How to Increase Sales on Etsy

You can print this list and place it next to your keyboard. It will serve as a reminder to act. Circle those check marks you are performing on a regular basis. If there is no circle next to an item that you feel is relevant to what you are selling, it only means that you need to spend more time in that specific area.

Here we go...

• Creativity

  Develop your own style. Look at some of the styles the other successful Etsy sellers have. Look at their wording styles and their photos. While being inspired, never copy but develop your own style.

• Branding

  Develop a brand. Use your cleverness to make a brand that people remember. If you want to, you can hire designers to help with your branding.

• Persistence

  Don't give up before the horses are out of the gate. Don't list a few items and as a new seller get discouraged if the first attempt is not a success. Get up on the horse and do it again. But this time figure out what you could do to improve.

• Staging

  Just as homes are "staged" by the requests of Realtors so that a house is more desirable to buy, so is staging your items. It also helps to show your style.

• Photo-editing

  Using a photo editor such as "Gimp" or Adobe's "Photoshop", you can correct bad lighting or inaccurate visuals such as tonal color values due to technical difficulties with your photographic device. While you don't want to remove natural flaws or misrepresent your item, you do want it to reflect it's true beauty and accurate visual appeal. Enhancing photos is perfectly acceptable as long as the item is visually represented appropriately. There is even an app for that!

• Shipping

  This one is simple - ship your items as fast as possible. If you can afford it, offer free shipping as well.

• Smartphone

  Who doesn't have a smartphone? Use it! Take advantage of the Etsy mobile app to stay connected with orders, customer questions and more. When taking product photos, use your smartphone - photos taken with mobile phones are as good as many cameras.

• Customer service

  Be sure to be attentive to your customers. Handle any concerns sensitively and swiftly. Put yourself in your customers shoes and empathize with them. How do they feel? Let them know you want to please them.

• Complaints?

  If there is a problem or concern with an order an easy way to solve the problem is to promptly ASK the customer what you can do to make them happy. You can communicate to your customer by simply saying "Is there anything I can do to make this transaction a positive experience for you?" You will likely both end the transaction with a positive outcome and the potential for future sales.

• Keep up the communication

  Whenever a customer writes with a comment or question, respond promptly and gratefully. Giving proper attention and showing gratitude helps us all feel appreciated.

• Media platforms

  When utilizing social media - you don't have to use every media platform that you can find, but whichever ones you use, use them regularly. Use automation tools as much as possible to free up your time.

• Shop Announcement

  Use this shop option to its fullest potential. It's an area right below your banner that you can use to communicate with your customers. You can give your customers info on what you offer at a particular time of year, let them know when you will be on vacation or let them know about a special you are offering. You are only limited by your creativity.

• Coupon Codes

  Etsy's blog has help for this. People feel like they have the key to a secret formula with coupon codes - read more at https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500005142242-How-Etsy-Coupons-Work

• Photos

  Create interest with your photos. If you notice, on Etsy, the photos are truly eye candy. They are artfully done, as well as have an excellent quality as far as the pixel resolution. Use proper lighting that shows your product in an attractive manner. Google and learn some photographing tips such as how to avoid "backlighting".

• Include dimensions

  Photographs don't always tell us how big or small an item is. Remember to include the item dimensions.

• Description

  Use proper and descriptive keywords. Make your titles concise and clear. Do not overload it with keywords, and make it readable. This helps your customers find what they are looking for. They want what you've got and you want them to find it!

• Stats

  Utilize Etsy's shop stats for increasing your item's visibility. If you don't see a keyword that you are using in your shop stats try a synonym for that particular keyword.

• Custom orders

  Simply put, offer custom orders. People love personalization, and many of Etsy sellers offer just that.

• Inspiration

  Keep looking for new ideas and inspiration. Keeping a fresh look and feel will excite your customers and give them a reason to revisit. Look at other Etsy shops that are doing well to get inspired.

• Newsletters

  Create a newsletter. A good application for creating newsletters for free is Mailchimp (https://mailchimp.com ). Other options are SendGrid (https://sendgrid.com ) or Constant Contact (https://constantcontact.com ).

• Make a video!

  A video is a great way to bond with your clientele and also to communicate with them. You can use your smartphone and upload a video to your Etsy listing. There are many ways to please your customers with videos from how-to videos to giving them a virtual tour of your shop. It's nice to see that a real person lives behind an Etsy store.

• Be INVENTIVE!

  There are a lot of people doing the same things on Etsy. Invent a new design that no own else has. This way you can stand out in a saturated market which especially applies to jewelry making.

• Gift wrapping

  Offer a gift wrapping service around the holidays for free. It is an inexpensive way to stand out from the crowd. It also helps your customer feel special and know you care.

• Store policies

  Develop store policies to give your customer confidence and reasonable expectations. Let them know what to expect with time frame, shipping charges, and returns.

• Free surprise gifts

  Consider adding small gift with your orders. Don't necessarily tell your customer you will send a free gift, but send one anyway. Everyone likes surprises. The more pleasurable an experience for your customer, the more likely they will remember the positive experience and think of ordering in the future.

• Holidays spirit

  Change your shop for holidays. Decorate it and engage your customer in the spirit of a holiday. This creates a happy positive experience for your customers. The more they remember you and associate fun and enjoyment, the more they are likely to revisit.

• Use specific search terms

  Use the phrases buyers use when they describe what they want. Put the clearest, most relevant phrase near the beginning of your title, then support it with accurate tags and attributes.

• Watch your conversion rate

  Check which listings get visits but few orders. Improve the first photo, price, shipping promise, and description for one listing at a time so you can learn what helps buyers decide.

• Refresh proven listings

  Revisit listings that have sold before. Update their photos, details, and keywords when customer questions or shop statistics show a clearer way to present the product.

• Encourage repeat purchases

  A great unboxing experience and clear follow-up can turn a first order into a returning customer. Include useful care instructions and make it easy for buyers to find related products in your shop.

How to get sales on Etsy when you are starting from zero

A shop with no sales history has a specific problem: Etsy has nothing to rank you on yet, and buyers have no reviews to trust. The tips above still apply, but the order matters. Get five to ten listings live rather than one perfect one — each listing is a separate entry point into search, and one listing is one lottery ticket. Make sure every one of them is genuinely findable before you add more: an accurate title, all 13 tags used, and a description that answers the obvious questions. Our Etsy listing checker will tell you which of those are missing on a given listing.

Then be patient in a specific way. New listings get a temporary visibility boost from Etsy, so watch what happens in the first few days: a listing that gets views but no favourites usually has a photo or price problem, and a listing that gets neither usually has a findability problem. Those are different fixes, and guessing between them wastes weeks.

How to boost Etsy sales in an established shop

If you already have sales, the fastest gains are almost never in new products. They are in the listings that already get traffic and do not convert. Open your Etsy stats, sort by views, and look at the listings with the most views and the fewest orders — that gap is the cheapest thing you own. Usually it is one of three things: the photos do not show scale or detail, the price is out of step with what the listing looks like it is worth, or the description leaves a question unanswered that a buyer will not email to ask.

To increase sales on Etsy at this stage, work in small batches and change one variable at a time. Rewriting every listing in a weekend feels productive and teaches you nothing, because you cannot tell afterwards which change did the work.

How to get more views on Etsy

Views are a search problem, not a conversion problem, so the levers are different. Titles and tags decide which searches you appear in at all; photos and price decide whether the appearance turns into a click. If you want more views on Etsy specifically, start with the words: use phrases a buyer would actually type, not category names you would use internally. “Personalised oak chopping board” is a search; “kitchenware” is a department.

Fill all 13 tag slots — unused slots are searches you have opted out of — and keep each tag inside Etsy’s 20-character limit so none of them get truncated. The free Etsy tag generator and title generator handle both constraints for you, but read what they produce: a tag that describes a product you do not actually sell brings the wrong visitor.

Views are only half of it. Once a shopper clicks, the description decides whether they order or go back to the results — the free Etsy description generator drafts one that answers the questions buyers usually email to ask.

It is worth knowing what the numbers in your dashboard actually count before you chase them. Views and visits measure different things, and the gap between the two is what tells you whether a listing has a traffic problem or a conversion problem.

How to market an Etsy shop outside Etsy

Etsy search is a finite pool, and at some point growth has to come from traffic you bring yourself. The channels that work for handmade and personalised goods are the visual ones — Pinterest in particular behaves like a search engine rather than a social feed, which means a pin can still send traffic a year after you post it. Instagram and TikTok work on a shorter cycle and reward volume more than polish.

Whatever channel you pick, send people to a specific listing rather than the shop home page. A visitor who lands on a shop front has to make a second decision before they can buy, and a meaningful share of them will not.

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to increase sales on Etsy?

Longer than most advice admits. Etsy needs to re-crawl an edited listing and then gather enough impressions to judge it, so a title or tag change usually takes two to four weeks to show a trend rather than noise. The mistake is changing everything again in week one because nothing happened yet.

Why do I get views on Etsy but no sales?

Views without orders is a conversion problem, not a search problem, and the fix is in what the shopper sees after clicking: photos that do not show scale or detail, a price out of step with how the listing looks, or a description that leaves an obvious question unanswered. More search work will not help here — you are already being found.

How do I get my first sale on Etsy?

Get five to ten complete listings live rather than one perfect one, since each is a separate entry point into search. Then use the temporary visibility Etsy gives new listings to diagnose: views but no favourites usually means a photo or price problem, and neither usually means a findability problem.

Do I need to pay for ads to boost Etsy sales?

No, and paying for ads on a listing that does not convert simply buys you more people leaving. Fix the listing first — ads multiply whatever conversion rate you already have, including a bad one.

How many listings do I need to sell more on Etsy?

There is no threshold number, but more complete listings beat fewer polished ones early on, because each listing is a separate chance to match a search. Once you have traffic the balance flips: improving the listings that already get views returns more than adding new ones.

Next steps

Two things worth doing before you work through the list above. First, check that your pricing actually leaves you a margin — the Etsy fee calculator shows every fee Etsy takes and what you keep on a sale, which often explains a shop that looks busy but isn’t making money. Second, if search visibility is your bottleneck, our guide to Etsy SEO tools covers what the various tools actually do and which jobs have decent free options.

A few situations come up often enough to have their own guides: what Etsy vacation mode does to your listings before you take time off, whether it is worth running more than one Etsy shop, what happens to your links and reviews when you change your Etsy shop name, and how buyers find a shop on Etsy when they only half-remember what it was called.