For the past little while I've been doing this method and since I figured out a new twist to scale it up I figured I'd release the basic method - it's been earning me on average about $800/week in Etsy. After all my costs about half of that is profit.
Step 1:
Create an Etsy account and start a shop - you should name it some like [XXXX]Boutique, or FairTrade[XXXX] try and play up the one off novelty factor because girls love that. Here is a sample shop I've created for the purpose of this tutorial:
Step 2:
Go to AliExpress and type in things like "Africa" or "bead bracelet" "fair trade" and sort by price. Look for items that don't look like total crap. A great example is these:
The earings look fairly fancy and could easily be something that is sold in a nice boutique. They have a high quality image where they are nicely displayed and they only cost $1.29 a pair! Download that picture and return to etsy!
Step 3:
Add the items into your shop and set your base price to something roughly $30 - $39 dollars and then set shipping to $10 US, $25 rest of the world. Even if your item is super cheap to ship people charge so much for shipping on Etsy that it isn't a problem. This price range works for most trinkets and still keeps you competitive, however you may want to research what the rest of the market is selling these objects for.
When listing it consider saying it is "hand crafted" "rare" or "vintage". Play up the materials it is made out of. If in doubt you can get creative with your wording. The earrings are "silver leaf earrings" as they are silver in color but actually not made of silver.
When a user places an order ship the item from AliExpress to you. (If this is your first time getting that particular item consider taking high quality photos of the object so you can re-list it on Etsy with new unique pictures). Repackage the object and ship it to the customer. Your RoI on an item is massive and the shipping is covered so you can usually ship it express which will help get positive feedback.
Step 4
Now it's time to promote. To start I would use Pinterest (pinterest bots work great), as well as Facebook groups interested in fashion or fair trade products. Once you get 1-2 sales I'd start spending on Facebook advertisements which I found to be rather effective. Things like Reddit/Stumbleupon may work as well, I've never really tried organic traffic on this method since paid traffic was quick and working great. My average CPS was around $5 - $7 per customer and my average profit per item is over $20. On an average week right now I am selling 18 - 23 products across all my listings. A few tweaks I've made in my newest test store are starting to increase this average so play around and get creative.
Tips
-If an object isn't selling try dropping the price by 10% and relisting, experiment a bit to find out where the right price mark is.
-Get familiar with Etsy SEO - (This link is a good one http://www.workyourart.com/guide/etsy-seo/)
-Blog posts of "Ten great fair trade items on Etsy" or Pinterest posts are a great way to drive traffic. On Etsy affluent females age 17-40 are your primary market.
-It costs $0.20 per item you list and $0.20 every time you relist it, so be careful in your selections only pick high quality.
-That being said numbers are important this is a game of quantity to beat the searches one you make $200+ a week hire a virtual assistant to start bulk adding goods while you promote
-Try and keep a theme to your shop, new theme should be a new shop. You can send out emails to your previous buyers or even invite them to a Facebook page and promote new items in the same niche to them. About 12% of my sales come from repeat buyer advertising
-Consider Facebook advertising the margins on these products are really high so you have a great CPA. The BHW service by
Abradabra is great (http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/social-media/610134-zero-penny-likes-get-real-targeted-likes-visitors-app-installs-cents-via-facebo.html)
-If you have the money to invest buy your product in bulk to cut down on shipping costs, and buy it in advanced to cut down on shipping times to your customers.
-Throw in a business card with your shipment that has your store name and links to a Facebook page and your store.
Beyond that I'm afraid we've tapped out my knowledge so far of Etsy, I am sure there are people who are far better at organic traffic and at Etsy selling than I am. So experiment with their concepts and see how you can bring it to Etsy to earn on these high margin items.
