SELLING ON ETSY – ONE YEAR ON

So it’s just over a year since I started selling my handmade bags on Etsy and I thought I’d do a roundup on how things have gone and are going!

 

I tend to discount the first month because really it was only people who knew me who were kind enough to buy my bags on etsy in those early days. It was around the beginning of April when things started to really move.

I got my first international sale on 5th of April 2017 to Canada! I was so excited and couldn’t wait to get it in the post, it was an Alice in Wonderland Purse and the lady who bought it ended up ordering three more! 

Good reviews followed and more international sales came through, I have now shipped to Canada, America, Sweden, Switzerland, Singapore the U.K and other parts of Europe.

I think the reach is one of the most amazing things about Etsy, I told my Dad (who is 81) about these and his mind is just blown, he even got out the map to see where exactly Singapore is!

Initial Goals:

So from the beginning of setting up my Etsy shop my initial goal was to sell an average of one bag a week, so by April 2018 I was hoping to have 52 sales.

GOAL COMPLETE – As of today April 24th 2018 I have 84 sales! I would love to hit 150 by the end of 2018, so lots more making to do!

 

Things I love about Etsy:

• The reach: it is amazing to see people visit my store, favourite and buy my items from places that I never thought I would sell to, when you see an order coming in from Singapore or Canada it is very surreal.
• The analytics in general: Ok slightly controversial here as I know alot of people don’t like the new analytics of visits and views but it is a very handy tool, I can see how many visits and views I have had in a day, what country they are looking from and how they found my store. Are they always accurate? I don’t know but it is easy to see a lift in views after a facebook or instagram post so I don’t think they are too far out.
• The community: I love the forums feature, I don’t post there regularly but it’s good to get a feel for what is going on. The teams are also good, I am a member of the Etsy Ireland team and it is a great resource.
• The fees: realistically for what you get from Etsy the fees are not excessive, its 20 cents ($) to list an item and then Etsy keep 3.5% of each sale, I haven’t personally looked at too many other e-commerce websites but from what I have seen in the forums Etsy is very reasonable.

Things I don’t like about Etsy:

• Clumping:this seems to be a new thing with Etsy but alot of times when I search for items I see items from certain shops clumped together, it’s a bit annoying in that I feel that other shops aren’t getting a look in in those situations. It is generally thought that this is and AI problem (robots eh?!)
• Search: Ok so searching on Etsy can be very frustrating whether its for my own items or if I’m just shopping, because you can add up to 13 tags on Etsy for products sometimes the AI just doesn’t get it right (or some say its search manipulation by users) for example if I search for a purse in a particular type of fabric, the likelihood of me actually seeing a whole page of purses in that fabric even if they are on Etsy is unlikely.
• Search (Again!): So lately Etsy has gotten much quieter for me, after some inward panicking I looked on the forum and it seems to be Europe wide, the main reason that I can figure is that Etsy changed the search function slightly. The main users of Etsy is in North America and Canada as it is well known there, from what I have gathered if customers search for ready to ship items it gives U.S and Canadian shops more weight in the search as they have figured that people want to receive items quickly. I suppose us Europeans will just have to hope that this won’t last forever and use social media as a way to reach those people.

 

So that’s my general musings on Etsy, I don’t always love it but without it where would I be? Sitting in a house full of bags probably! 🙂

 

I would love to hear of other peoples experience of selling on Etsy or online in general, it’s great to hear of how other people find it.

Sarah