How To Start a Sticker Shop - PART 3 (Patreon)

Today I share with you the third part of the series “How To Start a Sticker Shop”In the first part of the series I talked about the supplies

Today I share with you the third part of the series “How To Start a Sticker Shop”

In the first part of the series I talked about the supplies you need to start a sticker shop, the second part was about finding manufacturers. 

Part three is about:

Let´s get into this month's topic!

In this Part I will talk about how to set up an Etsy shop and what’s important to think of when doing that.

This one is a chunky one 😅

But firstly let’s got through things to think about before starting an Etsy Shop.

Research

So you already have established what you are selling. Now it’s time to do a little research on the products you want to sell.

Look in the Etsy search bar for products that you want to sell. Spend some time looking and searching at similar shops. So you can see what´s already out there and you can also check how much the items cost in other shops.

The most important thing on Etsy is to stand out. Which is very hard when you sell stickers and illustrated stationery because there are a lot of similar shops on Etsy.

So it’s important to write down what sets you apart from the other shops. And to use these keywords in your product description, product name and tags. But more about that at the end of the Blog.

Name your Brand/Shop

Think of how you want to make your shop! Most illustrators use their instagram name so that can quickly find them. But you can also name your shop differently from it and maybe also make a separate account on instagram only for your shop? :)

Branding

Design a stand out branding for your shop and stick to it. A brand is the identity & personality of a company or business. This includes the look, feel and story of it, not only a logo.

It should fit for what you want to tell and also attract the perfect shopper for your products.

If you don’t want to do that yourself, I’m also a brand designer. You can find my branding work here: www.anna-lunak.art

Etsy Banner Image

After you have your brand design finished you can design the Etsy Banner.

When you have Etsy Plus you can also upload a carousel with more than one Banner.

When you don´t have Adobe Programms or Procreate you can use Canva to design your Banner.

Photos

Make sure that your products photos are PERFECT! This is besides searching for the right keywords the most important thing. I’m also still struggling with making good photos but I get better and better.

I will talk more in depth about taking product photos in the next part of the series.

Set yourself specific and achievable goals

Identify small milestones that will get you where you want to be with your shop, like „I want to sell my first product within a month“.

And think about a selling strategy to achieve these goals.

Lastly:

Etsy also has a Checklist you can download, so you don´t forget about anything important.

You can download it here:

„Quick Start Checklist“

Now let’s set up your shop!

How to set up an Etsy Shop

Create an Account

If you already have an Etsy account to shop use that to also set up your own shop.

Navigate to sign in in the top right corner and click on „register“ if you don’t already have an account. So after signing in click on your Profile Icon that is besides the shopping cart, a drop down menu will open and then click on „Sell on Etsy“ to set up your own shop.

Now you can fill in your:

Shop preferences

Name your shop

Create your first listing

Set up your payment settings

Enter your credit card or PayPal details

Create your listings

I would recommend you create as much listings as possible before open your shop.

Etsy recommends having a minimum of ten different listings for a better visibility.

Try to Upload as much product photos as possible for every listing, not only one.

You can also upload a video of your product.

List all the details/attributes of the product.

Set up inventory and pricing. You can also choose different prices for regional and non-regional buyers. Too if you want to sell without shipping costs in your own country you can make higher prices and then lower prices for every other country with shipping costs.

If your product has multiple sizes or colors you cal also list them, so there is no need to make multiple same listings just because you have 2 sizes of a print for example.

Add tags, and use all of them.

Set up shipping information

Input your processing time, where you are willing to ship, shipping services offered, whether you include free domestic or international shipping and whether you want to build a handling fee into the shipping price. Item weight and size go here, too.

You can make different shipping profiles. I have set up one for letter mail, one for big letter mail, and one for small packages.

You can also set up Etsy Shipping labels if that’s available in your country. I Austria it’s unfortunately not available.

Update your Bio

Write about the story behind your shop and also add some behind the scenes photos.

Etsy likes it when this is filled out and it’s also a nice extra for buyers to get to know the person behind the shop.

Set up your shop policies

This is one of the most critical steps. You want to anticipate any questions a buyer might have to help eliminate any back-and-forth questions via chat. A policy section will also help in the event of any disputes.

Essential elements of your shop policies include:

Processing time

Shipping policies (for example, maybe you only ship via USPS Priority to take advantage of free insurance)

Payment options

Returns and exchanges policy

Now you’re ready to open!

You are now ready to start selling! But just listing and opening up a shop won’t necessarily drive in buyers. You are going to need to do a little marketing and give your shop a SEO optimization to make sure it is getting in front of the right people.

I will talk about ways to advertise your shop in part 5 of the Sticker Shop series, but here is already a bit about Keywords and SEO.

But keep in mind, SEO optimization is a veeeery big theme, so I will just share a bit of what I know about that. I would recommend to research more about that topic either on YouTube or buy specific books about SEO.

Keywords & SEO

Etsy is a searching platform, so you can think of it like if it’s google.

Most of the time, customers start their search by typing some words or phrases in the search bar. As a seller, it is essential that you try to think like your customer in order to get those descriptive keywords that a buyer uses to find your products.

Start brainstorming to get the most out of your keywords: write down all the words and phrases that customers might use to find your products. Once you have a short list of possible phrases, mark the strongest ones. Add these words and phrases to the tags, in the product titles and at the beginning of the product description. Check your shop statistics once a week (under Your shop > Statistics). This way you can see which keywords are working and replace those that aren't as good with others that might be a better fit.

You can also use platforms like Marmalead or Alura to search for good keywords for your shop.

Tips for Etsy SEO that I got directly from a call with someone from Etsy:

Fill in as much of the attributes in a listing as possible!

Use at least 200 words in your product description, the first 80 words will show of on Google

- They also told me to only use 3-5 words in your title. So it’s better to only use Fall Essentials Sticker Sheet in your title instead of Fall Essentials Sticker Sheet // cottagecore, stationery, kawaii, journal, planner, illustration, digital art, cozy, fall items, matte paper

I´m currently testing that, because I’m not really sure if that works better.

Don´t mix languages

Update your „terms and conditions“ every now and then

Advertise a maximum of 3 products at least for 30 days

Add a shop title. You can find that right under the name of your shop. That line is perfect to describe what you sell

Fill in the space called „shop announcement“. Below the shop title you can find a space for shop announcements. This is optional, but a great space to message anything you want your customers to know when visiting your page.

So and that is everything for today!

I wish you a lot of fun with setting up your shop!

The next Parts of this series are the following:

Part 4: How to make good product photos + a bit of editing insights

Part 5: Ways to advertise your shop

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