Out of interest, I looked at tips for starting up a shop on Etsy. I have been thinking about starting a small side business after graduating mainly focussed on selling prints so I wanted to look at some tips for how to do it.
Gather Essentials
Preparing everything in advance makes it easier to start selling straight away once the shop is open. These things include, photos, product prices, setting up banking.
Choose a Name
A lot of names can already be taken on Etsy so it may take time selecting a good, original name. You can change the shop name as many times as you need to before you open the shop and one time once the shop is opened. However, as a designer, I would probably select the name in advance anyway so I could work on all the branding.
Set Specific and Attainable Goals
To avoid burnout, it's a good idea to set small goals. For example, setting a goal to make your first sale within 3 months. As this would be more a side business for me, I would like to design prints as more of a hobby and see what sells.
Consider Keywords
When searching for products on Etsy, customers will type specific phrases to find what they're looking for. It's important to think like the customer and keep in mind what they might search in order to label products correctly with the best chance of them being found.
Take Captivating Product Photos
It's important to do some research into photography to be able to take high quality photos that will appeal to customers. I already have some background knowledge of photography as I did it at GCSE and have done some similar camera work at undergraduate. However, it would be good to do some research to refresh my memory.
Think Like a Brick-and-Mortar Store
Make your store look well-curated by organising products by aesthetic, putting products that look like they go together in the same place. It's also a good idea to include a range of price points for products to appeal to a variety of shoppers, encourage multiple purchases and attract repeat customers. Also, if you make one product you can design it in a variety of colours to give customers more variety. And when you are ready to add a banner to your site, make sure it matches the aesthetic of your brand.
Done is Better than Perfect
A lot of the time sellers will take too much time to start selling products because they are too focussed on them being perfect. However, even putting products on that don't sell well teaches you what customers don't want so that you can design better ones in the future. This seems like a problem I would have as a perfectionist myself, but I think I would most likely design a range of products that I wanted to sell before focussing on the branding and setting up the store itself- and add more designs as and when I create more.
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