Online selling is oftentimes one of the biggest concerns that businesses have. Small businesses, in particular, need useful, time-savvy tips to improve a website and online sales process. Being one of the leading and fastest-growing marketplaces, Etsy offers a solid library of ideas, strategies and tactics to help you increase your sales.
Etsy is a handmade marketplace. It is the eBay for indie craftspeople and creators. All of its merchants are micro-businesses, either hobbyists on their way to a professional launch or part time business owners with a day job. Their focus is on the local living economies that are blossoming all around the world. You can almost always find a local shop owner selling a craft that you want to buy. Here are three sales ideas you can glean from Etsy.
1. Be part of a community
Even though you might think the Etsy marketplace is filled with only your competitors, consider that many indie artists prefer to buy from others like themselves. If you look at the Etsy blog, a post there can receive thousands of views. Like most communities, a thoughtful comment can yield traffic back to your shop or page. For example, read this Etsy blog post on Increasing Item Views to see the quality of ideas they share to help their sellers.
2. Increase your use of photos and videos
It is time to change the old maxim that a picture is worth a thousand words. A picture is worth a thousand clicks. There is no shortage of data that supports this. Photos pull people in. Social marketing platform provider Roost reports that on Facebook, alone, photos provide 50 percent more impressions than do posts without an image or illustration. The YouTube Crash Course lists numerous articles that show how merchants use video and photography to increase conversion rates.
3. Watch the little company
It used to be that the little company studied the big company or brand. Now the opposite is occurring. Big brands don’t always get the web because they're not the ones building their sites from the [digital] ground up. There's something to be learned from the talented artisan with the tiny shop about how to build an audience. Did they build a Facebook page first? Quite possibly. Then later when they started their website, they may have linked their Facebook page to a coupon or app on their site.
You don’t have to be big to succeed as an online seller. A good source of information on online retail is the book My Wife Quit Her Job by Steve Chou. He and his wife run an online wedding linens store called Bumblebee Linens. It's not an Etsy store, but still an excellent example of savvy online merchants.
If you want a comprehensive guide, Etsy created a free Seller Handbook that's available to all (not just Etsy sellers). The guide includes many basic selling tips, including how to price your products, how to optimize your site for search, how to organize specials and contests and many more. It covers just about everything to get you started or propel you to that next level online selling.
