Selling On Etsy

Etsy is a special place online where people come to find handmade or vintage goods. If you are a crafter, this site is a good resource for an extra income. Becoming a seller at Etsy is a two step process. First you have to register as a buyer and then log in and select to upgrade to a seller. To upgrade to seller status it is free but they do require a debit or credit card to be registered. They use this card once a month to charge your balance for your listing and final sales fees.

The steps to list an item is fairly simple. Just make sure that you have a good picture of your item. I would do a picture of the item in it’s entirety and then zoom in to show the detail for another picture. When you list an item, you are charged 0.20 cents for a 4 month listing. This price includes up to 5 images of the product. When an item sells a 3.5% fee on the final sale price will be charged. After 4 months you will have to renew the listing. When an item is purchased by a customer you can opt to be paid by PayPal. When you are writing the description for the item be very illustrative and you might even want to put in what inspired you to create the piece. The more the buyer feels connected to the seller’s vision the more chance they will purchase the item.

Every seller on Etsy gets a free shop. The shop can be customized and it will list all of the items that you currently have for sale. The items will also be listed in it's individual category that you chose when listing the item. The benefit to having a shop is you can give out a single link to promote all of the items that you have on sale.

Promoting your shop is aided by their resources that include banners and buttons that you can place on your blogs and websites. Etsy also has a widget, the Etsy Mini, that you can add to your blog or website, instead of the banner or button, that will showcase your items that you have in your Etsy shop. Another promotional tool that Etsy participates in is the staff will scour their product database and find items to feature on the front page of Etsy. They usually keep the products rotated several times a day. This is great way to get free publicity for your items.

Another tip is to fully fill out your profile. A limited profile will not impress sellers and you might loose business. Make sure that you list all of your shops policies for returns, damaged goods in shipping, and items that were not received. This will help you keep order to all of your orders and create less chaos. Also, try and list items as frequent as possible so that you can appear at the top of a category that buyers will choose. This will keep your listings from being buried amongst the older items.

Lastly, you can have the most perfect listing and still not receive sales if you don’t promote the item yourself outside of Etsy. You can do this by getting the word out on social networks, blogging about it, and listing your link in a forum.

If you are a crafty person try Etsy out and see where it can take you in your journey to making extra income.

Places To Sell Online

Selling online is a great way to make extra money for your family. I thought I would start off the day with listing places that you can sell on. It is important to sell in a site that fits your needs best.

eBay: This is the most popular site to sell on. Traffic to your listings comes easier with eBay and it has an easy insertion form for selling. As a seller you can have individual listings (No subscription needed) or you can have an eBay store (Subscription needed). You can either choose to have buyers bid on your items or "Buy It Now" with a fixed price. For a beginning seller online eBay is in my opinion the best to get started on because it is easy to set up a listing, traffic is greater on eBay than other sites, and they have a great help section that will help a beginner get the most out of their listings.

Amazon: This is another high traffic site that offers a selling feature. I found that if you sell books online, this is the best place to do it. Sellers have found that they can get more for books with the audience that Amazon receives. The only downside is that you have to pay a monthly fee to be a seller with them, so that means that in order for you to make a profit you will have to sell more than the monthly fee every month.

Craigslist: This is a site that is great to sell bulky items that are not easily shipped. You can post an ad for free to attract local intrest. The only downside to this site is that you directly communicate through your own email address and you have to meet face to face to complete the sale. You will definately have to think of your security when completing a sale on Craigslist.

Half.com: This site is ran by eBay. This site is limited to items in the following catagories: Books, Movies, Music, Game Systems, and Video Games. There are no listing fees and listing an item is easy because you enter the UPC or ISBN and all of the info is provided from their database on the item. Traffic is pretty good for this site.

Etsy: This is a place where you can sell your handmade goods. The traffic it gets is from destination buyers that are seeking for handmade goods. The form to list an item is moderately easy. It cost 20cents to list an item and when it sells you will pay a small transaction fee of 3.5%.

Cafe Press: This is a site where you can sell your custom t-shirts, hats, mugs, and more. You can open a basic shop for free and list up to 80 items. This site seems to get a lot of traffic.

These are the sites that I know that are trustworthy to sell on. If you know of anymore please leave a comment and I will check them out.