How To Start An Etsy Online Business: The Creative Entrepreneur’s Guide: Make Money from Home

By Jill b.

You're an artist, a crafter or a creative. Now is time to take your skills to the next level and Etsy is an excellent place to start. But how?

Etsy is an online marketplace but it is not eBay or Amazon. It is its own entity with its own audiences. This book will guide you
through the process of setting up shop through to building your brand and business.

In this book, you'll learn:
- How to choose your product line.
- How to design a shop that is unique to you and your brand.
- How to use keywords and tags so that buyers find your shop.
- Photography best practices.
- How to price appropriately and to write copy to sell.
- and More!

Buy this book to learn more today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jill b.
• Release date: Apr 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386410591

Jill b.

Self-Reliance -- One Step at a Time Get free e-books at http://byjillb.com Reliance on one job. Reliance on the agri-industrial food system. Are you ready to break free, take control and to rely on yourself? With a no-nonsense style,  Jill Bong draws from her own homesteading experiences and mistakes, and writes books focusing on maximizing output with minimal input to save you time and money. Jill was born and raised in a country with one of highest population densities in the world. Dreaming of chickens and fruit trees, she left the trappings of the big city and is setting up her homestead in an American town with a population of less than 300. Jill writes under the pen name Jill b. She is an author, entrepreneur, homesteader and is the co-inventor and co-founder of Chicken Armor (http://chickenarmor.com), an affordable, low maintenance chicken saddle. She has also written over a dozen books on homesteading and self-reliance. Jill has been mentioned/quoted in various publications including The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Denver Post and ABC News. She has written for various magazines including Countryside and Small Stock Journal, Molly Green, Farm Show Magazine and Backyard Poultry Magazine. She holds an Engineering degree from an Ivy League from a previous life. At its height, her previous homestead included over 100 chickens, geese and ducks, as well as cats, a dog, bees and a donkey named Elvis. She currently learning permaculture techniques to apply to her homestead in rural Oregon. Learn more by visiting her site http://byjillb.com.

Book preview

Introduction

I’ll admit that I’m not particularly artistic but I’ve been crafty for as long as I can remember. I used to make intricate cross-stitch and crochet pieces with no possibility of selling or making money on my crafts (I was a child of the ‘80s). These days however, we have so many opportunities to make our wares available to a worldwide audience. How amazing is that?

I am an entrepreneur. I have been selling on eBay and the now defunct Yahoo Auctions since 1998. I later branched out to selling on Amazon as well. Even though I discovered Etsy in 2006, I didn’t start selling on the platform until 2012 when I started selling our reinvented chicken saddle (refer to the author bio at the end of the book if you’re interested in learning more). I am a creative entrepreneur.

Unfortunately, many creatives don’t like to think of business and money and might even feel like they’re selling out. If you’re reading this book, I’m going to assume that you are a creative entrepreneur as well. Otherwise, you need to work on shifting your mindset. You can be both an artist or creative as well as a business person. Think of your sales as, Wow, someone loved my work enough to buy it from me! How cool is that?

Setting Business Goals

Today, instead of having the only option of opening a storefront or in-person venue to sell your creations, you can set up your digital storefront with relative ease and low start-up costs. That is a wonderful advantage when you’re starting out. Although there are new selling platforms like Handmade by Amazon coming up, at the time of writing, Etsy is still by far the best and largest platform for crafters and artists to sell their wares online.

Before you get too excited however, remember that this also means that the entry point is low for everyone else as well. Yes, some stores Etsy shops can make tens of thousands of dollars a month on Etsy but these are established businesses who got in at an earlier stage. As more and more people flood into the market and with new Etsy rules allowing wholesaling and pre-manufactured items, it has become harder to gain a foothold.

Don’t despair. That doesn’t mean that you can’t still start a business. You just need to be realistic about business volume and sales, especially when you’re new. More importantly, you need to figure out what you want from your business.

Do you just want to just sell some of the items you’ve made or are planning to make?

Do you just want to make a little extra pocket money?

Do you want to generate a side income to help pay the bills?

Or, do you want something more, like having a business that will replace a job?

Where do you see your business and brand a year from now? What about 5 years from now?

There are no right or wrong answers and your aspirations can change over time as you and your situation change. However, having goals in your mind will help you to formulate the steps you need to take in order to achieve those goals.

Brand YOU

In this noisy market, I believe one of the best ways to stand out from the crowd is to distinguish your brand or your business from others. Whether you’re making the items or selling vintage items or craft supplies, what make you, you? Remember that people shop on Etsy because they generally want to find something different. Otherwise, they would have shopped at Amazon, eBay or your local big box store.

What makes your brand stand out? Do they promote something? Is it how you see the world? Are your works a reflection of your childhood or your experiences or just the things you like? Whether it’s bringing ethnic native craft supplies from around the world or 1950s kitsch to your customer or whether it’s the nature that inspires your artwork, selling something that is meaningful to you will help to give your business a sense of purpose while helping it stand