This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there, welcome back. This is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. Gonna talk to you today about what makes for a successful Etsy shop. Now, a lot of our stories have featured sellers on Etsy, the handcrafted marketplace, either selling their own items or reselling items. Now, the thing is, we're gonna talk about Cytosle failures next week, but a lot of people who sell on sites like Etsy really do struggle.
It's very easy to list your items. It's not necessarily super easy to sell them. So today's story is essentially a case study of a successful Etsy shop. And we'll look at what she learned along the way. But first, I wanna hand it over to listeners to tell us what is your Cytosle idea or your current project?
What are you working on? - Hi, this is Paige Culling from Omaha, Nebraska. I love your podcast. It's just so much fun hearing everybody's stories. I am working on a fun creative project that could maybe someday become a Cytosle.
My sister and I are both teachers, so we started a podcast called "Teacher Treat Yourself." And it's just about how to go the distance with teaching and kind of take care of yourself. I'm kind of running into a little bit of a wall though. I'm putting money into it, but not getting any money out of it. I'm somewhat okay with that 'cause I'm mostly just having fun making it. But I'm gonna keep listening to your show and maybe someday I'll figure out a way to make a little bit of money or at least have more people listening to my podcast.
Keep up the great work. Your show is so awesome. Thanks. - Thank you, Paige from Omaha. I'm so glad you're listening.
I love the idea of your podcast, "Teacher Treat Yourself." I know you're not making much money yet, but it sounds really fun and meaningful. I just went to Apple Podcasts and listened to episode four, "The Ode to Summer," and I really enjoyed it. So I gave it a five-star rating. Listeners, if you're a teacher, if you know a teacher, maybe check it out as well. It's called "Teacher Treat Yourself," wherever you listen to podcasts.
And by the way, when you do a listener call-in, feel free to mention your business, your side hustle, your website, your podcast, whatever it is. We just need one of those things, by the way, not like all four. But I would love to highlight more of these projects for everybody who's out there listening. So thanks again, Paige. More call-ins tomorrow.
And today's story is coming up right after this. [Music]
The side hustle for Adele buys didn't start out as one. Adele and her family would go to estate sales on the weekend as kind of a therapy for her daughter. Her daughter found hunting for bargains and fun treasures at estate sales to be soothing. And Adele was happy to oblige.
But soon, they had so many treasures and trinkets from these weekend excursions that they couldn't walk through their family room. She realized if they were gonna keep hunting for new treasures, some of the older treasures were gonna have to go. Adele had tried selling on eBay before, but found it difficult to make a profit. A coworker told her about Etsy, sharing that she had tried it for six months before getting discouraged and shutting down her shop. Adele took that as a challenge.
In addition to caring for her daughter and working a day job as an IT manager, Adele had multiple sclerosis. And she said there's nothing a person with MS likes more than a challenge. In fact, every day is a challenge in some ways, she said. So if you give me a challenge that doesn't involve controlling my body, I'll take it and succeed. Adele took up the challenge and opened an Etsy shop, filled out her about page and added some listings.
She soon discovered what a lot of people have found, that while starting an Etsy store is super easy, having a successful Etsy store is much harder. For a few days after making the listings, she thought she was done. But she quickly learned there are a few more things you have to do in order to really stand out and actually get orders on Etsy. Adele started checking out successful shops and saw right away that one of the most obvious things they had in common was clean, consistent photos of their products. So Adele retook some of her photos so that her whole Etsy storefront had a consistent look to it.
Next on the list was social media and search engine optimization or SEO. Initially Adele thought that she'd have an advantage because she ran a blog for a few years and knew all about SEO. But it turned out that SEO for Etsy is a little bit different. So with some research, she was able to apply her previous SEO skills to some new Etsy skills. She learned that she had to plan regular social media posts and repeat them often to ensure that people would see links to her listings.
She used tools like Buffer, which allowed her to automatically schedule tweets and Facebook posts. And in addition to the technological improvements, another important part of her success on Etsy has been connecting with the community. When she was first learning the ropes, she connected with another shop owner that answered her questions as she was getting set up. In turn, she now answers questions for other people as well. The first year she had just 23 orders and after making her improvements, she had 270 orders.
The next year she continued at that same pace with 285 orders and her item prices range from $20 up to $150 to $200. She usually tries to charge at least double what she pays for something, especially for inexpensive items. Now, speaking of inexpensive items, her strategy has evolved over time. Adele's initial goal was to have 100 small, unique, inexpensive items in the store at any given time. But she realized that these affordable little treasures were just as much effort to advertise and sell than if they were more expensive.
So she switched her strategy and started going for more luxury items, which were still unique, but cost a bit more and allowed for more profit. She now has about 400 items in her store at any given time, all one-of-a-kind treasures that she's found at estate sales. She's also realized how important it is to distinguish herself from the crowd in small ways. Her logo for her shop is a steampunk owl named Derby. And now every single person that orders from the shop also gets a little key chain owl, which incidentally she purchases from another Etsy shop.
This little addition has been a big hit with customers. And combined with everything else she's learned over the past few years has put her in the top 5% of all Etsy shops, ranked on reviews, sales, and shipping time. This shop is now more than just a side hustle for Adele. She thinks of it as her insurance policy. It's been critical when unexpected medical costs have popped up and given her family some financial cushion to fall back on.
She also hopes to continue growing the business so that if her MS makes it impossible for her to keep working outside the home, she can still contribute financially to the family. [Music]
So not all Etsy shops are created equal. And the same is true on just about any platform. Whether it's eBay or selling on Amazon or anywhere else. There are some people that do really well.
And there are also two different approaches, especially when it comes to Etsy. Because Etsy is, as I said, the world's largest handcrafted marketplace. So a lot of people who are selling on Etsy are crafters or artists or otherwise making something. But what we have here is a reselling focus. Adele isn't actually making anything.
Her skill is essentially curating, going out to these estate sales, identifying which items might sell the best, creating good listings, taking those strong photos. And I like this approach because even if you're not an artist or a crafter, there is a skill involved in doing something like this. Both in terms of the original sourcing, like how you get the items, how you determine what you want to focus on, and then how you actually sell them. In terms of those social media posts, in terms of the listings themselves, connecting with the community as she mentioned. So I thought this was a great case study.
And of course we'll link her Etsy shop up in the show notes for you to see it. Those show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/153. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better. Give me a shout on social media. I'm @chrisguillebeau on Twitter or Facebook, and @193countries, 193countries on Instagram.
You're a rockstar. I'm Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
