ETSY.Com

[glennw]

I have opened a store on etsy.com hopefully I'll do well. It's called Greywolf Woodworks

[ed kerns]

Good luck with your store! As a recently retired guy looking for something productive to do with my woodworking, I'd be interested in anyone's tales about how they're fairing with Etsy, Amazon and the like. Certainly not looking to make woodworking a job, more like a purposeful hobby.

[Cooler]

glennw said:

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I have opened a store on etsy.com hopefully I'll do well. It's called Greywolf Woodworks

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I searched "Greywolf woodworks" at Etsy and I could not find you.

Can you tell us something about opening a store on Etsy? Easy? Hard? What you need. Etc.

[carlsonalex18]

My wife and I have a etsy shop. Not with wood working, I screen print and she sews. The secret to having sales on etsy is to get onto social media. Instagram is huge! Start a page and turn it into a woodworking blog. Then link your etsy shop in the bio on top. I know that ppl like ana white have instagram and facebook, and thats how they get ppl to their site. Just have to get familiar with hashtags and ect. There are lots of successful wood shops on etsy, the common factor is that they have social media. My wife and I have 13.2k followers on instagram and around 4,600 followers on facebook. We have 5890 sales since opening at the end of april 2014 and I actually just took a break from a 175 shirt print order thats going to Australia. I'd be happy to help if you have any questions. Also, pinterest is very big for etsy. Good luck!

[packerguy®]

Nice stuff.

From my standpoint, ETSY has a pretty narrow shopper. If you can hit it, you can make a fair amount. Ive sold more than 4000 urns and I have only had a few sales there, all of them wanted me to "change" something, of course at no additional fee, and one even wanted me to modify something after they received it.

I use to have quite a few urns listed there, but now never have more than 10. Its basically pretty cheap advertising for me.

But it beats the heck out of Ebay.

Amazon is king. But with Amazon you need to reproduce and have inventory. One off items dont do well.

[packerguy®]

carlsonalex18 said:

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My wife and I have a etsy shop. Not with wood working, I screen print and she sews. The secret to having sales on etsy is to get onto social media. Instagram is huge! Start a page and turn it into a woodworking blog. Then link your etsy shop in the bio on top. I know that ppl like ana white have instagram and facebook, and thats how they get ppl to their site. Just have to get familiar with hashtags and ect. There are lots of successful wood shops on etsy, the common factor is that they have social media. My wife and I have 13.2k followers on instagram and around 4,600 followers on facebook. We have 5890 sales since opening at the end of april 2014 and I actually just took a break from a 175 shirt print order thats going to Australia. I'd be happy to help if you have any questions. Also, pinterest is very big for etsy. Good luck!

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I think thats my missing key. I dont get any of that stuff, outside of facebook. I signed up for an instagram account and was shocked you had to use your phone. Im not even old.....

[glennw]

greywolfwoodworks all in one word I think. My logo is a wolfs head.I need to create a facebook account to link into my etsy account.

[Danny in Houston]

I was able to easily find you, looks great! Congrats on the success.

My wife and I are in the beginning stages of setting something up ourselves.

[glennw]

Good luck I just added more. What are you planning to sell.

[Bibliophile 13]

I, too, have an Etsy shop and sell a few small items now and again. Etsy used to be better, and even small-time makers could easily be found there, but now that sellers are allowed to re-sell mass-produced stuff, we small-timers just get buried under loads of cheap crap. That means that you can't count on Google or Etsy to point people to your products; you have to do your own marketing. As people have said above, that means putting links on social media and the like.

May I offer a few suggestions for your own site?

First, work on your photography. The best thing is to shoot outdoors on a cloudy day; this time of year, you might have to settle for shooting indoors under multiple light sources. At the very least, make sure the background is uncluttered, and crop your photos to focus only on the featured item. Make sure you show your work from different angles. If I were to spend few hundred bucks on a chest, for example, I'd want to see every side of it. You're allowed to post five pictures of each item. Post five every time.

Product descriptions could be more detailed. Mention standard features, suggested uses, and any other details that make your product recognizable. It's nice that you're offering customization, but a lot of customers really just want you to make most of the design decisions yourself. It might be simpler to offer items in three standard sizes, for example. Then you could build and photograph three samples in, say, three different woods. That way customers will have a solid visual image of what they're getting.

I would also recommend filling out your profile a little more. You don't have to reveal personal information, but a few sentences about your approach to your work (especially what makes your work unique) wouldn't hurt. I put a brief "story" about my background into each of my product descriptions, and I tag each listing with my name. I want to make it dirt-simple for people to find me, especially when they're looking for my stuff specifically.

Here's a link to my own Etsy shop. It's not perfect, certainly, but sells items pretty regularly.