How to Start on Etsy and create Your Own Shop?

Etsy is considered one of the successful marketplaces for online commerce especially for creative handmade. Also, it has popularity on t-Shirts and customized print products. if you would like to get started print on demand business, this marketplace is really awesome for you. There are thousands of sellers who design and sell almost every day. so, you can do it too.

source: Etsy

How to start an Etsy shop?

Opening an Etsy shop may seem complicated to you, but it's not!

Let's set up a shop very easily with some steps:

1. Sign up on Etsy

Before opening your shop you need to create an account simply by clicking on Sign up then entering your email address, first name, and password, and then clicking “Register”, like the example below.

source: Etsy

2. Set your shop preferences

After you create an Etsy account whether by your email, Google, Facebook, or Apple account. Click on the “Sell on Etsy” then they will show you this screen below to open a shop.

In this step, you need to add the basic settings for your own shop.

Choose your "Shop language" which is the default language you'll use to describe your products. Also, "Shop country" is your base country, and "Shop currency" is the currency you'll use to price your products. Then, answer the question by choosing which appropriate for you. You can select whatever you want because doesn't matter for your shop.

source: Etsy

3. Choose a Name for your shop

Name your shop is very important for your customers, so make sure to select a powerful name that has meaning and describes your niche and your products, also easy to remember, contains no spaces, less than 20 characters, and no trademark.

4. Add items to your shop

In the Print on Demand business, you will need to ship to buyers, which means a tangible product (like a t-shirt). So in this step, you will learn how to list a physical item.

Add photos

You can use at least five photos (clean shoot, simple background) per item and a maximum of ten, and the size of your images is at least 1,000 pixels.

The primary photo is the thumbnail of your item which your customers see in your shop. So, make sure to choose the great one.

source: Etsy

Listing details

To complete your listing details you need first to add a great title (140 character limit), include keywords that customers would use to search for your product. Then, add a category of two or three words that will really help you. Also, you have a good chance to create a detailed description that can support you to optimize your product for search engines (SEO).

source: Etsy

In the "Renewal Options" section, there are two options(Automatic or Manual) to choose from. If you pick out “Automatic” the listing will automatically renew-every four months-as it expires for 0.20 $ each time, and this option recommended by Etsy. And if you select “manual”, you can renew your expired listings by yourself.

Tags are optional but very important, can help your customers to find in searching your items. You can use 13 tags for your product.

source: Etsy

Inventory and pricing

Add price for your product and make sure to include the costs of materials, labor, and other business expenses. And determine the quantity, and SKU number if you have one. Also, you can add variations like sizes, and colors.

source: Etsy

Shipping Details

In the section, you need to fill out the information and details about your shipping process including country of origin, shipping services you use, costs, processing time, and product weight and size.

source: Etsy

Before you publish your listing, you can preview it to see how it’ll look to buyers before setting it live. You can add at least 10 listings ( recommended by Etsy).

5. Select your payment preferences

After you list your products, you will have to add your Etsy payment preferences. There are many options to get paid to choose including PayPal, check or money order, “other,” or Etsy Payments.

6. Set up the billing

After you choose your payment preferences, you will need to add your billing to pay fees Etsy. This step will depend on your country because Etsy demands credit card for identity authorization purposes in some countries. And for the U.S seller have an option to set up billing automatically.