✦Business · 13 recordsOpen an Etsy shop

Etsy shops stall in two places: endless setup before anything is listed, and prices that forget the fees and postage. This works out the real cost of each item first, gets ten listings live rather than one perfect one, and puts the photography and search titles on a weekly rhythm.

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Free on any plan. You will see this list again in the app, and nothing is created until you press install.

✦ Everything it creates

The whole plan, before you install it

Goal

Ten listings live and a first sale Month 2

Listed and priced properly, rather than perfect and unopened.

Work out the numbers Week 2

Fees and postage are what turn a sale into a loss.

  • Cost each item: materials, time and packagingDo firstDay 4
  • Add the fees and postage, and set the pricesDo firstDay 8
  • Set up the shop, its policies and payment detailsDo firstDay 12

List and learn Month 2

Ten live beats one perfect.

  • Photograph the first five items in daylightDo firstWeek 3
  • Write titles the way a buyer would searchDo firstWeek 3
  • Get ten listings liveDo firstWeek 4
  • Look at which listings get views, and whyWeek 7

Routines

  • Photograph and list something newweekly
  • Answer messages and check viewsweekly
✦ It comes with a note

Price from the cost up

Materials, time, packaging, postage, and the fees on the listing, the transaction and the payment. Add them up before looking at what anybody else charges.

Ten listings live beats one perfect one. Each listing is another way to be found, and the first sale teaches more than another week of setup.

✦ Questions

Open an Etsy shop, answered.

Ten or so, live, rather than one perfect one. Each listing is another way to be found in search, and a shop with a couple of items gives a buyer very little reason to believe it is a real business.
From the real cost upward: materials, your time, packaging, postage, and the listing, transaction and payment fees. Pricing against other shops without doing that sum first is how people discover they have been paying to sell.
Clear photographs in good light and a title written the way a buyer would search for the thing. Both are learnable, which is why this plan puts them on a weekly rhythm rather than treating them as a one-off setup task.
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