Learn How to Build A Successful Etsy Shop

Naming your shop is vital to your success and brand. It's more than just coming up with something that may sound good. It must convey what your business is about. It also must not contain anything that could bring legal trouble your way. In this lecture I will go over some great methods for coming up with your name, how to optimize it, and turning it into a brand. We will also go into detail about branding and why it is so important to your success as a shop owner.

Lets see what you learned before moving onto Section 3!

Registering with Etsy is pretty easy but there is more involved than just signing up. You will need to optimize your profile, bio, and as a seller you need to prepair your account for making sales. There are tax settings and financial settings that must be completed as well. We will go over all of it and I will show exactly what to do by showing you real life examples from the Etsy website. Everything we do here must be done before you create your actual shop.

We are now ready to start building your brand new Etsy shop! To start we will focus on creating a shop title, adding a banner, icon image, and I will introduce you to the "shop announcement" feature in your web store. We will also go over ETSY subscription choices. This is just the beginning but soon your shop will be ready to go live!

We continue to build your shop and optimize it for success. In this lecture we will fill out your "About me" section AKA "Your Story" and I will explain why this is so important and can produce sales. We will talk about adding a shop video, behind the scenes photos and go over different shop options available to you. We will also discuss production partners. After this lesson your shop with be 90% completed.

In this final lesson on building your Etsy shop we will go over setting up shipping. It's actually a fairly easy process but once you complete these steps shipping will become the easiest process of your business.

This lecture is vital to your business. Shop policies are designed to protect your business and notify the customers of important information. Etsy makes it very easy for you to add very detailed policies. We will go over everything you need to do and I will show you my shop policies to help guide you. This is a must for your shop so please take notes!

It's always important to understand legal issues that may come up. A few years ago the very talented Taylor Swift issued a cease and desist order against an Etsy shop owner because they were selling products featuring her copyrighted song lyrics and her image. A shop owner could lose their business over this for not following the rules. In this lecture I will go over the legal issues you could face and how to protect yourself and your business.

Let's see if you learned the important elements needed to start an Etsy shop.

We will now begin the process of creating product listings. Before we are able to create our actual listing we need to be prepared. The first thing we must do is create photos for our products. In this lesson you will learn tips on what type of photos you need, how to take photos yourself, and how to outsource to others who can do the photos for you. This is an important step as photos will do most of the selling.  Don't worry because when you finish this lesson you will have the knowledge to create great photos for your products!

In order to write your product titles and description it's vital that you do some keyword or keyphrase research. This will not only help your product get found on Etsy's site but search engines like Google and Bing. It will also come in handy later when you do some marketing and advertising. I have a very simple way of doing this and I will show you exactly how to do it. After this lecture you will be able to optimize your titles and descriptions like a pro!

This lecture will touch on a subject that many Etsy sellers struggle with when they begin. Even those who have been doing this for awhile may struggle with this topic as well. How much should you price your item? When is it too low or too high? What about shipping fees? No worries as we will go over all of this. After this lecture is over you will have a much better idea of what you should do when pricing your products and setting shipping fees.

In this lecture I will finally show you how to create a listing for your product in your Etsy shop. There are a lot of important details here. We will cover categories, variations, title, description, photographs, pricing, shipping, and publishing your listing for all to see. I will also show you where to place the keywords and keyphrases that you researched for your products. When this lesson is done you will finally be able to make your shop go live!

There is a lot of behind the scenes settings but one of the simplest ways to adjust your store front (the page customers will see) is to go directly to the page itself. Etsy has made it easy to edit all of the content directly on the page. In this lecture I will take you to my store front page and show you exactly how to make changes and give you tips on setting it up for a better customer experience.

We are moving along now. I want to test you to see how well you have been paying attention!

Processing orders are pretty simple but when you receive your first order you might get overwhelmed. I will help familiarize with the process and then go into great detail about shipping. I have developed a system of shipping that makes it super efficient and very fast. During this lesson I will take you live as I process and ship one of my orders. After this lecture you will have the knowledge to be a shipping pro!

Like any business there will be times when you need to process returns or exchanges. If you handle this wrong it could cost you money and/or hurt your ratings. In this lecture I will share some important tips for how you should handle these situations.  I will also show the process of creating a return. Some of what we learn will also be directly connected to your store policies.  You will also learn how to file a USPS claim if they damage your item during transit.

As of July 30th 2019 Etsy will make a major change to way things are done regarding pricing and shipping. This change will have deep ramifications. Many Etsy shop owners are upset by this news. In this video lesson I will talk to you all about it and give you some advice on what I think the best course of action is. I will also reveal what I plan on doing with my own shop. This lesson will not only inform you but also give you hope to weather this and any storm Etsy may throw your way.

So how well do you know the process of orders and shipping? Let's see!

With Etsy you won't always talk to your customers. Most will order your product, you process and ship, and that is it. Sometimes you will need to answer questions or deal with issues that come up. There is a right way to handle customers and very WRONG way of doing it. I have lots of advice and some real life examples on how to deal with customer service.

Etsy allows sellers to create coupon codes. This can really help you increase sales if used correctly. You can send previous customers coupons or pass them out to people you meet. This is where your creativity as an Etsy seller can shine! We will go over all of these things in this lecture and I will show you exactly how to create a coupon code as well as discuss creating sales.

Are you going to handle customers correctly? Take this quiz to find out.

Your shop is up, your products are selling and now it's time to get paid! For this lecture you will learn all details about how to get paid and when Etsy does it. You actually can choose other options as to when you get paid and I will show you.

When you sell an item Etsy automatically takes their fees first before you get paid. In this lecture I will breakdown their fees and explain each one. Many sellers don't know what they are actually paying fees for but after this lesson you will!

In most places around the world you are required to file taxes on income earned and it's no different here. The best way to start is by creating a profit/loss statement for each quarter (3 months) through the year. I will break this down and tell you exactly what you need to do for creating a system of simple accounting. I have included a printable profit/loss worksheet in the last section of this course. Save it to your PC and then print it as needed.  This is a very important lecture so pay attention and take notes!

I need to quiz you on the important information regarding finances. I sure hope you paid attention!

In this lecture we will discuss ways to sell outside of Etsy in order to increase revenue and exposure. Depending on your Etsy shop alone is never the best move. By branching out you are not only increasing your income and exposure but creating an insurance policy if ever anything went wrong with Etsy.

If you decide to branch off and make different product type than what you currently have in your shop you may actually drive away customers. Many sellers have found that buyers get confused if a shop suddenly starts selling unrelated items. They tend to walk away and you lose sales. The best option is to start a second Etsy shop that's based around your other product type.  I did this myself and I will take you through the proper steps of creating a second shop.

Let us review what you have learned about expanding your Etsy shop for more sales.

Your products should get found by those searching for your product type on Etsy but what about increasing those searches? Marketing and advertising is a must for reaching success. Some of the things you can do are no brainers such as social media and other methods may be new to you. You can choose to do some or all of what you will learn today however doing it all will greatly increase your traffic, revenue, and exposure to your brand.

Believe or not having a Facebook fan page/business page can bring in sales. It serves as free advertising, allows you to use paid Facebook advertising, and with the Etsy app linked to your page your customers can order your product directly from the page itself. In today's lecture I will show you how easy it is to create a fan page and show you all the benefits of having one.

There are a lot of amazing online tools available to help with automating our business tasks such as updating bulk products all at once, automatically tweeting our products daily, and so much more. There are tools to help us advertise daily as well as help us with ranking, SEO, and keywords. I use a few of these tools myself and they have really helped my business. I will show these tools in action and some of what available out there for you to use.

One of the best free forms of online advertising is blogging. Just about every online business owner runs a blog and many brick and mortar companies are hiring bloggers. In this lecture I will go into full detail on what a blog is, how to create your own, and the best way to format it properly using the same keywords you used in your shop. Even if you have zero writing experience you will still be able to create a blog after this lecture.

Etsy has a paid feature where you can get your products to rank higher in the search results. This service can get you on the top page of Etsy results. It's called Etsy Promoted Listings. I will tell you all about it, how to use them,  and whether you should them at all.

One of the best forms of free advertising is video. It allows you to connect to your customer base, show your product in the best way, entice potential buyers and reach a wider audience. I have well over 20+ years of professional video experience and in this lecture I will show you the best way to make awesome videos for your Etsy shop and products.

We are more than halfway done! How well did you retain what you learned in section 9? Take the quiz to see.

The Christmas holiday rush now begins in October but for the Etsy shop owner it starts much earlier than that. In order to maximize your profits there is a lot of preparation work that must be done so you are ready. In today's lecture I will guide you through the process and tell you exactly when you need to start beefing up your stock.

There is no doubt about it that having an Etsy shop is super awesome. After all you are working from home as your own boss. When you make sales it's a great feeling but like anything there are highs and lows. You will find that at certain times in the year sales will be slow. You may even get discouraged. In this lecture I will tell you all about it. After doing this for awhile now I have an idea of when things will get slow and when they will pick up. I will also share some encouraging words for you to remember when things do get tough. Also Etsy likes to throw changes at us from time to time that makes us want to hang up the towel. I hope this lecture will convince you to keep moving forward and whether the storms that come.

Not every product you create and offer will do well. I know this all too well. For this lecture I have some tips and advice on how to deal with hit and misses. A lot of what you do as shop owner is testing in order to find what works and what doesn't.

When it comes time to ship out your product you might want to think about giving your customer a present! By that I mean a memorable package that will excite them and may entice them to come back for more. In this lesson I will help open your mind to some possibilities of what you can do to for packaging.

All work and no play? Do that for too long and you will burn out! Just because you work from home and for yourself doesn't mean you need to work every day of the year. Thankfully Etsy has actually thought of that and made a great feature available to shop owners. In this lecture I will show you exactly how to put your shop in vacation mode as you take some uninterrupted time off. Etsy makes it super easy to do and I will show you how.

Etsy makes it super easy for you to increase sales by offering custom orders. This has helped me make multiple huge sales. In this lecture I will show you how to set this up in your Etsy shop and how you might go about offering custom orders. I will also show you exactly how you can calculate shipping for these custom orders. This is actually a very process and I will show you how it all comes together.

The end of this course has come. I hope you have learned a lot and you are now ready to spread your wings and fly. Before you do I want to inspire and motivate you. I have some deep things to share with you about working for yourself and chasing your dreams. I will discuss dreams, success, failure, and determination. Whenever your business has you feeling low be sure to come back to this video for a little pick me up.

This is your final quiz. How much did you pay attention to section 10? Find out by taking the quiz.