i would not use just an S on the end as this could be confusing and you could lose a lot of traffic to your competitor. try something like (shopbrandname)

Personally I would find a name that you can get across all the platforms and social media, anything else is just messy. i have changed shop names 6 times that rule is just to stop people doing it manually. if you message them and ask nicely they have always granted an additional change across many of my shops.

@William702 I have read everything on this and pinterest thread. Is there a way to access your etsy facebook fiverr thread? Don't have the post count for VIP :/

The only way would be to contribute more to get your posts up and then pay for VIP status when you qualify.

 

[idbn667]

how many shops you had/have ?

 

[DemmyCool]

Can someone sell not tangible items on ETSY?
Sorry, if this has been asked before...

 

[William702]

how many shops you had/have ?

more than 1 and less than 20. I have worked on hundreds.

Can someone sell not tangible items on ETSY?
Sorry, if this has been asked before...

yes, things like guides, workshops, people can sell fucking tarot readings on there so yes you can sell make believe non tangible goods.

 

[iktheavus]

Will having my listing viewed/hearted by teams games bring organic traffic? Or is it just a waste of time?

 

[Darien4]

Thank you for your reply @William702

I read you said that there was a change on Etsy ads system and since that, it isn't worth running ads anymore. My product sells relatively well with the organic traffic of etsy, I have 2/3 sells a day and I don't even have any image review nor social traffic coming in. I would like to hit 100 sales and have some image reviews fast to build social proof.

Would you recommend me to run some Etsy ads or is it definitely not worth it? Is it likely to bring much more sales than organic traffic alone? Does it make sense to try it with like 2-3 euros a day for a month, or is it not enough to test and adjust their algorithm and in that case, I would just be wasting my money? What would the minimal budget for such a campaign?

I used to run a lot of very low CPC ads on amazon and my ROAS was crazy good, even if it was impossible to scale. However on Etsy it is impossible to target very long and cheap KW .

I am uploading some good content on instagram atm and soon I will start working with influencers. That's where I plan to spend most of my advertising budget. Maybe pinterest ads too.. Would you advise pinterest ads too?

I hope it's not too much to ask. Thanks again for your time, it is so good to have content like this on the internet. Without this thread, I would not have started Etsy.

 

[idbn667]

more than 1 and less than 20. I have worked on hundreds.



yes, things like guides, workshops, people can sell fucking tarot readings on there so yes you can sell make believe non tangible goods.

can you make guide to open and run stealth accounts?