Avoiding Common Mistakes: A New Seller’s Guide to Etsy

Selling on Etsy can feel overwhelming, especially when you’re just starting out. Creating your business profile requires a lot of decision making and patience. Then there are a huge number of steps involved with getting your business off the ground.

To maximise your success selling on Etsy. It’s important to avoid making errors that can cost you your time and money. Read on to learn about the most common mistakes new sellers make on Etsy. Along with our top tips and tricks for how to avoid them.

Poor Product Photography

Humans are intrinsically visual creatures. That said, with an online shop, your product photography is the only way to showcase your offering to potential buyers. This makes having good product photography the most essential layer of building your Etsy profile. With your shop being up against hundreds of others. It’s important to have product photography that stand out from the crowd and grab potential buyers’ attention. 

Although hiring a professional product photographer is, of course, an expense. It will pay dividends in the long run by drawing people in and creating a customer base. You will be able to work closely with your product photographer to ensure your photos capture the essence of your brand and clearly define your product offering.

Underpricing Your Products

There are so many reasons to list your products at a price that is fair to you, the seller. One of the biggest of these reasons, is to ensure the perceived value of the product is accurate from the customer’s perspective. A product that is priced very low in comparison to its competitors will be perceived as lower quality. Or perhaps even unethically made, causing your sales to plummet. Instead, carry out competitor research into other similar products on Etsy. To get an idea of the going rate and, using this information, list your products at a similar but competitive point. 

For example, if similar products are listed at between £35 and £50. Consider listing your product between £35 and £40, rather than trying to stand out at £25 to £30 and just driving customers away instead. Consider enlisting a pricing consultant if you would like more guidance on your product price points. 

Lacklustre or Inappropriate Packaging 

Packaging your items in an aesthetically pleasing way takes your shipment from the product alone to a whole experience. Opening your parcel should give your recipient joy, encouraging them to return to your shop and buy from you again and again. Consider using pretty stationery, coloured tissue paper, and branded stickers to decorate the inside of your parcel. To go one step further, you could even consider including handwritten thank you notes in your parcels to show your buyers your appreciation for their business.

Once it comes to shipping your product, bulky boxes can cause delivery complications if the recipient isn’t at home to accept the delivery. If possible, consider ensuring your product can fit through a letter box so that your parcels can still be successfully delivered if the recipient isn’t home. Letter box boxes are a great choice for this, as their dimensions are specially designed to fit through a letterbox whilst still offering your product adequate protection from damage during transit.

Ineffective Marketing and Branding 

Marketing and branding a crucial facet of building a small business. They are the building blocks that present your products to the world and demonstrate what you’re all about. Take time with branding your small business and be careful and purposeful in your marketing approach. 

Branding encompasses a broad range of things, from an eye-catching logo to effective brand colours and fonts. Your social media accounts should be a cohesive display of your branding in order to build a clear brand identity for your small business. On the other hand, your exact marketing approach may take time to develop, but ultimately, consistency is absolutely key in order to garner engagement and generate a buzz. A social media agency can utilise their expertise to help you to effectively market your small Etsy business.