By Contributing Columnist Pam aka ElectricPenquin
Starting out as a new jewelry seller on Etsy last August was not the experience I thought it would be! I expected simple, easy, no work at all. Ha ha, I know, you’re all laughing at my innocence!! But I managed to get up and running and have sold over 60 pieces so far so I must be doing something right! Here’s the full confessions of what I did as I got started.

- Compared other shop’s similar products to mine
This was really useful – you can see what they charge for an equivalent item and its quality. It definitely helps with setting up your pricing and item descriptions. I discovered what I liked and didn’t like about their descriptions and tags. For example, I realized I wouldn’t buy an item if it didn’t mention the size or materials, so I made sure that info was in my descriptions. This is also useful for researching what’s out in Etsyland. I found in looking that there was one type of item that had many fewer postings than others. I created a line of them and that’s what I’ve sold the most of!

- Was totally disorganized
When I started, all my inventory was in snack sized plastic bags, and stored in a drawer in my china cabinet. I couldn’t find anything! New things would get thrown in on top, and I had no idea if I was out of a certain component or finding. Next came labeled one cup plastic containers. Better but still messy, and I didn’t have enough storage space for as many as I needed. I finally invested in some inexpensive flat divided plastic storage boxes. The items are boxed in groups (seed beads in one box with each color in a separate compartment, ceramic beads in another). Each compartment is labeled if needed, and the boxes are labeled with painters tape on both the top and side. That helped a lot! I now know what I have and don’t have, and can find it easily. There was a lot I had forgotten was in the drawer! Definitely plan out your organization, but be flexible when you realize that just isn’t cutting it.

- Borrowed policies from other shops
I browsed through probably hundreds, and reused ideas I liked from their policies. Then I combined all those thoughts into my own. See, it wasn’t stealing, more like idea sharing!

- Lurked on the Forums
Read, read, read, read and read some more. I started with the Etsy FAQ’s and all the info on opening a store. I tried to search for the answers to my questions before asking – almost everything has been asked previously. Read the Storques. I’ve found the Etsyian “GoTo” to be a wealth of information you can’t find elsewhere, especially technical things like getting Google Analytics set up. I read up on what tagging is and how to do it correctly so it’s picked up in searches (and you don’t have to redo them later). But once you have your shop set up, posting on the forums is really important to do if you want to be noticed. I read in silence for a long time before I caught on to that!

- Surfed other shop’s sold items
This is the best way to see if there’s actually a market for what you want to sell. See how many of that type/style of item have sold.

- Expected selling to be a breeze
Not!! It has been much more work than I ever anticipated, even with doing all the preparation I thought I had done. Promoting, relisting, renewing, updating the inventory spreadsheet, posting in the forums, and on and on. Don’t even get me started on the picture taking – that’s a full time job in itself!! But it all needs to be done if you’re going to get your name out there. You’ll be invisible otherwise.

And after all that? The biggest one of all…

- Was not anywhere near as prepared as I thought (or should be!)
No matter how much research I did, my products were not as good when I opened as they are now. Nor were my pictures bright enough. They’re still not front page quality yet! Worse was the great idea I had that was totally unique (and still is great and unique!!!), which I expected to be a huge hit with buyers. Not the case – I’ve only sold a few through the shop. I’ve sold several to friends and family, so they appear to be pieces that you really need to see to appreciate. But I forged ahead with new ideas and have done fairly well. And it’s fun!!

If you go into opening an Etsy shop with your eyes open and as prepared as you can be, you should have no problem succeeding!

Pic Courtesy of Eluna Jewelry of the Lonely Jewelers Team (Eluna is one of my team members!)

Tags: electric penquin, etsy, Jewelry, new shop, newbie, teams

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