How To Create An Etsy Store From Scratch?

How to create an Etsy store from scratch, could be a question that you have asked yourself for some time now.

As you are now fantastic at creating miniatures, a dollhouse, or other forms of art, but sometimes and someday things get a little bit full in your house, we all have been there ;-).

Or why not become a professional artist and try to sell everything online, because after all, you àre already spending a lot of your time on your crafts? Yes, you can too!

Although you can try marketplaces online, eBay, etc, I have discovered that lots of people get more traffic and sales from Etsy, there is almost no coming back from it when you are an artist..

Also, when I am looking for a particular kind of miniature or dollhouse DIY kit online, I tend to go always look on Etsy first (one of my fairy houses), instead of a big retailer like Amazon.

Unless I want to go for “kitbashing” a miniature kit. How about you?

I find it just a lot more personal and I love artists that still make everything by hand, they are amazing!

Anyway, today I will help you out if you have that question on how to create an Etsy store, so let’s dive straight into things!

But first: what does Etsy stand for?

By now, you probably have noticed that I often consult Etsy for all the reviews on miniatures and dollhouses that I am doing, or when I am looking for particular products, and this has many reasons.

( I have considered creating an Etsy store myself to sell my fairy houses, but then I realized that I will probably not have enough time to work on them at all haha!)

When people are looking for a unique product online, handmade, vintage, or craft supplies, well that is not something that you can find on Amazon 😉

What Etsy does is match those people with independent sellers from all over the world, so Etsy itself does not own its own warehouse or stockroom.

The company started in 2005, so actually not so long ago, and now has more than 12 million registered users!

There are more than 15 million items for sale, ranging from clothing to toys, jewelry to furniture, and of course our miniatures and dollhouses.

The advantages of having an Etsy store as an artist are :

• You can sell to more people and countries all over the world
  
  
• It is even possible that other sellers ask you to represent YOUR items in their own store
  
  
• If you have a website with your own store on it ànd an Etsy store, it makes your market even larger
  
  
• When you buy from a store on Etsy, you support the independent seller directly, because they manage their own orders and inventory.
  
  
• Thanks to Etsy’s extra marketing and AI- algorithms, people can find your products without having to look very hard and get the know artists they didn’t know before.
  
  
• You don’t need a large initial investment, you only pay a very small fee for each product that you upload to your store.
  
  

I could go on about more information on the history or policy of Etsy, but today we are here to inform you on how to create an Etsy store itself, so let’s go!

What Do You Need To Know Before Establishing an Etsy store?

A few things that you should know before starting are:

• So as said before, Etsy is free, although you pay a small fee for each product that you upload. But it has no maintenance fee.
  
  
• Etsy has 2 kinds of plans: Etsy Standard and Standard Plus. And it is recommended to start with the Standard version, as this is the free one.
  
  
• If you want, you can later switch to Etsy Standard Plus, for 10$ per month.
  
  
• On top of artisan products and vintage items, you can also sell downloadable things, like these Victorian Dollhouse plans, for example.
  

From Idea to selling a product on Etsy

Another list of tips that you should know about here:

• From the start, it would be a good idea to have a variety of products for sale, so that you can reach several buyers, but do not mix up different kinds of projects.

So for example for our dollhouse kits, keep it to one style, like the modern style, etc.

• Make sure that the idea that you are going to create is profitable, especially if you are going to ship your products overseas. Keep in mind that shipping costs could get high.
  
  
• Check out the competition on the market before you decide which products to create because some of those are really saturated.
  
  In our example of miniatures, I have found out that the “Roccoco style” isn’t that much crafted, so you could dive a bit more into that style. Or anything else that you are passionate about.
  

• Always try to create your own ways and style, even when it comes to packaging, be original

• If you have a product that is selling well, try to make some varieties of the same products, like different colors or different sizes for clothes/or scales for miniatures.

• Etsy seems to represent Etsy stores that have more products for sale than stores with few items for sale

• Make sure to make plenty of pictures from all sides of the (miniature) project, so that buyers can clearly see everything.
  
  
• Following the latter, it is also advised to add a detailed description of the product that you are selling, especially the measurements so that there be no misunderstandings for the buyer on the sizes, scales, and other details of the product you are selling.
  
  
• You could add some stickers, a personal card, or other little gifts to the package, but please make sure that these don’t cost more than the actual product that you are selling and take into account that the extra weight could make shipping more expensive!
  
  
• Take as much time as you want to start developing your first idea(s)
  

Create A Name For Your Etsy Store

Having a strong name for your Etsy store is quite important to build a brand for your products.

A few tips on how to find a good name:

• The first thing to do is find a name that is easy to pronounce and spells easily
  
  
• Get a positive name and make sure it doesn’t have any negative connotations, even so in another language
  
  
• Do not pick a name that is either: already known, or from your favorite singer, actor, etc..
  
  
• Etsy doesn’t accept names with over 20 characters or that have punctuations or spaces
  
  
• As Etsy has sellers and buyers from all over the world, choose a name that sounds international
  
  
• It could be a good idea to add your niche product as a part of the name. If you sell Victorian dollhouses, you could, for example, include something like ‘VictorianMiniHouses” in your Etsy store.
  
  
• When you have found a name, check it with family and friends to see if they like it as well 😉
  
  
• Then, I would just go for it!
  

There are more tips than I can give you in the online course below:

How To Setup Your Etsy store.

A step-by-step walkthrough on how to create your Etsy store :

1. Go to the Etsy Website

Start by going to the Etsy homepage and creating an account and activating your email.

2. Log In To Your Account And Click on Sell On Etsy

Login to your Etsy account where you can see the welcome page.

When you click on your account icon on the right, you will see the possibility to click on the link saying “sell on Etsy”. Click that to go further.

When you open the link and scroll down that page, you will see this button, just go and click on it!

3. Fill In The Survey And All The Necessary Information For Etsy

Just go through all the information that you need to include for an Etsy store.

TIP: I would put the settings of the store in English and have the shop set up in English, even if you are working from another country with a different language.

Etsy is worldwide, but your largest market will always be the USA, Canada, the UK, and Australia.

Don’t worry if people from another country don’t speak English, they will still see which products are available in their own country (and in their own language) because they can filter the country that they are looking for, plus the AI system sets it to their own language.

Beware that the language you are setting your Etsy store, can’t be changed anymore afterward!

You will still have the availability to keep your mother tongue as a second language, so the products that you are selling would still be visible in 2 different languages, how about that?!

4. Set up the country and currency

As a seller on Etsy, you need to set your own country and the currency that you will use is the currency of your own country.

Customers will see and pay in their own currency of course of their country, so it can be different than yours.

5. Fill in the rest of the questions from Etsy

Other information will need to be filled in, like whether you are going to work full-time, or part-time, the name you are going to give your store and you will need to add a store inventory.

This latter means that you will start to add pictures of the products that you will be selling on Etsy.

6. Take Pictures from all sides of your projects.

For this part, we will not go into the depth of things here, because I already wrote a separate blog post on this, so go check it out!

If you are not sure yet or you need more information, please check out the online course below:

7. Upload your first project and create a good description.

So now that you have taken all the pictures needed for your project (you could also upload a short video), let’s upload them and fill in a detailed description.

The quality of a good description and title of a product is very important for Etsy, as their AI decides based on it how high it is going to rank it.

The better your pictures, title, description, and tags are, the more this will improve your conversion quality and it will improve the number of people seeing your project.

You need to use so-called “keywords” in the title, description, and on ad labels. Also, make sure to add a description of the materials that you used for your project.

How to do all this in a lot more detail, you can have a look at the course below, because there is a lot more to say about this and this blog post would become a novel if I had to explain how “SEO” works ;-).

8. Setting the prices of your Etsy store.

Before adding the prices to your projects, you should know a few things first:

• Etsy charges small fees, which contains:
  

– Every time you publish an ad to sell something on Etsy, this costs 0,20$ and it is a fixed price.

– When a product is sold from your store, a transaction fee of 5% is charged

– And finally, there is a payment processing fee of 4% + 0,30 Eurocent of the total sale

So to decide on the total price of your product, you should take these fees into account.

• Another thing you need to think about is the direct costs, which include:
  

– the cost of materials that you need to create your product, be it wood, clay, fabrics, etc

– Think about what everything costs for packaging your products, from postcards and envelopes, boxes, to wrapping paper and more.

– One thing to not forget, sadly haha, is taxes and self-employment fees

– If you rent a space to store your projects or even advertising, you should include this in your prices

• Rate your time!
  

Lots of people forget to charge for the time they put into their work, and more specifically the number of hours they put into their creations!

But also: think about all the work you put into sharing your work on social media, packaging your projects, etc etc.

A good rating would be about 30% of all the time you put into these things, sadly you can’t include all of your hours.

Would you like to learn more about the setting of your prices for your Etsy store?

Make sure to check out the online course below, as it will take you through all the detailed information step by step.

This includes a lot of tips, like whether should you choose to give free shipping or not, how to calculate the total price of a project, and so much more!

What are the other things that you can or must do for your Etsy store?

We could dive even deeper into your Etsy store and make it even more profitable, but here are a few more small and fast tips:

1. Customize the look of your store!

Customize the look of your store, because the eye of the customer also wants some candy! 😉

This means customizing your homepage by adding an amazing banner, a custom store icon, and a profile picture.

Doing all of these will create a professional-looking page and define your recognizable brand and makes it easier for clients to trust you.

Even more when you write a little story about yourself in the space foreseen down below, under the comment section.

Click here, for example, to see how Aida Pravia describes herself and her work, something like that would be very fine 🙂

2. Fill in all the information that your customers need!

Fill in all the information that your customers need to know about.

– upload the store policies and privacy policies

– the shipping time ( find out how long it takes to ship an item to a customer, not just to your own country, but also abroad)

– preparation time (is it a custom order or is it already made, etc)

– do you offer exchanges and/or returns?

– what type of payments does your store accept?

– you can add a list of FAQ

3. Learn how to deal with the administration panel of Etsy.

In the administration panel of Etsy, you can manage your stock, mark your orders as “shipped“, answer your client’s messages and manage any ads.

Here you can see any statistics as well from your account ( how many sales, how long you have been with Etsy, etc..)

How to manage all of this, you can learn in the online course below:

How to Advertise and promote your Etsy store

There are plenty of tools on Etsy to help you promote your products.

By now, you should be able to optimize your ads and how to use the correct tags, titles, and descriptions.

In the online course by a Domestika teacher (I will place a review below), you will learn how to activate an advertising campaign via Etsy Ads and when to start one.

Learn how to use a discount coupon, how to set up offers, and how to decide which ads to promote.

And finally, you will learn how to interpret the statistics provided by Etsy to know the traffic and performance of your store and products.

Improving SEO on Etsy is easy and key to increasing traffic to our store and helps us reach a more segmented customer who is looking for exactly what you create.

These changes will increase the visits and favorites of your store and have more messages from potential customers.

A helpful course by Depeapa

Depeape is the teacher in this course on how to create an Etsy store from scratch and she is a designer and illustrator, who has always known that she wanted to study fine arts.

She has been working for a newspaper as a graphic designer, but she found it uninteresting.

Then when her newspaper closed in times of crisis, she started to go back to creating her own drawings.

She started drawing and sewing her own dolls, brooches, and other kinds of crafts.

To get her sales going, she first established a blog and in time, her work started to appear in several magazines.

In 2011 she created an Etsy store as well, and this made it possible to sell her art in more countries all over the world.

A Domestika Course On How To Create An Etsy store- A Review

I bought this online course myself, as maybe in the future I will sell my fairy houses one day, who knows?

So today, I will write a review on it for you, based on my experience:

Overall rank

The good and the bad :

The Good.

• very affordable course
• this is a very detailed course, it covers everything you need to know to be successful on Etsy
• Everything is explained well, step by step, and easy to follow
• once you have bought this course, you can watch it as many times as you want, it doesn’t expire

The Bad.

• The audio is not in English, but the subtitles are
• If you are not a beginner, this course isn’t for you

Check out the 6 best DIY miniature courses here.

My Final Conclusion.

Well, this took some time and a few days to write about haha!

Anyway, if you would still have any extra questions on how to create an Etsy store, please feel free to ask them below in the comment section.

You can also join me on one of my social media pages or Facebook group of almost 4000 members now!

I wish you happy crafting!

Kind regards,

Lizzy

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