This is for you Etsy Sellers

Are you an Etsy seller? Here are some tips....

The 10 Commandments of Etsy

Stay Current - Shoppers are usually set on the chronological sort option. If you have not listed in a week your item might be as far back as the 10^th page. Be sure to list something on a regular basis. If you do not have anything new to list than renew an existing listing.

Love your Shop like a baby – Your etsy shop needs to be nurtured. Shoppers can tell the difference between half heartedly listing stuff you have laying around and investing your energy into making a shop that expresses you and your art.

Have some Cohesion – Visually it is pleasing and inspires confidence in the buyer. It would be great if we all made and sold one thing - a plethora of perfected items from which the shopper could choose the perfect one. But we are all scatterbrained artists following the muses. At least photograph your items with the same background and be consistent in your style of description.

Use Great Photos! – Good photos are not good enough. Especially when you are selling something like jewelry and have 1000s of competitors. Etsy prides itself on being a visual feast. To be on the menu you have to go top shelf with your photography.

Provide something extra – Packaging, service, documentation, communication... customers want to be babied. If you treat a customer as if they are the sister you never knew you had, they will be your customer for life. Give them that something extra. Let them know that you appreciate that they spent their hard earned money on something you made.

Use all of your tags – you have 13 “tags,” key words to direct your customer to your product. Make sure to use all 13. These descriptive words can be subject, occasion, color, texture, feeling, season, use, etc.

Have a Banner - Your banner is the first thing people see when they visit your shop. It might be worth paying the $15 that other etsy sellers charge to design your banner.

Tell a Story - One of the reasons people shop on etsy is to support the little guy. You are honed in on a market that cares about the origin and artistry of a product. Give your shoppers more to go on; describe why you were inspired to make and item, what you personally love about it, an anecdote about how it came to be, etc. They love this stuff!

Believe in what you offer – There is a buyer for every product out there. Some may be more difficult to sell than others. If you love and believe in what you do than they will come.

Artistic Suicide

I wonder - how many truly successful artists there are out there. Let's define artist as someone who makes a one of a kind product to sell. Let's define success as an income capable of supporting a person: some sort of shelter that at least has insulation; enough food to not be "starving;" enough money to invest back into their career, like buying a laptop, painting supplies, or a pencil perhaps; health insurance would be nice.

To make money selling something that you have created there are two requirements. First, you have to be making something that people want - a lot of people. Second, you have to be able to make enough of it, get it out there, and sell it. This does not come easily to anyone. Few might be so genius either creatively or in the marketing department that they find Easy Street. But for the vast majority we have to work... hard.... forever.

There are further complications with making and selling art. Artists can't sustain their creativity in a constant linear direction. We get something good going and then the muses withdraw their support and send you hurling into another direction of unexplored creativity. Try to sell THIS now. The muses don't stand a chance against THE ECONOMY. We are trying to sell the most superfluous product of human existence; adornment. You can't eat it, drink it, live in it, or even smoke it. When THE ECONOMY has spoken, all artists listen.

The artist's greatest challenge is to find their way through the pitfalls to thrive, create, SELL, defy the muses and THE ECONOMY.

All of this said, I will not be deterred and I personally know dozens of others who have chosen this path. Give your artist a hug. Or even better, buy art.