After working with hundreds of makers over the last few years, I regularly see people making the same mistakes in their Etsy shops over and over again.
In this episode, I share the top 5 mistakes I see people making with their online shops. I’m focussing on Etsy today, but honestly, these issues crop up no matter what online venue you are using – so even if you’re selling somewhere other than Etsy, you will benefit from this episode.
Today I share some really vital things which you can quickly and easily change right now to make your online shop more professional and encourage customers to purchase from you. Other issues I touch on might take some time to get it right, but it’s important to start on these now so you can add to your skills
I hope you don’t recognise these mistakes in your shop – but if you do, at least you now know what you need to work on to make it better!
Your shop will never be perfect: but you can always improve and be the best you can be.
Are you making any of these 5 mistakes with your Etsy shop?
Download/Listen to this Episode
You can also subscribe to the podcast and listen to this episode on iTunes + Stitcher
Quotes and highlights from this Episode:
- “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at somebody’s store and they would have maybe 5-10 items. I can tell you immediately that this will be a turn off for people. They won’t take your seriously if you don’t have a well-stocked shop.”
- If you have high priced or artist pieces, you might be able to get away with less products.
- With Etsy, you should have 25+ products which will give you more than one page of products.
- You want your shop to look full and that you’re serious about business.
- But you also don’t want to have too much choice.
- 100 products is said to be the magic number on Etsy but don’t panic if that’s out of the realm of possibility for you.
- Grow your items slowly but surely until you have a good selection but don’t go the other way and have too many products.
- “I ended up having too many with 400+ items and I had a lot of older ones which I made the decision to narrow my brand and took a bunch of them down. My business has grown more since then than ever before.”
- Don’t be afraid to get rid of things that aren’t working.
- Don’t use flash photography as it looks awful and makes harsh shadows nor does it to any products any favours.
- A bit of styling is OK but don’t clutter the image.
- Dial back your styling until your product is the star of the photo.
- If your item blends into the photo, it’s too cluttered.
- Taking photos freehand will definitely give you blurry photos sometimes.
- On the camera screen it might look fine but if you blow them up on your computer screen and they aren’t sharp, redo them.
- “I’ve made all these mistakes which is why I can talk about them. But I’ve learnt a lot since then and I’ve come a long way.”
- It will take trial and error – you can do it, it just takes time.
- Filtered or ambient light is best.
- Before you work on your marketing, spend time on your photos and getting them right.
- It’s important that people can see who you are especially with resellers and big companies infiltrating the market.
- Show behind the scenes photos to show social proof that you brand is genuinely handmade.
- Customers can separate your quality from all the rubbish that is out there.
- It’s important with connecting with your ideal customer.
- Be genuine and warm and tell them why you make what you make and why they’ll love it.
- If you don’t have Policies or a FAQ in place, make that a priority.
- It will make dealing with issues really easy since you will have a policy to refer them to.
- Customers can know before they buy what your policies are and can make an informed decision to buy.
- “Good policies will nip a problem in the bud before it becomes a bigger issue.”
- There’s lots of great examples out there and see which ones are clear and especially in your specific niche.
- Descriptions help you convince your customer to buy.
- Most of the time you want to tell customers that you have what they need and the detail in your descriptions will do that for you.
- People are inherently lazy and want to know all the answers to their questions upfront so describe the item as if they can’t even see it.
- Benefits and Features are the most important aspects of your product so figure them out first.
- What is the emotion attached to the item? Include that story in the description.
