25 Common Mistakes Etsy Sellers Make & How to Avoid Them!

Etsy is an ideal place where you can sell craft supplies, vintage items, and handmade products. 

While the platform is giving the opportunity to start a small business right away, focusing on craft and handmade items. 

Etsy can be challenging for some people who are new to this. 

Not so surprisingly, there are some mistakes that most of the sellers are doing which affect their business, sales, and customer retention. 

Try to Avoid These Common Mistakes as an Etsy Seller:

1. Taking Etsy Policies Lightly 

For the new business, it’s exciting to start right away. And lots of businesses avoid understanding the policies that Etsy has. 

It’s important to make sure you are not letting the excitement take over you. 

Focus on doing your homework beforehand. Ignoring this can cause some serious headaches down the road.

Also, read the policies,  strategies, and other seller’s advice to know the ins and outs. 

This will help you in getting better success rates and profits. 

2. Posting Below Average Photos 

Photos are an important part of Etsy. You need to focus on how your items are looking in photos before you post them. 

Understanding the angles,  lighting, and importance of a good camera is a crucial aspect. 

Make sure you are not posting pictures that are dark, grainy, or blurry. 

Image source: attentiongettingmarketing

If your photo is not attractive enough, people won’t be interested in purchasing either. 

3. Having Fewer Products For Listing 

When you are a beginner or just started a business, it’s obvious to have a few items that you are listing.

List items that you have instead of waiting to get more.  Make sure you put all of your items in the listing as they are not going to sell on their own. 

Image source: fiverr

Not just it affects the business but also how potential customers will view your store.

In the case of a one-page listing,  the buyers might think you are a beginner.

However, if you add the reviews and sales, your store looks more established and trustworthy. 

It’s crucial to improve your credibility as a seller on Etsy. 

4. Ignoring The Use Of Social Media 

Social media marketing is not limited to other businesses, it applies to Esty shops too. 

In order to sell your items,  make sure your items are found easily and get people’s attention. 

For that, you have to take your Etsy store seriously and treat it as any other businessman would do. 

Well, the businessman needs marketing, it includes contacting people and letting words spread about the business. 

You can connect your shop with Facebook and Twitter. 

Image source: byammarose

There are several tools as pin it that help your buyers to pin the items on personal boards on Pinterest. 

Pro Tip: You can join the Etsy team as they provide advice and ideas about networking with others. 

5. Copy Paste Same List For New Items 

If you are thinking that the more similar items you have, the more Etsy will boost your listings. Then it’s one of the mistakes you are making. 

However, it’s not entirely wrong either but it’s important that you have an idea about each item and how you are going to list it. 

Here you can list your items and give a number which is known as SKU. 

Use the sheet when you are batching work. You can swap out your keywords from the previous list.

6. Spelling Errors In  Listings 

Spelling is the most common yet crucial point that can affect your sales. 

Some buyers might think that if you are not serious about spelling, how much you are taking your business seriously either? 

Take your time to check the errors in sentences and spellings. 

Also to make sure you avoid this completely, create your list using Google Docs.  

You can check your spelling mistakes and other sentence formations.

You can also invest in Grammarly and other tools that can help you in checking these kinds of errors for you. 

7. Using One Category For Etsy Listing 

There are tons of listing categories on your Etsy site. However, the major mistake you can do is not considering more categories to add to your listing. 

Always make sure that you are listing your items to the right categories.  Add 2 or 3 different ones if you find them related to your products. 

Image source: knowband

However, Etsy does updates in their category list from time to time. 

It’s better to use the Canvas surface so you don’t have to correct it when you update your categories. 

8. Having Less Or No Email Addresses 

The biggest mistake that you can think of is not having more email address collections. 

Even though you ended up selling more than 1000 sales but you haven’t collected even one email address, this reduces the chances of getting the potential customer back. 

For the businessman, it’s important that you have email subscribers where you can get in touch with your customers. 

The more numbers you have in collections, the better the customer base you are collecting for yourself. 

9. Zero Focus On Branding 

Branding is an important part of your business. No matter what you do,  your business should have its own branding image for the customers. 

This includes how your logo looks, the header image, brand name, etc. 

Image source: blog

If your business is doing well but your shop overview is not vibing together, it can make your potential customer feel uneasy about the purchase. 

10. Naming Your Business Anything 

There are famous lines “ There is nothing in the name”. Well in business, that’s not true. 

When you are starting your business, make sure you focus on your business name. 

It should represent what your business is about or maybe the idea of what you are selling. 

Image source: sellbrite

Keep it as simple as it can be, and there are chances that you might do some changes in the future.

11. Keeping The Shop Header Boring 

Shop header can do wonders if you are using it correctly.  

Image source: snappablog

You can get more engagement and sales by making sure that your shop header is utilized properly. 

You can add things like : 

  • Discount Code 
  • A Freebie to claim 
  • Social media quotes
  • 5-star reviews 

12. Letting The Reviews Go 

There are lots of times when the buyers decide to shop and they had a good time as well as feel satisfied with the products. 

But there are hardly some of them who share their reviews.

There can be lots of reasons, they might be busy or not concerned with leaving the reviews. 

That’s why as a seller, you should take the initiative to get more reviews from your buyers. 

Image source: hubspotblog

It will help you in getting more engagement and orders when you build a relationship with your buyers. 

13. Never Follows Back The Followers 

There are people out there who might be following your store. 

As a seller, you should return the favor, but surprisingly there are lots of businesses that are not following their followers back. 

This gives you more access to your followers, you can see what their activities are and what items they are liking. 

With this, you can boost your SEO too.

14. Over The Top Or Too Low  Pricing 

Some of the sellers don’t get the right pricing for their items. Well, it’s important to consider the time you invested and the items you used. 

Make sure you are getting enough profit margin so you are covering your manufacturing and another cost that has been invested on a product.

But also keep in mind that you don’t have to price too high so that buyers don’t purchase it. 

The same goes for too low prices, so here you need to find the sweet spot for your products. 

Pro Tip: If you are looking to increase the price, use the products which are on the bestseller list. 

15. Too Friendly On About Page 

The about page on your Etsy store gives an overview of who you are and what you are selling.

Avoid going too friendly or sharing personal details. Even though you want to give a friendly vibe, but keep it professional. 

Image source: Xcart

Share about your ideas, passion, and what drives you to start the store. Add information that can help your customers about the business. 

Share your business goals, mission statement, and your aim. 

16. Adding Weird Photos Instead Of Yours 

When you are adding photos, make sure you are using your face. Don’t add photos that are not related to your business. It includes no pet or sewing machines. 

Show yourself and let your customer resonate with your face. It gives more credibility to your account and you as a seller.

Also, use some photos for all your social media accounts. 

This makes it easy to recognize and people will get more significance as well as authority. 

17. Copying Ideas On Etsy 

Taking inspiration or understanding how others are doing are different, but copying is totally wrong when you are on Etsy. 

There are lots of sellers who either copy listing descriptions or tags. It’s not always deliberately done but still, it’s not recommended to do. 

Also, Etsy has strong actions against plagiarism. And if your account gets reported, you can end up losing your store. 

18. Taking Customers Too Lightly Or Too Seriously 

Customers are the end goal for the business. Regardless of what business you do, you need customers to thrive and become successful. 

Serving your customer is not just the only thing. You also need to listen to what they are saying. 

Lots of time they can give you the ideas that you can use for your next listing. 

In your inbox, you can find the customer orders request which can help you in giving the inspiration that solves their pain point directly. 

When you are taking the customer orders, make sure you are considerate and careful. 

But also make sure how much time you are investing. Lots of time you might end up doing conversations about colors, style, etc, and invest 12 hours of yours just for $5. 

19. Spending Time Looking Away from Shop 

There are lots of shop owners who spend hours looking at other shops instead of their own. 

Stop wasting your time admiring another shop, focus on what you are doing and how your shop looks. 

Instead of this, you can look for the shops that are selling more items, here you can consider what they are doing differently. 

20. Ignoring The Bad Reviews 

Well, there are chances to get bad reviews or something lesser than 5 ratings.

Sometimes it’s better to ignore the reviews which are bad or make no sense. 

But the best way to deal with the bad ratings is to ask them politely about the issue. 

Image source: honestlynat

Some customers might be using Etsy for the first time. It’s helpful when you provide the solutions instead of ignoring them. 

21. Half-Hearted Promotions For Coupon Code 

Etsy offers different coupon codes to help the business owners get more customers. 

However, if you are not using it smartly. It can be another mistake to avoid. 

It’s important to promote your coupon code with all excitement. If you are putting the announcement and forgetting later, this will affect your customers too. 

Image source: pinterest

You can use different ways to do the promotions of your coupon code, this includes: 

  • Your FAQ’s
  • File download for digital sellers
  • Pin it to your Pinterest 
  • Listing to your photos
  • About section 
  • Header image 
  • Note to buyers 
  • On thank you notes
  • Item descriptions 

22. Limiting The Use Of Photos 

Instead of using one image per your listings, make sure you are utilizing more than five pictures! 

Well, if you find it hard to get five pictures, you can also use different ways which can be : 

  • Promoting codes
  • Sign up events 
  • Matching items or similar listing 
  • How you created 
  • Close-ups 
  • Printable images 
  • Links to social media 
  • Add information about the product 
  • Using items by previous customers ( ask permission for this with your previous customer)
  • Reviews 
  • Instruction on using the item 

23. Not Pinterest-Friendly Images 

Pinterest can help you in getting lots more traffic for your store.

It’s important that your images should be Pinterest-friendly and easy to pin. 

Avoid making pins that are too small or square in shape. 

Image source: tailwind 

If you don’t have too much time, at least create one Pinterest image with high quality for your product.

24. Writing Non-Optimized Titles And Descriptions

Titles and descriptions are the most crucial part of your product listing because both play a significant role in a buyer’s purchasing decision. 

On top of that, title and description are also integral to the SEO of your Etsy store. 

Not optimizing it makes your product listing ineffective and more prone to chances for not showing up on Etsy searches. 

Ensure you use relevant and high-ranking or low-competition keywords in your title and description. 

You need to put the keyword at the beginning of the title as that’s how the Etsy search algorithm reads product pages. 

The product description should include all the required information regarding the product and how it benefits customers. 

Everything should be simple, easy to read, and short as possible. 

25. Lack of Product Listing Quantity 

Starting with only selected or very few items is okay as you are just starting out. 

But over time, it becomes one of the important factors for the success of your store. 

You need to list all of your products. The best idea is to list whatever you have now rather than waiting to get more. 

This is because a potential buyer looks at any Etsy store depending upon the number of product listings they have. 

And if they see you have not enough product listing quantity, they consider you as a newbie or rookie. 

Then with less sales and insufficient reviews, your sales pitch looks weaker. 

So to earn credibility, make sure you have enough product listing to give a good first impression to your potential buyers. 

FAQs

How can I avoid negative reviews on Etsy?

To avoid negative reviews, ensure that you provide excellent customer service, ship orders on time, and deliver products that match their descriptions. Respond to customer inquiries promptly and professionally and address any issues that arise promptly.

How important are product photos on Etsy?

Product photos are essential on Etsy as they’re the first thing buyers see when browsing through products. High-quality, clear product photos can attract buyers and increase sales.

How can I increase my Etsy sales?

There are several ways to increase your Etsy sales, including optimizing your product listings for SEO, providing excellent customer service, promoting your products on social media, and regularly updating your product listings.

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