6 Tips to Boost Your Etsy Sales This Summer
Finals are beginning to wrap up, summer is right around the corner, and so is a whole lot of free time. Sometimes during the summer, I have so much free time that I’m not quite sure what to do with it. I usually end up rewatching Buffy in its entirety (again), drinking too many blue raspberry icees, and begging my mom to fix our hardly working 50-year-old air conditioning unit. All this to say, that if I’m not at work I tend to not be very productive with my time. But all this free time is perfect to take a good look at your shop and try to improve it to boost your Etsy sales!
Nothing makes me feel better than being able to use my free time to do something I enjoy but is also productive and makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something. This usually includes working on this website or updating my Etsy. Over the summer I’m gonna have a heck of a lot of free time to work on Sachi’s Letters and you’ll probably have just as much if not more time to work on YOUR shop. So here are some things you can do to boost your Etsy sales!!!
Update SEO
I don’t know if this is just me but SEO is my least favorite part of selling on Etsy. So much work goes into just making sure your product is seen and frankly, it’s boring. So boring. Please…send help. Not only that but SEO changes over time, especially if you sell seasonal items. That means every few months you need to go to your shop and update your listings so people keep finding them!
Summer is the perfect time to take care of this highly boring and mildly time-consuming chore. Lame but important. You’re not gonna be able to boost your sales if no one can find your items in the first place.
My favorite way to do this is to split my laptop screen: whatever Netflix show I’m binging on the left and keyword research on the right. This way I have some sort of entertainment to preoccupy me whilst I work.
So do you have some listings that still have the words “Christmas” or “Valentines” in their titles? Now’s the perfect time to fix that. And even if you don’t have any listings using seasonal keywords, it’s never a bad idea to make sure the keywords you are using are still relevant. Like I said, they change and it’s important to make sure you’re up to date.
My favorite resource for keyword research is Marmaleade! It tells you how to improve your listings and helps you pick out good keywords!
You could also spend a couple dollars on renewing a few listings. This will help bump them up in search!
Add New Items
The more items you have in your shop the more potential reach you have which will end up boosting your Etsy sales.
So, come up with some new products you can offer, new variations of products you already offer, and improve the ones you’ve already listed! Take some time to brainstorm some new items you can start selling! Then, work on creating them and adding them to your shop!
Do you sell a mug with a design that can easily be put on a tote bag? Try to add a couple new items a week! Consistency is key!
Printful is a great way to expand your product range!
Improve Your Photography
Take advantage of the extra sunlight that we’re blessed with during the summer! What’s the point of the sun not setting until 8:30 if you’re not using it to improve your business!!
Use it to take naturally lit and awesome pictures of your products and make more Etsy sales. Pictures are the very first thing potential customers see so it’s important that they’re awesome! Otherwise, you’ll scare potential customers away.
If you’re like me and you outsource most of your products Creative Market is an awesome place to find mockups to use! It’s free to sign up and every week you get 6 free downloads, which is pretty awesome if you ask me. I love free things. Especially free food.
Some of my favorite mockups that I use in pretty much every listing on Etsy are:
Expand Your Marketing Strategy
Consider branching out to social media platforms you’ve previously ignored. If you’ve only ever posted your items on Instagram, try to make a Facebook page! Invite all your friends, and post whenever you add a new item! Or, vice versa.
Since you might have extra change over the summer, consider running a few ads! Whether it be on Etsy, Facebook, or Pinterest, summertime is the best time to figure out what works best for you! Figure out if ads are the way to go to boost your Etsy sales.
Related: Marketing Ideas to Grow Your Creative Business
Improve Your Packaging
Experiment with different ways of packaging your items! It’s important to impress your customers at every stage of the process. People don’t want to get their items in a recycled amazon prime box that’s WAY too big for what they ordered and wrapped in toilet paper. You want your customers to be excited to open their package and receive their item but you also want them to be a little sad about ruining the pretty paper. Pretty paper makes customers pretty happy.
Additionally, if your packaging is impressive and exciting your customer might be more likely to leave you a fat and juicy 5-star review.
Shop Updates
Now that you have all these listings and beautiful new photos consider making a few shop updates! It’s quick, easy, simple, and increases the chances that your followers will see your new products. In the Etsy Sell app going to social media > shop updates > upload one of your listing photos & tag the item. Simple as that.
