5 Etsy MISTAKES That Are Losing You Money
Today, I'm going to give you five mistakes that every Etsy seller makes when they first start. These are five things that you might not even realize you're doing that are hurting your chances of making sales.
Make sure you stay until the fifth one, because that is a very tactical thing that you can change, specifically, if you are in digital or print on demand. While you're reading this, leave a comment below if you find that you are making any of these mistakes.
5 Top Etsy Seller Mistakes
Mistake 1: Finding Product Ideas On Etsy
Number one is going on Etsy and trying to find ideas of what to sell. If you're doing that, stop right there. Because honestly, how are you going to compete with a market leader listing if you have no track record, no social proof? And how are you actually going to be objectively better than them? And if you think adjusting the font or changing one color increases your value proposition enough for someone to choose you, we might be a little bit disillusioned.
We only look to Etsy for one thing, and that is only to validate that the customer we want to target is on Etsy. And we're looking to see if there is demand for an idea that you found outside of Etsy, meaning there's someone looking to fill that purpose utility solution on Etsy. As a new seller we want to look outside of Etsy for inspiration and see what you can bring to the platform.
Now, maybe it's not something that would be brand new to the platform, but maybe there's only like 2, 3 sellers on Etsy and their listings aren't optimized. They look bad, Right? That tells you there's room to compete. And we have a whole checklist, it's called the ten Step Opportunity Checklist, which will tell you if there is potential for something to sell really well on Etsy and it's not using tools like EverBee.
Mistake 2: Descriptive SEO
Now, the second mistake is stop describing your item with your SEO. As the seller, you know that the flower you put on that T shirt was a tulip. You know that the beads you use are 5 millimeter. You know the thickness of the material, the weight of the Fabric. You know all those little details because you put thought into the components of what you're selling.
But your customer doesn't care about those components that you cared about. They just care about the end product and the purpose and the utility and the solution it's providing for them, it's a Mother's Day gift, it is a a personalized sweatshirts, it is a label for the backpack. So as you are redoing your SEO, make sure you're focused on that.
Mistake 3: Consistency On The Wrong Things
The third thing I see newer Etsy sellers doing is being consistent with the wrong things. Consistency matters, when you have the right strategies, you have to be consistent with the right actions. Let's say you're trying to lose weight and you're eating all the wrong things. You might think, oh, I'm being consistent. I'm eating what I think I should eat. Well, you're not going to see results.
So what we want to do is follow the more better new principles. And I actually learned this framework when I was at an e event with Alex and Leila Hormozi last year. We want to do more of what's working, we want to do it in better ways. And then we move on to new new products, new customers, and it's a cycle. And then with those new things, you're going back to more, more of what's working among those new things.
And I see this with sellers who think they need to get to a thousand listings to be successful. They start with 10 listings. The 10 listings don't work. They get to a hundred listings, they get to a thousand listings. They think that by doing more listings, it'll make them start to work.
Actually, it has the opposite effect because you're doing more of the wrong thing, which tanks your conversion rate. Over time as your conversion rate tanks, your ranking on Etsy is going to tank as well. You want to get proof of concept that there is product market fit there.
Mistake 4: Focusing On New Listings
And now the fourth thing also has to do with the more better new principles. And it's when sellers skip more better and they jump to new new products, new designs, new customers without giving anything time to get traction.
They try something for a week. And even if it might be the right strategy or the right product, if it didn't have the expected outcome, they think, oh, that doesn't work for me. I'm going to jump to the next new thing. You're making an assumption based on a very short time period of results.
I see this happen with SEO too. You know, you make some updates to the SEO, you don't get sales the very next day. So then you keep changing the SEO to where it never actually starts to work.
And maybe you're thinking, well, new products, how long should I give a new listing before I decide it doesn't work? Is the SEO optimized? Is there a high converting description? Do you have all the listing photos and video that you need to convert someone?
So for you to say, oh, this product didn't work work for me, well, you didn't even give it a fair chance to get in front of the right customers. There's not one thing your shop is missing. It's going to be a lot of little things together that make the result you're looking for.
Mistake 5: Faking Graphic Design
And this last one, if you've been waiting for it, a very tactical mistake that you can fix immediately. It has to do with your designs. And the biggest mistakes I see with Etsy sellers who are making designs when they're not graphic designers.
Trying to put together your own designs from scratch using many different elements and fonts. And what can happen is in graphic design, the more elements and combinations and things you try to put together to create one design, the worse it can look. It shows a lack of experience with spacing, with font combinations, with color combinations.
You're much better off doing these two things. Buying designs that you can use, that you have a commercial license to use, or going with patterns because patterns are much easier to work with. You can make those with AI places like Mid Journey.
I find that with Etsy sellers who don't have a graphic design experience, which is probably 80% or more of Etsy sellers, this is the way to go.
And it's such a shame when I see someone get really good at their SEO, their pricing high, converting descriptions, site merchandising, all of the right elements. But something's happening with the design because if you don't have that experience, it's hard to fast track graphic design experience.
Let me know which one of these five things resonated the most with you. And if you have question, put on the comment section, and thank you so much for reading.
