Practical Etsy Shop Tips for Knit and Crochet Handmade Businesses | Podcast Episode #82

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Are you looking for ways to improve your Etsy shop or just any Etsy shop tips?

If so, this is the podcast episode for you! “Winning” at Etsy can be a challenging game but with a little research, preparation and a bit of luck, your shop can be everything you need it to be. It doesn’t matter if that’s a full-time gig or a part-time way to earn a little extra cash for family. You won’t want to miss these Etsy Shop tips!

Special Guest

I’m joined today by Destiny from Knifty Knittings, a successful Etsy shop owner and kind-hearted knitter of more than a decade! Destiny has learned a lot over the last several years about what it takes to have a profitable Etsy shop and she selflessly shares her experiences with us today.

Episode Transcript

Brittany:
Well, hey there and welcome to episode number 82 of the BHooked podcast. I’m so grateful that you’re here with me today because I have been planning an episode like this for a very long time. I was just waiting for the right guest.

Well, today we’re going to talk all things Etsy. Well, you guys know I am far from an Etsy expert. And so I went out and found somebody who I believe is crushing it on Etsy. She’s doing a wonderful job, has a beautiful shop, and she makes a living selling her goods. Now, Destiny isn’t too many steps ahead of where you might be right now. And that’s what makes her such a great guest on the show, because she can share some of her experiences with you as they’re still relatively fresh in her mind.

She’s at a very thorough understanding of Etsy and its algorithms, and she shares all of that with us today. Now, before we dive into that, though, I have to ask you, have you tried Loop It Yarn yet by Red Heart? This Loop It Yarn is relatively new. It’s kind of a new yarn craze that’s going on right now. It’s a brand new type of yarn that doesn’t require any hooks or any needles.

Now for me, I can see this as being a great way to change things up a little bit, get some different motions. We talked a little bit about some repetitive stress things that we might deal with as knitters and crocheters last week. It’s great for changing things up like that, but it’s also really great to craft with your kids. This is something that they can do very easy, and you can teach them how to do that.

So you can see Loop It Yarn in person at your local Michaels craft stores, or if you would prefer to order directly from Michaels.com, you can go ahead and do that. And I would also encourage you to check out Red Heart’s website to see Loop It in action. They’ve got some different patterns, some different tutorials where you can be inspired by the different projects so you know what you can make.

One more thing before we get started on today’s show is of course where you can find the show notes page. Destiny and I talk about several different resources that if you’re into Etsy and you’re looking for a way to grow your shop and expand then you’ll want to check out these resources. All you need to do is go to behookedcrochet.com slash session 082. You’ll find everything we talk about with a link right there on that page. So no memorizing required.

Well, I am so stoked about today’s show and today’s guest. I don’t want to delay anymore because I know so many of you have a shop of your own or you’re looking to start one. Maybe you have a shop and you’re looking for a way to increase sales or increase traffic. Those are the types of things that you’ll learn from today’s episode, so you definitely want to keep on listening.

All right, so without further ado, let’s welcome Destiny from Nifty Knittings to the podcast. Destiny, hi, welcome to the show.

Destiny: 4:07
Hi, Brittany. Thanks so much for having me.

Brittany: 4:10
It’s a real pleasure to have you here. You are doing me an incredible favor, honestly, because I know so many people are chomping at the bit to learn more about Etsy, myself included. I was going through the outline for our talk today and was just coming up with question after question. And I think this is going to be one of those episodes that people can take so much info from. So thank you so much right here at the start.

Destiny: 4:07
Oh, you’re welcome. I hope I have a little bit of knowledge that I can… in part, but I’m not an expert by any means.

Brittany: 4:14
I’m sure that you can offer so much for us because I really don’t think it takes an expert to teach somebody. As long as you are maybe a couple steps ahead of where somebody wants to be, you’re close enough to that experience where you don’t forget those important learning lessons, but you’re far enough along that you can share those experiences with people. So yeah, I’m excited for this.

Destiny: 4:41
Me too.

Brittany: 4:42
Well, before we get into all things Etsy, can you first tell me a little bit about you and how you got into the world of knitting?

Destiny: 4:49
Sure. So I’m Destiny and I own Nifty Knittings. I design knitting patterns and I also sell finished knitwear pieces. I’ve been knitting for about 13 years. I started back in college.

Brittany: 5:23
Yeah. Yeah, don’t. Back in college. Oh, dating yourself a little bit. I can relate.

Destiny: 5:26
I had a friend in college who she made this beautiful cabled scarf and I asked her to show me how. And yeah, a cabled scarf is not a great first project for a beginner.

Brittany: 5:23
Oh, did you finish it? That’s crazy.

Destiny: 5:26
I think so, but I have no idea what happened to it. It wasn’t great. But yeah, so that’s how I learned. And then I kind of knitted on and off for years. Really sticking to just scarves and flat projects. My husband and I got married in 2007. And then we moved about 3000 miles away for him to go to grad school. So I didn’t really know anybody. And I had a lot of free time to kill. So I started knitting again.

And then when we moved, it was around when the economy kind of took a tank. So it was really hard finding a job. And my sister, I believe, was the one who first told me about Etsy. And she said that I should try selling some things on there. So it sounded really fun and easy. So I opened a shop and listed a few things. But I had no clue what I was doing. And I really probably wasn’t even that great of a knitter at the time. I didn’t have a very consistent style.

Brittany: 6:27
Yeah.

Destiny: 6:28
And so, yeah, that was a failure. I only sold a few things here and there. Hmm. And then a couple years later, we moved again to Iowa. And I kind of happened to luck into a job at a local yarn shop. And I was only there for a year before we had to move again. But I learned basically everything I know about knitting from working there.

Brittany: 6:49
Oh, that’s cool.

Destiny: 6:50
Yeah, the women working there and the owner, they just knew everything and they taught me so much.

Brittany: 6:57
Yeah.

Destiny: 6:58
So within like the course of a year before I left, I was knitting sweaters and socks and lace, pretty much everything.

Brittany: 7:05
Very cool.

Destiny: 7:06
Yeah, it was kind of like a crash course in knitting.

Brittany: 7:09
Yeah, over the course of a year, you learned all of that.

Destiny: 7:12
Yeah, it was an experience. We moved again, grad school life. And a couple years later, we had our daughter, Eleanor. And then when she was around one, Yeah. Yeah. So I thought I would try taking a few pictures and listing it in my old Etsy shop, which had been neglected for years at that point. And then I added a few more styles and colors and things kind of took off from there. And then eventually I had requests for the patterns too. So I started writing up the patterns and self-publishing them on Etsy and Ravelry.

Brittany: 8:14
Very neat. So we have to talk just a minute about those pom-poms because seriously, you have the neatest palms I have ever seen in my life. It’s crazy. They’re like perfectly circular. And for any of you listening who have tried making a pom, you understand that it’s not easy to make it perfect. Well, I encourage you to check out Destiny’s Instagram page and just look at some of her proms. I swear they’re perfect and I don’t understand how you do it.

Destiny: 8:46
It didn’t start off that way. If you scroll far back enough, you’ll see some pretty bad ones.

Brittany: 8:52
I have to go back just to see the progression there.

Destiny: 8:56
I shouldn’t have said that.

Brittany: 8:58
Well, it’s all a learning process. We all definitely start somewhere and it sounds like that was the same journey with your shop. You just started with what you knew and quickly learned that that approach wasn’t maybe the right one, but I love how you stuck with it and you tried it again and that time you found success. I think a lot of people can be inspired by that.

Destiny: 9:19
Yeah.

Brittany: 9:20
So at this time when you just started listing a few things, was it called Nifty Knittings then or was it just sort of a compilation of the things that you had made?

Destiny: 9:31
Yeah, it’s always been called Nifty Knittings.

Brittany: 9:33
Very cool. Where did the name come from?

Destiny: 9:37
I was just kind of spitballing ideas with my husband. I mean, I feel like I was a kid, but I was probably 25. I don’t know. Let’s not talk about it. But I don’t know. I just thought it sounded cute.

Brittany: 9:48
Yeah, it’s really catchy. I love it. So when was this when you first started putting these hats on, different styles and colors on, like when you tried that second time around?

Destiny: 10:04
That was fall of 2015.

Brittany: 10:08
Okay. So that was about the time where– I mean, arguably, Etsy was– pretty difficult at that point it was pretty crowded and it was you had to kind of play the algorithm a little bit and figure out ways to make your shop stand out I know when I first started dabbling with Etsy it was in like 2012 and 13 and even then it felt like I just no matter what I did or what I tried I couldn’t be we’ll say noticed by etsy or basically having some of my listings on that front page or even come up soon in the search did you do anything specific at this time or were you just saying like i have got these hats i think they’re great and i’m just listing them

Destiny: 10:53
Um, I yeah, I also struggled with being found and the little views and obsessively tracking my views but And then I just, I really went over the seller handbook, which is a huge resource on Etsy. It’s articles after article, and they have a lot of great tips about how to be found, what you need to do to optimize your search, your SEO, search engine optimization. And yeah, I think that was really helpful. And then 2016, I really kind of jumped on the Instagram bandwagon and That really helped a lot too, I think.

Brittany: 11:34
Yeah, I love how Instagram has just like brought so much to our community.

Destiny: 11:38
Yeah, I had no idea this community was out there. I just, you know, I originally joined, everyone says it’s a great place to promote your stuff. So like my first couple of posts are just like, hey, here’s a hat that I made, come buy it. And I had no idea there was like this community out here and it’s amazing.

Brittany: 11:57
Yeah, yeah. I think Instagram gives you a way to sell to your friends, really. I mean, you’re not really selling to them. A lot of times people will post something on Instagram and they’ll have some type of inspirational of saying or something that they’re posting with that image. And just being able to see that in their feed, people like to, well, one, support their friend and two, maybe they’ll say, hey, I love that. I want to wear that. Where can I buy it? So it’s cool. I love how these two platforms work together.

Yeah. So before we get into some of the details about Etsy and some of the strategy, why do you think it’s such a great platform for makers to sell on? I mean, there are other options, not too many online options. Of course, you can sell directly on Facebook. Is eBay still a thing? Like do people… I’m probably dating myself here, but do people still sell on eBay?

Destiny: 12:56
I don’t know. I think so. I never really ventured into the eBay handmade world.

Brittany: 13:02
It’s too scary.

Destiny: 13:03
It’s too scary for me.

Brittany: 13:04
Yeah, yeah. It’s definitely a big beast. But so there are other options. Why do you think Etsy was right for you and your—

Destiny: 13:14
Well, when you’re just starting out, you– You might not have the resources or the money to start up your own brand new website and pay for ads to get people there. You might not have a large following to drive traffic to your website. So Etsy is an online marketplace. Everyone’s already there. They’re shopping. So all you have to do is just open up a shop and list something and then somebody might see it and they might buy it.

It’s really easy to set up, unlike some other websites. It’s really low cost to start. I mean, they do take their fees, but you can publish a listing and it’s 20 cents. And you don’t have to drive your own traffic. You probably should. We can come back to that. But also, shipping is really easy. I really like the convenience of having everything in one place. I just have to click a few buttons and print my shipping labels.

And then, you know, if it’s not a great fit, you can always move to your own e-commerce platform down the line. Once you have like your own following and traffic you can drive.

Brittany: 14:20
Yeah. Sort of have your own brand established. Isn’t a listing good for how many days? Can you remind me?

Destiny: 14:28
Oh gosh.

Brittany: 14:29
Is it like 90 days or 30?

Destiny: 14:30
Yeah. I was three months. It’s probably 90 days.

Brittany: 14:33
Okay. That’s what I was thinking too. So yeah. I mean, when you’re thinking about paying 20 cents for every 90 days. Ideally, you will have made the sale in 90 days, although that wasn’t really the case for myself. But that’s pretty low.

So in addition to that listing fee, do they take a percentage of the sale as well or is it just the listing fee that you’re paying?

Destiny: 14:58
They take a percentage of the sale and then there’s also a transaction fee, something that the—I don’t remember. I’m sorry. I meant to look it up before.

Brittany: 15:07
Oh, that’s okay. I think it’s based on the price of the item, if my memory serves me—

Destiny: 15:12
Well. It just recently went up to 5%, and then I think the transaction fee is 3.5%.

Brittany: 15:22
Okay.

Destiny: 15:22
So a lot of people are a little bit angry about the raise. It went from 3.5% to 5%. But that’s also the first time that it’s gone up in however long Etsy has been around—I know, over a decade.

Brittany: 15:37
Yeah, it’s understandable. I can see it from both sides. I can see where we want to keep as much of our own profits as we can, but at the same time, it does cost Etsy to run and manage that platform. So I get it. It’s unfortunate, but I do understand.

Destiny: 15:55
Yeah.

Brittany: 15:56
So as far as the shipping goes… Do you have– I know one of the pain points I had when my husband and I dabbled in an e-commerce store on my website a couple years ago was estimating the shipping based on where it was going to and the cost of the item.

Do they have that worked out so it’s pretty seamless or do you have to do some research ahead of time to say, okay, if I ship this anywhere within the U.S., it’s going to cost me– I don’t know, $8 or something like that? Has there ever been a situation where you lost money on shipping because maybe it wasn’t calculated correctly?

Destiny: 16:37
No, it’s usually pretty spot on. So I do the calculated shipping. And when you’re first setting up your listings—in the listing, not the description, but underneath that—you’ll add in how much the item weighs and the measurement. So you want to—if you have like a kitchen scale or something that weighs ounces, I guess depending on how big the item is that you’re selling (I usually sell hats)—you’ll want to weigh how many ounces that is and how many ounces it is when it’s packaged.

So I use poly mailers, which are really light. I would say most of my hats are between five and seven ounces. So I usually kind of shoot for the middle, because if somebody orders two or three hats, it’s not going to be 21 ounces. It’s going to be maybe 16 because it’s all in one poly mailer.

That’s where it gets a little bit complicated. If the shipping’s way off, you can always refund someone. But I haven’t really had that experience. I would just shoot to overestimate a little bit. And that’s always worked out really well for me.

Brittany: 17:43
Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. So that’s pretty much everything that happens after you make the sale. Which I would say is probably smooth sailing. Like the hard part is getting people to the listing and actually converting that sale.

So there are so many things that we could talk about. One, the algorithm, because I know Etsy is just like any other social network, like Facebook or Instagram, where you have to do certain things or meet certain criteria to be seen. You were saying SEO comes into play. Yeah. Let’s talk a little bit about that.

Are there any trends that you have seen over the years, whether that be titling or photo quality or anything that you have noticed that, hey, when I do this thing, I tend to get noticed more?

Destiny: 18:34
Yeah, I would say—well, the number one thing everyone says is you need great photos, which I think is true. But for someone to see your photos, they have to be able to find your listing first, right?

So I think Etsy’s SEO is primarily based around these three things that go together: your titles, your description, and your tags. So the title and the beginning of your description and the keywords in your tags—they all need to match as closely as possible to be found in search, like the exact phrases.

First, you’d want to make a list of possible search phrases for your item. Like what would you type in the search bar if you were looking for that item? So say you made a kid’s hat with a flower on it. You wouldn’t just use your title, type “flower hat” in your title and just leave it like that. You have 140 characters that you can use for your titles and you don’t have to use them all, but you probably want to put in as many search phrases as you can that are relevant.

And you don’t want to use single terms like “hat” or “flower.” I would put something like “knit hats for girls,” “girls hat,” “toddler hats for girls,” “hats for babies,” “gifts for kids,” etc.

If you have a hard time coming up with phrases, there’s a website called EtsyRank.com where you can input a keyword and then it’ll generate a bunch of relevant keywords and phrases and tell you like which ones are way too popular, which ones are decently popular—just like what the competitiveness is with the phrases.

Brittany: 20:08
That’s a cool tool.

Destiny: 20:09
Yeah. Or you can also just start typing a keyword in the Etsy search bar and it will give you a dropdown of popular phrases it thinks you’re looking for.

Brittany: 20:33
Okay.

Destiny: 20:33
So you want to use those. So once you have like a list of relevant phrases, you’ll put them in your title. And then, so it doesn’t look like one long run-on sentence—it looks a little spammy, but you know, it works—

Brittany: 20:33
Yeah.

Destiny: 20:33
You can break them up with commas or I use backslashes. So it looks a little more appealing. And then you want to have the most relevant phrases closest to the beginning of your title. So I would probably put “flower hat” at the end, because not a lot of people are going to be searching for “flower hat.” Maybe they are. I don’t know.

And then you’ll copy and paste your title into the very beginning of your description. So again, it doesn’t look really pretty, but the very beginning of your description is the most important. So I usually copy and paste my title and then go down a couple spaces and start the description.

And then you want to use those same phrases in your tags. So you get 13 tags that you add at the bottom of every listing and you want to use them all. And if some of the phrases are too long, like “toddler hats for girls,” you can break that up into two separate tags. Like “toddler hats” would be one and “hats for girls” would be the next one, and so on.

So you just want to make sure your title, your description, and your tags—they all match as closely as possible.

Brittany: 21:40
Okay. So I’m curious about the title. Now, I know you said that you have 140 characters and you want to use as much of that as possible. Do you think that people are more inclined to view an item if the title is shorter?

The reason why I’m asking that—I was listening to a podcast episode this morning and it was about email marketing. And they were suggesting that short titles prompt action more so than something that was long. So they had done some tests where the subject line in an email was really short. It had a higher click-through rate, which I found was really interesting.

So I didn’t know if you had any experience with that or if you had tried. Maybe that was one of the things I was doing wrong because when I was listing articles, some of my items that I had made, I was just taking it pretty literal. I was thinking about what I would search for for that thing. But instead of really using keywords in the title, I was just titling it like whatever it was, like “knit hat for baby girl” or something like that.

So maybe that was where I was going wrong and not making the title a little bit longer and adding more relevant keywords to it.

Destiny: 23:04
Yeah, that could be. I’m not sure when all this went into effect or if it has been from the very beginning, and that’s why my first attempt was so awful.

I mean, as a shopper myself on Etsy, it doesn’t deter me if there’s a long title. You don’t have to use all 140. I doubt that very many of my listings do. Sometimes I just can’t come up with any more phrases.

Brittany: 23:26
Yeah, sometimes it’s a simple thing. But at least—

Destiny: 23:29
Throw like four, three or four phrases in there to help.

Brittany: 23:34
I think that would help. For the description, is that where you list out all of the details, maybe the colors that are available, the sizing and that sort of thing? Or is there a separate place for you to input all of that info?

Destiny: 23:50
Yeah, that’s also in the description. I usually try to have one or two lines describing the product and why you should buy it. And then you also want to put what size is it, the color, any important info, how long it’ll be until you ship it, things like that.

So I usually copy and paste my title and then go down a couple lines and then start my actual description.

Brittany: 24:16
Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, I was curious as to the things that you add there. What about if you’re doing like a custom– If you offer like custom colors, so let’s say you have it available to purchase, like it’s ready to ship in blue, red and yellow, but the person really wants green and you want to offer that as sort of like a custom order. Would you put that in the description there or is there a certain place that you could do that?

Destiny: 24:47
I would. I’d put it in the description. I would say something like custom orders are welcome. If you already offer all these colors—like for me, I offer most of my hats in about 20, 25 colors—so one of the pictures is a color chart of all the colors that you can buy in.

And then Etsy has—they allow you to have two variations. So you can have a dropdown menu of the different colors, but they only give you two variations, which is a little hard to work with sometimes. So you can also just say, “Leave a note here at checkout if you’d like a different color,” something like that.

Brittany: 25:23
I see. Okay. And the last thing I wanted to ask you about in relation to the title, description, and the tags is about the tag part. Now, coming from Instagram, I’m very well aware of the importance of hashtags and being able to find them.

Would you say that this is the same thing for Etsy? Like, those tags are different—how people find you. I mean, that’s really what it is for Instagram. If you post something and you just leave a description, only the people in your feed are going to see that.

Destiny: 26:24
I don’t know if they work like the hashtags do. I haven’t actually tried it myself. It could. I think you can only see—like if you click on someone’s listing, I think you have to be on a web browser and scroll to the bottom to be able to see what hashtags—or sorry, what tags—they use. And then I don’t remember if you can actually click on those or not.

Brittany: 26:49
Yeah, it’d be interesting to experiment with to see if that’s—there’s gotta be a purpose for them. If Etsy is encouraging you to use them, I would be curious to see how that’s being used. I kind of geek out on that sort of stuff.

Destiny: 27:04
Yeah, no, I do too.

Brittany: 27:06
Okay, so we know that the titles, the description, and the tags are really important to get your shop found. Are there any other tricks? Or are those really the three areas that people need to focus their attention on?

Destiny: 27:20
I would focus on that and your photos. Another thing would be to add more listings. So the more listings that you have in your shop, the higher the chance you’ll be seen. I mean, you don’t have to go crazy. I’ve slowly built mine up over the past three years. I have around 100 now, which is kind of a lot to deal with.

Brittany: 27:40
Yeah.

Destiny: 27:40
Don’t feel like you have to shoot for a hundred. But like say if you take a custom order in a different color, I would try and photograph that before sending it out. And then you can just copy one of your other listings, add in the new photos, change up the title and the tag, and then you have another listing ready to go.

So I think the more listings that you have, the easier it is to be found. Also, the more an item is favorited or purchased, the higher Etsy ranks it in search. So you might just have to be a little bit patient or try and get your friends to come like your stuff.

Brittany: 28:15
Yeah. That brings up another really quick question here. I’m sorry I’m going to interrupt you for just a minute.

So for me, when I was listing things, I was really just a hobbyist, really. I was making things and I didn’t know what to do with them. So I’m thinking if you perhaps create the strategy of selling the same thing, then that could potentially help you rank higher rather than if you’re just making one project and say, okay, I’m done with it, I probably won’t make that again.

It sounds like a better strategy is to say, I want to sell this particular hat and I want to make it a regular in my shop. Is that true?

Destiny: 28:56
Yeah. Yeah, that’s true. I didn’t think to mention that. But yeah, so I just relist my listings when they’ve sold. So if one hat sells 20 times, it’s going to rank higher than—like say I list 10 one-of-a-kind hats—they’re not going to rank very high because they’ve never sold and they probably won’t be sold again.

Brittany: 29:18
Okay. So is there a way to relist that same exact post? Or what if you just take the same information and you copy and paste it into a new—Is that the same thing or are you actually just clicking a button that says relist?

Destiny: 29:35
I actually don’t click anything. You can add quantities in your listing. So I have most of my hats set to around five—a quantity of five. I don’t have them in stock. They’re made to order. So if somebody orders one hat, then it drops down to four and it relists automatically.

You can choose to have a manual listing relisting or you can set it to automatically. So that’s what I do for most of mine.

Brittany: 30:03
That makes sense too.

Destiny: 30:06
You can also just copy a listing and make like a duplicate too.

Brittany: 30:10
Okay. And you’ll still get that same good—we’ll say—sale karma out of that.

Destiny: 30:16
I’m not sure. I think it might be considered a new listing when you do that.

Brittany: 30:21
Okay. Well, I think that’s something that somebody could try right away. If perhaps they have been just creating new listings every time something’s sold and they’re not seeing any traction, if maybe they set their listing to renew automatically—if it’s something, like you said, where they’re going to always offer that product—then it sounds like that could potentially help the shop and Etsy because Etsy’s keeping track of that one product through that one listing, it sounds like.

Destiny: 30:53
Right. Yeah. I think that’d be a great idea.

Brittany: 30:56
Okay, cool. So that gives people a lot to think about. Think about your title, your description, your tags, having a decent amount of listings in your shop.

And I would say for that, what do you say like a realistic goal is to set for somebody who’s maybe just starting out or has a newer shop? Do you think like 20 is attainable or is that still kind of a lot to handle?

Destiny: 31:22
I think that would be a good amount. Or if it’s too much, maybe 10 or 15. Just something to make your shop look a little full. Because if somebody goes to your shop and they see two or three things, they’re going to be like, oh, there’s not much to choose from here. They might move on.

Brittany: 31:37
They probably wouldn’t take you as seriously too. Think about if you were to go into a physical store and you walked in and they only had three or four things, and you would do the same thing. Oh, okay. Well, there’s not really much here. I’m just going to go—I’m going to go somewhere else.

Destiny: 31:53
Yeah.

Brittany: 31:54
Okay. So we’ll focus on listings and relisting and likes and that sort of thing. That’s a lot of really good tips for being noticed in Etsy.

Now, what I would say kind of goes hand in hand with that is: What makes a shop that people want to buy from? Do you have any insight on that? Why do you think your customers buy from you instead of the 50 other people who are selling knit hats at the same time?

Destiny: 32:23
Well, I don’t want to say I have great photos because I cringe at some of my photos. It’s hard to get around to updating them all when you have so many listings. But when I’m shopping on Etsy, I love to see a shop that—they have like a really consistent looking shop, like really nice photos, clear idea of what they’re selling and their brand.

I kind of like it when photos are styled the same way. Like if you’re standing against the white background, maybe have all of your photos like that. Or if you’re out in nature, have all of your photos out in nature.

That being said, I don’t take my own advice. Mine are a little bit of both. And I like to see everything that’s like in the same category, like hats and mittens—not hats, mittens, and jewelry or something like that. Not that that shop wouldn’t do well, but I like shops that are just kind of one—they specialize in one thing. And maybe something that shows their personality and sets them apart a little bit.

Brittany: 33:26
Yeah. It sounds like—I mean, you’re describing branding like to a T.

Destiny: 33:31
Yeah. I don’t really—I still kind of waffle on what my branding is. I’m still working on that. But I love seeing other shops that really have it together.

Brittany: 33:44
That’s such an interesting topic too, because I feel like that is one of the things that so many people struggle to just make a decision on.

There are so—I don’t know if it’s like, there are so many different options that people are just sort of paralyzed by the different options, you know, like analysis paralysis. Or if it’s hard to just settle on something that’s so niched down that people probably feel like they’re missing out on certain things.

From the person who’s selling, maybe they’re just sort of afraid to miss out on a sale. And I think sometimes that fear could really be hurting you more than helping you.

Destiny: 34:45
Yeah. Yeah, I can totally understand that. I’m very indecisive myself.

Brittany: 34:49
Me too.

Destiny: 34:50
It’s all a struggle.

Brittany: 34:51
It is. It is. I mean, you can relate a lot of this to websites too—like having a blog or a content management site, something like I run, where I’ve got lots of information. You do think about these things. SEO—that’s a struggle. Having cohesive branding across everything, especially a blog that’s been running for so many years. If you go back into the archives, the photography style might be completely different.

And I know it is for me, so I’m not pretending to be perfect here. I still go back to some of those old posts and I cringe, and I say, oh, I’ve got to update this photo. It does not jive with the rest of the website. So yeah, it sounds like if somebody is using a website or they have a blog, they can already take a lot of what they’ve learned from that and apply it to Etsy.

Destiny: 35:43
Yeah. Yeah, I think so.

Brittany: 35:45
Okay, so let’s talk a little bit about traffic—getting traffic back to your shop or back to your listing. Now, you mentioned at the beginning that Etsy, it’s sort of a search engine on its own. People go there specifically to buy things and they’re typing things into search. And your hope is that they’ll land on your listing. But the reality is they probably won’t.

So in order to make sure you’re as successful as possible, what are some of the strategies you use to get people to those listings when you’re not relying on Etsy to do that for you?

Destiny: 36:25
So I use social media primarily, mostly on Instagram and Facebook. And so if I have something new coming out, I try to promote it on there and promote it in my stories and try to get some traffic.

But Pinterest by far is my biggest source of traffic—both to my blog and my Etsy shop. And I only joined this year. Like, some of my items in my shop have been pinned by other people over the last couple of years while I wasn’t even trying on Pinterest. Like, I had no idea how to do Pinterest.

So I would open a Pinterest account and start making specific pins—images just for Pinterest that direct to your listings. So if you’re selling a hat and mittens, maybe make a little collage picture with the hat and the mittens. I use Canva for my Pinterest images, and they have a Pinterest template that is a little bit longer than it is wide because supposedly those do better on Pinterest.

So I would just make a collage with those two images and some text and then post it to Pinterest and link to your item, your listing.

Brittany: 37:38
Okay. Okay. Do you find that your social pages have a better return than—like a conversion, we’ll say—does it have a better conversion rate than maybe somebody who found your listing through Etsy specifically?

Destiny: 37:53
Yeah, I think so. Especially if I have a swipe-up link in my Instagram, I will get a lot more sales than if that same amount of people came just randomly to my Etsy.

Brittany: 38:07
Totally makes sense. Now, do you have a strategy for how you sell on those social platforms? Because, I mean, let’s be honest—a lot of people, they just don’t want to be sold to.

And the last thing they want to see in their feed when they’re just hanging out on their own time—they’ve got things that they love in their feed—and then they’ve got like a sales pitch there. That can feel a little intrusive.

Do you have a strategy to just make your products known and show how they can be a value to somebody, rather than just saying, “Hey, look at what I’ve made, you should go buy it”? I know you don’t do that, but I’m curious to hear what your strategy is.

Destiny: 38:44
I wish I was organized enough to have a strategy. I don’t. I just try to mix it up. I try to also add swipe-up links for tutorials and free patterns and mix it up a little bit.

I usually only post like a new style or a new pattern—a paid pattern—I usually only post a link for that once it comes out, and sometimes maybe a reminder. But I don’t really have an organized strategy. I should.

Brittany: 39:14
Well, you know, I mean, if that works for you, then that’s what you should do. It’s probably what your audience is primed to be familiar with.

I think how you set the stage in those early days when you start those accounts and you build that audience is—it’s really hard to change those expectations after you have done things a certain way for so long. And then all of a sudden you do something different. They’re like, “Wait, whoa, what’s going on? You’ve never been sales-pitchy before, but now all of a sudden you’re trying to get me to buy.”

Destiny: 39:44
I think I try not to come off too sales-pitchy.

Brittany: 39:47
Yeah. Yeah. I think with knitwear and crochet items—they sell themselves. Really. Somebody’s looking for a special gift for somebody or a special gift for themselves. There’s really not much actual hard selling that you have to do. Somebody either wants it or they don’t.

Destiny: 40:06
Right.

Brittany: 40:08
Yeah, that’s true. Okay. So now I’m curious what you would have done differently, perhaps. If you knew then what you know now, would you have done anything different with your shop in terms of building that up?

Destiny: 40:24
I definitely would have, yeah. Like the first time—maybe when I opened my Etsy shop—my pictures were pretty bad. They were really dark and out of focus and from really weird angles. I don’t know what I was thinking.

So I found it’s best to just keep it simple and use a plain background in natural daylight and try to show the whole item—not zoomed out too far, but not zoomed in. And I wish I had known about Etsy’s SEO, how that all works.

Brittany: 40:54
And that handbook you mentioned—I will link to that in the show notes for sure. Sounds like a good—

Destiny: 40:59
—resource. Super helpful. I don’t know if they had it back then or if I just wasn’t looking, but yeah, the Etsy Seller Handbook is super helpful. So is Etsy forums. You can really search for any kind of topic on there and it’s most likely been discussed and you can kind of read through.

Brittany: 41:16
Oh, awesome. So those are good tips for people to take. Now we’ve gone through pretty much the whole thing. We’ve gone through everything that somebody needs to know about having a shop.

Let’s say there’s somebody listening right now who doesn’t have a shop, but they’ve been thinking about opening one. And they’ve listened to our talk today and they’re convinced. They’re like, “Okay, I’m ready to start a shop.” Can you walk them through just how simple the process is? Like what’s the first thing they need to do?

Destiny: 41:46
Yeah. So I haven’t opened one in nine years, so I don’t know if things have changed too much.

Brittany: 41:52
Me neither.

Destiny: 41:52
Yeah. I know you can just go to Etsy.com and then at the top of the page, you can click “Sell on Etsy.” And then it basically walks you through all the steps.

You’d have to create an account if you don’t already have one, choose a shop name—which is probably the hardest part—and then fill in all the information. I’m sure it’ll prompt you for what all information that it needs.

And fill in the About section and your policies and what you sell and what materials you’ll use and your shipping terms and your refund policy.

I think it’s a good idea to have a logo ready to go by the time that you open your shop. So like a logo and a banner photo and a profile photo. Yeah, and you’ll need your bank account info so they can pay you.

Brittany: 42:37
Right, right. That’s the important part.

Destiny: 42:39
Yeah, then you can just start adding your listings.

Brittany: 42:42
Yeah, so it really is simple, but it’s probably not a quick process. I’m thinking you do have to list out your policies and your guidelines, your shipping—that’s probably going to take longer than anything else, just figuring out what those are.

Do you think that somebody needs to have all of that perfect before they can open the shop? Or is that something that can change and evolve over time?

Destiny: 43:10
Mine has definitely evolved over time. I don’t think I had half of that filled out when I first opened. But it would be a good idea to have all your ducks in a row before you start, if you can, if you have the time.

I do know that Etsy does rank you a little bit higher if your About section and your policies are filled out. And also if you use their shop policy template, they give you a little—a tiny—boost in search.

Brittany: 43:34
Okay. That was going to be my next thought there—if you have no idea what needs to go in the policy section, is there any sort of guideline? So they give you a template then?

Destiny: 43:46
Yeah. Yeah, they do.

Brittany: 43:48
Okay. Well, that’s super helpful. And you mentioned having a logo and a profile picture. I know it has like a banner up at the top of the shop too. I think those are great things to have right out of the gate, like you said.

Yeah. But I would still argue that it could probably change and evolve over time. Would you agree? Or is that sort of like—you kind of need to be cohesive with that? It all needs to be branded and matched and it has to stay the same?

Destiny: 44:18
I mean, in an ideal world, you would know what you want everything to look like right off the bat. And I’ve changed my logo probably four times now. I think I’m pretty solid on mine now, but yeah, it’s okay if you change it.

Brittany: 44:34
Yeah, I think so too. For me, I am sort of like a graphic design geek too. That’s one of my hobbies. So I’m able to make and create all of my own stuff—my own animations, my own video editing, my own logo—because I have the programs and I know how to use them. But that’s not the case for the majority of people. Do you have a suggestion of where somebody can go to have a logo made for them?

Destiny: 45:02
Yeah, I am actually pretty horrible with that stuff. So the past two logos I’ve had, I’ve actually purchased on Etsy. You can just search shops. Sometimes they’ll have like a whole shop set that you can buy or you can just look for a logo—something that’ll fit in the square that Etsy has. Maybe that’s where your profile picture goes. I can’t remember.

Brittany: 45:25
That’s so cool. I didn’t know that that was a thing. That’s really convenient.

Destiny: 45:29
Yeah. You can find some pretty affordable ones on there.

Brittany: 45:32
I was curious about that too—if it’s something that’s, like, are we talking hundreds of dollars? Oh, no. Okay.

Destiny: 45:40
I think I splurged on my last one, and it was about $40. My first one was probably $10-ish. So just kind of whatever you’re looking for. If you want something that no one else will have, you’ll probably have to pay a little bit more.

Brittany: 45:54
Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Okay. Well, totally doable. That’s completely affordable. So you may have to pay, we’ll say, up to $40 or so for opening the shop. But I would say if you’re doing everything correctly, then you could probably make that up in just a couple of weeks.

Destiny: 46:15
Hopefully. Sometimes it takes a little while to get that first sale. Yeah. But some people do really well right off the bat.

Brittany: 46:23
Yeah.

Destiny: 46:23
Yeah.

Brittany: 46:24
I think if listeners take action on some of the things that you’ve described so far—just, I mean, to review a little bit—paying close attention to the branding and your purpose, like what it is that you want to offer, find something that’s different and unique. And it’s okay if you’re only doing one little thing.

Destiny: 47:27
Right. Right.

Brittany: 47:27
Yeah. I think you’ve given us a lot of tips for success here. So thank you so much. It’s been such a pleasure. And I know this is going to help so many people in the community.

Destiny: 47:27
You’re welcome. Thank you so much for having me.

Brittany: 47:29
Absolutely. Well, before we go, I want to give people a chance to connect with you online. So where’s the best place for somebody to go to maybe just have a look at your shop to see what you have going on and to follow you on social?

Destiny: 47:44
You can find all my links at niftyknittings.com. My exact Etsy address is niftyknittings.etsy.com. And then you can find all my social channels on there. I’m mostly on Instagram.

Brittany: 47:59
Gotcha.

Destiny: 48:00
And the “nifty” has a K in the front of—

Brittany: 48:02
Yes.

Destiny: 48:03
K-N-I-F-T-Y.

Brittany: 48:05
Awesome. So I will link to that in the show notes page as well. And Destiny, thank you again so much. It’s been so much fun.

Destiny: 48:11
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Brittany: 48:13
All right, now, while that’s all fresh in your mind, I encourage you to take some notes. Jot down a few things that you took away from this episode to help you either start your shop or grow your shop.

Now, don’t forget to check out the show notes page at bhookedcrochet.com/session082. I will have a link to everything Destiny and I talked about so you can bookmark those and save them for later as you’re working your strategy for your Etsy shop.

Now, as we wrap up things here today, I want to take a quick moment to thank my sponsor, Red Heart, for allowing me to bring you today’s episode. It was a great one, right? I loved it. I learned a lot from Destiny as well.

So Red Heart, as you know, has that Loop-It yarn that I’m really excited about right now because it’s something new and fun and very innovative, right? We don’t need hooks or needles to use this yarn. I find that really, really interesting.

Well, I also enjoy being on their email newsletter, and I would encourage you to sign up for this as well. Of course, it’s a big thank you because they are a sponsor of the show, but their newsletter really does offer a lot of value to you.

It’s not unheard of for you to receive coupons through that email newsletter, information about brand-new patterns—free patterns, by the way—lots of inspiration, ways to save money, and information on new yarns. If you’re a Red Heart fanatic like I am, you can get all of that on their newsletter.

So head over to redheart.com to sign up for their email newsletter today.

Now, if you could do one little favor for me today—if you’ve been listening to the show for any amount of time and you’ve found some value in it—I have one little request. I would ask that you share the show with one of your friends. If you think that that friend will also enjoy the show, just maybe give a little recommendation. I would appreciate that so much, and I would be very grateful.

That’ll do it for today, guys. Thank you so much. It’s been a real pleasure this week. I will see you in next week’s episode of the podcast. We’ll continue our theme with fall making, and I’ll see you there. Bye-bye.