DON'T Open an Etsy Shop in 2025 Until You Read THIS
Do not open an Etsy shop until you read this article. In today's article, I'm going to give you the four things that you need to know before you start on Etsy. Maybe you've been thinking about starting your own business for a while, you've been looking at all the different options for making money online and you've landed on Etsy.
Now as someone who has done seven figures in profit on Etsy and who has a corporate e commerce background, I want to lay out some key things before you get started to save you months or years of time wasted. Myself and my team, we have coached thousands of Etsy sellers over the last 15 months with their Etsy shops. So we have seen the same mistakes being repeated over and over again. And today I'm going to give you four tips so that you don't have the same struggles.
And before we get into it, leave a comment below if you would like help deciding what to sell in your Etsy shop, whether you have a shop already or if you are a new shop, just leave a comment below saying help me decide what to sell. Simple enough.
Etsy Tips for BEGINNERS
Etsy Is Not a Get Rich Quick Scheme
Number one, I need to say this right now is that Etsy is not a get rich quick scheme. This is not day trading, this is not crypto, this is absolutely not passive. Okay? So please do not watch all these Etsy YouTube videos that say you can make $10,000 a month if you sell this product and then actually think you can make 10,000 amonth if you just copy that product. That is so far from the truth. And I do recommend not even watching those videos because it does create this illusion of X + Y = Z when it's really not that simple.
Etsy takes hard work and consistency at the same time. And while it's not a get rich qu quick thing, it shouldn't take you six months to start to see sales. So if you are hearing, you know it takes six months to ever get traction on Etsy, that is also far from the truth.
With Etsy, specifically with print on demand and digital, because those are about half of the Etsy sellers that we help, it is much more active on the front end so that it can then become passive on the backend. So starting an Etsy shop, it's kind of like pushing a truck out of the mud. You could walk out there and try to figure out how to get it out yourself, right? Or you could walk out there with proven strategies and tools to get you out much faster. So it's not get rich quick and it also doesn't take six months, but you really do benefit from a proven game plan.
Do Not Choose One Product
The next thing to consider if you are thinking about starting on Etsy is to not choose one product. Instead, I recommend choosing seven to 10 products. I've seen some people start a shop with like all T shirts. They get into the groove, they're like cranking out these T shirts. They end up with like 100 or 200 listings of T shirts. And then we look at it and we're like, what on earth happened here? It's like T shirt explosion. And they're like, well, I just kept on going. But that strategy is not going to help you. You really need different listings with different purpose.
So I recommend do not focus your shop on one product and definitely don't start your shop with one product. I have this framework, it's called the seven types of products to have in your shop. And it's really about having different listings with different purposes.
The whole idea is that we are going to scale order number and revenue at the same time. Because some of those listings, their only purpose is to drive up your order number, I.E a loss leader and some of the listings, you know, they're really meant to scale your revenue. So you need a combination of both And it's really the idea of having a dynamic product mix. So do not start with one product, choose 7 to 10.
Buy Your Designs First
If you are doing print on demand or digital. Buy your designs first. And this is for people who do not have a background in graphic design. If that is you, I do not recommend starting out making your own designs. Sure, it might be really fun and a creative outlet and a lot of people say, I've never gotten to do anything like this before. You know, it's so fun, I really enjoy it, I love getting in Canva and making my own designs. Just because you're having fun with it doesn't mean that you're good at it.
Okay, so this is the point where we want to decide, are we doing Etsy for fun or are we trying to make money? The thing is, if you start out doing it for fun and you're not making any money, probably not going to do it very long just because of how hard it is. But on the other hand, if you start out trying to make money, it becomes more fun as you make more money.
If you are really determined to learn the graphic design part, feel free to do that. But I don't recommend starting with your own designs first because you want to put your best foot forward when you launch Your shop and usually your best foot forward isn't going to be the first 10 things you made in Canva.
Etsy Is Not Saturated
The fourth thing that I've got to say here is that Etsy is not saturated. And I'm going to show you how to navigate this saturation myth. What Etsy is saturated with is a lot of noise, and the noise I'm talking about is the garbage that flooded the marketplace. Once people were home and they thought, oh, I'm going to try to make money online they threw up a couple hundred listings. You know, they were sold on this get rich quick passive income thing. They thought, oh, I can make money from home and a lot of people tried it in a half baked kind of way. And those listings are oftentimes still out there, Right.
There's tons of shops with hundreds or thousands of listings and less than 100 sales. So those people have, you know, since moved on. They're not focused on Etsy anymore, but those listings are oftentimes still living out there.
So there is a, I would say a saturation of bad listings. But when you look for, like, the cream of the crop, right, the fully optimized listings, the percentage of those people in those listings has stayed the same or potentially even decreased a little bit. And I think what happens even now is that a lot of people pull out these tips and tricks from these random YouTube videos, and it's five different people's strategies piecemeal together and their shop ends up being this very kind of inconsistent disjointed strategy.
So those listings are kind of creating noise and distraction around the good listings but realistically they don't have a legitimate chance. In terms of real competition that you should be worried about, I wouldn't be too worried. Like I have students with brand new shops that make fifteen hundred dollars or more in their first month. So there is a lot of room to still get in the game here. And if you're wondering oh is this category too saturated? Is this niche too satur saturated, Is this product too saturated? I have this really cool opportunity checklist. I call it the 10 step opportunity checklist and it's basically 10 questions that I would run your ideas through. It's pretty much the exact conversation I'd have with you if you said Ahmed, should I sell this thing on Etsy? And it gives you total clarity on if that thing is worth your time.
If you're interested in the checklist, just leave a comment below and say "checklist". I hope you enjoyed the article.
