My Etsy shop is now open for business. After many months of preparation and being distracted by the life I am finally open for business. Let’s look at some of the steps I took to get something ready to sell.

Profile Picture for User Bio

This image should be about 400×400 and I found a jpeg works better. Make it a clear shot of your face because this will act as the first line of customer service for your shop.

Shop Icon

This is the best place to put your logo. If you are consistent throughout the internet with your logo, people will begin to recognize you by your logo. So having your shop icon be your logo will help your visitor know at a glance they are in the right place.

Shop Cover Image

This image is optional and I have seen some shops not add one. It is my opinion that wherever you can add information about your brand it can help your buyer understand you are serious and trustworthy. And that you’ll deliver on your promises. 

I chose my header from my Evening Shire shop with my name and logo added so I could connect the two shops and let my buyers know I am the same person they saw on Evening Shire.

Images of your Products

This took the most time. After looking through Etsy, I saw many shops with multiple images for each product. The advantage of this is to give your buyer an idea of what they are buying. If you place the product in an environment for perspective, you give your buyer a better feeling about how your product might fit into their lives. 

Make sure your images are well lit and as sharp as you can make them. If you can come up with a style that fits your brand. Be very consistent. In a page of search items from all over Etsy can your buyer pick your product out? 

If you are worried about copyright infringement you could add a watermark to your product images. Although in today’s reality unless the watermark obscured the image it is easy to remove most watermarks. I suggest adding a logo but not so big as to obscure the image but to brand your products further so one glance at a search page will show your brand and image. Making sure your images are optimized creates a very good quality low res image that if anyone steals it they are getting an image that is only good for presenting on your shop and not printed. Etsy suggests that the best size for your images is 2000px on the long dimension. I made sure my primary image fit that size.

About Your Shop Copy

In the last post, we talked about your WHY and what you were selling. We thought through what makes you Unique. Here is the time to share these thoughts with your buyers. The biggest missed opportunity I see in a lot of Etsy shops is that they do not use this area effectively. As a buyer, I like to buy from an artist I am inspired by, artists who share their stories. And who’s story resonates with me. This is the best way to find your tribe. 

Last year, there were 2.5 million sellers on Etsy. The biggest challenge on Etsy is to find a way to be found. Adding a good copy that tells your brand story is critical. Advertisers who want to feature you, use yours about section to share your story and your products. Do make it so hard for them that they can’t help promote your work.

Your Terms and Conditions

Etsy helps walk you through a lot of these. Decide how you want to handle refunds and returns. 

Will you offer customization on your product for an up-charge? 

How long is your production time and how will you ship? 

What is your packaging? Do you include special packaging? 

When I was planning my shop, I looked through what many vendors were doing who sold my kind of product and found the answers that best suited the reality of what I do and my workshop’s capacity. Never over-promise and always review. If you plan to scale make sure you can handle the workload.

Final Steps



Etsy makes it pretty easy to work through all the sections that you need to add. Once your first products have been added and you are ready to open the shop, you will be asked to add your credit card. For each product placed in the marketplace, you pay .20. Your product is good for 4 months or until it is sold out. Every sale you make is then charged a 3.5% fee. So to launch your first 10 products will cost you $2.00. 


Make sure you put in place a plan for adding products or decide if you just want to renew your existing products. My hope for my store is to make the images limited editions and rotate stock out of my Etsy shop on a regular basis. Whatever you decide to make it very clear how you are structuring your shop to your buyers. 


Now that your shop is open. Congratulations. That was a lot of work to get to this point. And a lot of courage.


But the work is not done yet. Next, we’ll look at marketing for your product. 


Great job and if you have any questions comment below. 

DISCLAIMER

Evening Shire is committed to supporting our artists and vendors. We will never sell ads directly in our shops. Because of this we rely on affiliate links to help support our artists and vendors. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.

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