The Beginner’s Guide to Selling on Etsy

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Etsy is one of many places to sell handmade and vintage goods worldwide. It's an incredible platform to get your product into the hands of people all over the world. I've had a lot of questions on how it works and if it's worth opening up a shop.

My history with Etsy

I first opened my Little Cotton Cottage Etsy shop in 2017. I started selling vintage sheets and had very little inventory because I was doing it on the side while working full time. Over time, I had a few sales here and there and I was able to grow my inventory. When the pandemic hit I was offered a voluntary layoff from my job and I took it to pursue my Etsy business. I've had over 1,500 sales and a lot of experience with selling on the platform.

I no longer sell on Etsy, I have a virtual vintage interior design consultation business. But I highly recommend Etsy and it gave me my start as a small business owner.

Do I recommend Etsy as a selling platform?

1000% YES! I absolutely love Etsy and it has been the best selling platform for me. There is no fee to open your shop so there's no risk. Listing items is very user friendly and easy compared to other sites I've worked on. Etsy has great blog posts, forums and podcasts so whenever I have a question I can always find my answer. Also, when I've had an issue with a customer and I didn't know how to handle it, I called Etsy and asked them what I should do. They were so helpful and it was great to be able to reach someone from Etsy directly to answer my question.

Another reason I love Etsy is that they do a lot of marketing and advertising for their sellers. Have you seen all the adorable Etsy commercials lately? Plus they prioritize social media and they do campaigns and hashtags for Etsy sellers to participate in. They work hard to get our products noticed by customers.

How is Etsy compared to other selling platforms?

A few years ago I sold a lot on Ebay and it was okay. I found the listing process really clunky and not straightforward. I've had someone buy one of my items and then not pay for it. That's a huge pain because you have to wait days for payment and when they don't pay you have to create a new listing and start over again. I burned out on Ebay and chose to pursue Etsy instead and I'm glad I did.

In 2020 I sold my products on Instagram. I did sell quite a bit which was great, but again I didn't like selling on there as much as Etsy. The main reason I didn't like selling on Instagram is because there are so many steps once someone claims your item. They have to send you their Paypal info or you have to message them asking for it. You have to create an invoice on Paypal, send it and then wait for them to pay. Then you have to log into Paypal again to actually ship the item. There's so much back and forth and waiting on the customer to pay (And sometimes they don't pay, even after they have claimed an item. Then you have to start the process over again.)

With Etsy, customers pay for their items when they checkout. So I'm never waiting on a customer. When an item sells I can immediately ship it out which makes it much more seamless.

Opening an Etsy shop

One of the main questions I received from my Instagram followers was "Is selling on Etsy complicated?". I think it's the easiest place to sell and isn't complicated at all. Etsy has a great resource on how to open an Etsy shop guide.

It costs nothing to open a shop but when you list an item it’s $.20 per listing. So if you list 10 items it will cost you $2.00. Once you sell an item you'll pay a 5% fee.

You can find my favorite books for selling on Etsy at this blog post: The Best Resources for Pursuing a Creative Vintage Business. If you only read one book I suggest Etsy Excellence: The Simple Guide to Creating a Thriving Etsy Business.

What You Need to Get Started

One of my Instagram followers asked me if you can do it all on a smart phone or if you need a computer. The Etsy app is great and I use it a lot, but I still feel like you need a computer. I'm not a tech wiz so I don't know if you can print shipping labels from your phone to your printer. If you know how to do that, then you could probably just use your phone.

When I first started out I didn't have anything except my laptop. I didn't have a printer, a shipping scale or new shipping envelopes. I saved boxes and envelopes that I received in the mail and kept them to reuse. When I sold my first item I put it in my reused packaging and brought it to the post office. They weighed it for me and printed out the shipping label. It costs a bit more to do it this way (Etsy gives you a discount if you buy shipping labels directly with them) but when I first started out I didn't want to spend money on an expensive printer.

What Equipment Should I Buy?

After I made a few sales I bought a shipping scale and printer. I purchased this inexpensive shipping scale on Amazon and it works great. I chose to buy a laser printer instead of an inkjet because refilling inkjet printers gets horribly expensive. I bought this Brother black and white printer and it's been perfect.

I get free shipping labels on the UPS website. You can have them shipped to your house for free so I've never paid for that. And I almost exclusively use reused packaging for what I sell. My friends save their Amazon boxes and envelopes for me to use. It's better for the environment and it saves me money too.

Get Business Cards, They Could Make You a Ton of Sales

After I made a few more sales I decided to order business cards. Adding a business card might seem trivial and unimportant but it’s gotten me tons of orders. A popular TikTok star purchased some of my charm packs and did an unboxing video and she showed my business card. She tagged my Instagram account and all of a sudden I sold out of everything in my shop! If my business card wasn’t in the package she wouldn’t have been able to easily share my shop with her followers and I would have missed out on all those orders. I got my business cards at Vistaprint and I’ve been really happy with them!

Overall Takeaway

You can easily get started on Etsy for next to nothing. If you're interested in selling on Etsy I encourage you to give it a try. Check out the Etsy Forums to see what you can learn.

Be sure to check out my blog post on 10 Tips for Running a Successful Etsy Shop.