Gift biz unwrapped episode 278.
The key thing is to build a memorable shop,
to make sure that you're building your brand.
As you're building your store attention,
gifters bakers,
crafters, and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.
Whether you have an established business or looking to start one.
Now you are in the right place.
This is gift to biz unwrapped,
helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.
Join us for an episode,
packed full of invaluable guidance,
resources, and the support you need to grow.
Your gift biz.
Here is your host gift biz gal Sue moon Heights.
Hi there.
It's Sue and it makes me so happy to have you
here today.
If this is your first time listening to the show,
you've picked a great episode to begin with.
We're covering the platform that started it all.
We're handmade.
E-commerce is concerned Etsy,
but before we get to that,
I want to make sure that you're aware of the Q
and a sessions I have going on over in my Facebook
group, gift biz breeze every Tuesday and Thursday at 1130 central.
So that's 1230 Eastern,
nine 30 Pacific.
I'm answering your questions on starting and growing your business around
your handmade products.
There are three ways to submit a question you can ask
live. If you're able to come on the show,
right when it's Erin,
you can put it in the comment section under my pinned
post over in the group or through this super fun audio
link. You'll find@giftbizunwrapped.com
forward slash ask.
So what you do there is you can record your message
on the fly,
no sending an email or even needing to show up,
live for the show.
Just let me know where you're stuck and let's get you
moving forward.
That recording link again is gift biz,
unwrapped.com forward slash ask.
And now the star of the day at sea,
you are going to hear how to get started.
Some of the common mistakes to avoid intricacies of Etsy that
you need to know about that will lead to more sales
and resources galore.
This conversation is jam packed with valuable information.
I'll have all the links mentioned over in the show notes
page. So don't worry about capturing them while you're listening.
What I want most is for you to consume the strategy
and the overall system,
the tools and the tech can come later.
Are you ready?
Let's dive into all things Etsy today.
I am so excited to introduce you to Nancy by DDO.
Nancy works with Etsy sellers who want to build a thriving
Etsy business and embrace the and venture.
She also helps current Etsy sellers scale their business by leveraging
the power of branding and social media.
Do you currently struggle with sales or have a hard time
finding your target audience or you're passionate about your handmade products,
but don't have a growth strategy in place for Etsy,
or maybe you're right at the beginning,
trying to decide if at T is right for you at
all. We'll be diving into all of this today on the
show. Nancy,
welcome to the gift biz on wrapped podcast.
Hi, I'm so excited to be here.
Thank you for having me Sue.
I really appreciate it.
Okay. Thank you.
And I've been,
so looking forward to this conversation all about Etsy,
but I'm delaying all of us just a little bit longer,
cause I want you to share,
what's become a tradition on the show.
Here is a way of us knowing a little bit more
about you by way of your description of a motivational candle.
That's totally you.
So if you were to say color and maybe a sane
or some type of a quote or a mantra,
what would your candle look like?
So my candle will be white and the name of the
candle will be kindness.
And my mantra,
or like the quote that I will pick is from Jim
Carey. The effect you have another's is the most valuable currency
there is.
And that's like my favorite quote on how you treat others
Is the most valuable currency.
I totally agree with you.
Well, I already loved the vibe and that's what we're going
to do here.
Right? We're going to treat others really well because we're going
to share with them everything about Etsy.
How about that?
I love that.
Yes, But in time and give us a little bit of
your history that led into Etsy.
Oh, of course.
So I've been in the digital space now for 11 years.
And when I first started around 2009,
when the recession hit and I lost my home,
I was really young.
I was like 23 years old.
I lost my home and my job,
they went on bankruptcy.
So at that moment I have heard of people making money
online. But back then the weren't the resources like we have
now in days.
So I really didn't know too many people in line.
It wasn't like my field.
So I started learning about how to make money online and
I don't have the success story like everyone else does.
Like some people do after one year,
they started making a lot of money online.
For me,
it took years to make money online.
But what I did was I did my regular job nine
to five,
and then I did my side hustle for 11 years basically.
And I started learning about blogging.
I started learning about creating a blog,
flipping it and selling it.
I started doing affiliate marketing.
I went to a lot of different conferences on blogging,
affiliate, marketing,
social media,
et cetera.
And I almost self taught myself how to do all of
these things online.
And I had to pretty much start from scratch and teach
myself in the beginning.
Everything I knew,
I failed a lot to be quite honest.
I feel more than more than success in my life.
In 2015,
I got married to my husband.
The year before that I got engaged and someone mentioned,
you know,
you should buy stuff on XC.
They have handmade products for your wedding.
And before that,
I don't recall ever hearing about exi,
always the blogging for the market and other stuff,
but e-commerce was something that I never thought I could do
because I wasn't crafty and I didn't know how to make
stuff. So I never thought about that field.
And because I was already in the digital space,
like I said earlier,
I was a digital marketer and I already knew about products
and services.
I started noticing when I went shopping in there for my
own wedding,
all these stores were making a killing on digital products and
digital product.
For those that are listening is basically something you buy,
you download and the person doesn't send you anything physically.
So I went and bought like a wedding sign and a
couple other things for my wedding.
And I remember paying $65.
I got all these beautiful items and I'm the one that's
gonna edit the file.
I'm the one that's going to go ahead and take it
to Kinko's to get printed.
And my light bulb went up and I was like,
huh, I had an aha moment.
And I was like,
I wonder if I could start an Etsy store.
And because I wasn't experienced,
like I said,
with anything e-commerce or digital products or crafty,
I actually started selling quotes with word.
So I would type in a quote using word document.
I would save it as a JPEG.
I built my first store.
I did it as a case study for my blog on
how to make money on ECC.
And luckily the first year without experience and with tons of
mistakes, I made a little bit over 21,000
on Axiom.
That's kind of how it started with XD and me.
I really liked that you shared your story because I think
your story is more similar to how lots of people start
out. You know?
I mean,
let's face it.
There are those stories where someone goes on and makes a
killing right away.
But there are more people like you and I who try
something, you kind of stumble into things.
Exactly. That's how I feel.
Yeah. Like if first off,
if the recession would have never happened,
you might've been on a totally different course.
You have to follow your path.
And honestly,
I mean,
people who have listened to me for awhile,
no, this is how I feel.
But so Nancy,
this is kind of with you and me just talking is
I'm not a proponent of people just quitting everything they're doing
and going all in with all the stress and the financial
risks. I like what you did,
where you were building it up on the side.
And even though it took longer,
it had to be so much calmer a progression.
Exactly. I always talk about that as well.
Exactly. I agree with you Again,
I'm going to say,
and this is more for people who haven't been hanging out
here for a while is if you do have a nine
to five right now,
that doesn't mean you can't start working on your business now
and you also don't have to feel bad that you're doing
both like that side hustle,
in my opinion is a much easier way to get started
because you don't have all the stress of having to make
all this money right away.
Exactly. I totally agree.
So I totally get the progression.
So you were blogging and then you were getting married.
You went over to Etsy.
Oh, I also really like how you were testing everything out
and then documenting over on your blog.
Yes. I would do a lot of different posts on how
to make money online.
So that's what at the moment was what was driving more
traffic to my site because there are other people like myself
trying to make money online.
So I would try different things and I would just share
my experiences.
Okay. And are,
do you have a presence on Etsy right now?
Yes, I do.
Okay. And where's your store?
The main store that I use now is called Nancy marketing
tools. Okay.
And what would we see if we went there?
One is more meant for ECC sellers and business resources and
I'm in the stages of rebranding it again.
But that is more for just anyone out there that has
a small business or you're an ECC seller.
You'll find resources for your business.
Got it.
Okay. So now let's talk at T specifically,
there are so many platforms now out there at T used
to be the only one,
like if you were looking for handmade,
pretty much everybody knew to go to it.
Yes, exactly.
There a trend starters.
Yeah. They started everything.
Where is it today?
What would you say in terms of the positioning of everyone
that's out there?
Where does that see fall today?
I mean,
they're doing pretty good.
Their stocks are really high right now.
This is the highest I've ever been there.
Like a bottle,
$106 per stock.
I own a couple of stocks.
So I keep track on that.
I kind of figured as much.
No, they're doing pretty good ECC.
It's a great marketplace for anyone wanting to start a business.
Doesn't cost a lot to start your very own business on
Etsy. And it's a great marketplace for anyone out there that
is very crafty and know how to create things that are
handmade. You can also sell vintage and supplies,
but it is a great platform for just about any niche,
especially if you have something very unique to sell as well.
Okay. Why should somebody choose?
Let's say Etsy over Amazon handmade or some other platform online.
What does that ti have?
That's different.
I think what ECC is,
when you shop on Amazon,
you never say I got this from the store called Nancy
marketing tools,
right? You say Amazon,
somebody asks you,
what did you get that you normally would say,
Amazon, when you buy an XC,
it's a little bit different because the experience is who you
bought it from.
And then people will say,
okay, I got it from this seller.
Her store name is,
this is her store name.
Make sure that you visit her.
It's more the way that they have,
you have a store,
you could share your personal story.
You could have a voice,
the tools and resources that they give you so you could
grow your business.
They are amazing.
So it's more of a platform where you are a unique
feller versus Amazon.
I feel is more like you are behind Amazon.
So I think if you go To Amazon and I'm keep
telling everybody,
you know,
I'm doing this series of multiple platforms here and I'm keep
telling everybody,
I want you to hear all about all the platforms.
And then you decide which one or more are right for
you, right?
Because all the platforms have pros and cons.
I feel,
I do agree with you.
And I think that one thing I always try to teach
everyone is okay.
XC is really great for branding yourself as a business owner,
but don't stop there,
especially with what I sell.
I sell digital products.
So digital products,
once you make them one time,
you just open loading and keep selling them and selling them,
you don't have to keep redoing the work.
So the Gordon thing about digital products is you.
If you really want it to have multiple incomes of streams,
well, you could essentially do to be quite honest,
is maybe built your brand on XC,
but still have an Amazon handmade.
They'll go to Shopify and have your website there and kinda
like venture out in different platforms because you're selling a digital
product. Once you create it,
you did all the work already.
Okay? So on Etsy,
digital products are still considered handmade products.
It's not just for physical handmade.
Exactly. It's also for digital handmade.
So this is a really important point.
I think you guys is,
as you look at multiple streams of income,
regardless of what you make,
okay, is there a way that you could add a digital
element to it as well?
Maybe you make beaded jewelry and you could put a tutorial
together to show someone how to do one of the very
simple designs of beaded jewelry,
for example.
And you could sell that online and just like Nancy saying,
you make it wine to build it.
Once it's now a product.
And guess what different than your jewelry that you make,
you don't have to have supplies.
There's no production cost it's already done.
This is something to think about as you're strategically considering how
you're growing your business.
Exactly. And you could do it with so many different types
of niches.
Like you said,
jewelry, if you do knitting,
you could do a medium pattern of what you knit it.
Right? And you could sell that as a download,
like a PDF,
showing somebody how to make a hat,
something that's simple,
and you can sell them like for $5 and create a
digital product out of it is really,
really cool.
So I'm feeling like getting back to this idea of Amazon
handmade versus Etsy.
When somebody goes to Amazon,
they're specifically looking for a certain type of product for the
most part.
So maybe they're looking for pink baby blankets,
right? Yes.
And probably not looking as much for the store,
but when they go to Etsy,
I think they probably look product specific,
but once they link into the store or they saw you
on Facebook and they know about your Etsy store or your
Instagram link is heading people to the Etsy store,
which I see a lot,
then they know you by store name.
So they also look for your shop specifically.
Yes, exactly.
And another thing you said is the whole personalization.
That's another big key factor that I didn't mention is that
with ECC,
you could pretty much get anything customized.
And that's why it's great for people that are getting married
or for baby showers for things like that.
Because you could literally just send someone a picture and say,
Hey, you know,
I'm thinking of something like this,
or you could go to a store and 90% of their
products you could personalize.
And that's the great thing about buying on Etsy as well.
You get something very unique and different.
And again,
I think with a lot of these platforms,
particularly at sea,
if people don't know you from the beginning,
it's a great way for people just to learn and find
out about you as a maker in total.
Because a lot of people just,
aren't going to know you're there.
When you're at craft shows,
you're only limited to someone who walks the show.
When you're on Facebook,
you're limited to the people who are liking your page or
part of your group.
If they even see your posts,
because we know all the issues with social media,
right? But this is just another channel where you can become
discovered with your product because your products would show up.
And the platform is so big on Etsy.
And I think the last statistics I saw was that both
buyers and sellers were continually growing.
Yes, they are.
This has grown so much.
I mean,
one of the key things now is that a lot of
people worry about,
well, how am I going to stand out in a saturated
market when there's so many stores selling similar products?
And the key thing is to build a memorable shop,
to make sure that you're building your brand as you're building
your store,
because it's growing so much that in 2016,
you could upload something.
And most likely within a month after uploading a couple of
listings, you'll start getting some traction.
It is getting a little bit harder because there's so many
people joining the platform.
Okay. I'm glad you addressed that because I have had a
lot of people say to me that they're not getting the
results from Etsy,
that they did five years ago,
for example.
Well, perhaps they're not because they're still doing the same thing
that they did five years ago.
Yeah. And that's what Forms change over time.
So when you talk about a memorable shop,
can you go deeper with that?
Oh, what types of things would people do to make their
shop memorable?
Of course,
the first thing is the branding is really important.
Making sure that you have a brand,
like when people look at your different listings,
if they were to see them separately in the search feed,
would they recognize that this is from that one store,
Nancy marketing tools?
Would they recognize you as a brand?
Because once you get recognized as a brand and people start
noticing who you are,
then you could charge even premium prices and even raise your
prices up as well.
So that's one key element.
The second key element is,
especially when you're first starting out is to micromanage down.
A lot of people feel like if they micro niche,
that they're not going to get sales,
that they need to sell a whole bunch of different things.
They feel like they need to sell mugs and tots and
principals and keychains and a whole bunch of different varieties.
But when you do that,
you actually confuse yourself as well as your target audience.
Like you don't really know who is your target audience,
because you got like 10 different people that you're trying to
sell to.
So when you try to sell to everyone,
you sell to no one,
you have to make sure that you niche down and stick
with that for a little bit,
to see if you start getting some traction and your audience
eventually will tell you the things that they want from you.
And once you start branding initial down,
people will start telling you,
Hey, you should have this on your store,
or this will be cool if you have this.
And then you create a robust line around those products.
And then once you have a brand,
then you can start adding different elements of different things,
as long as it's related to your niche.
But that's the best way to kind of start a brand
and grow.
And the third thing is don't rely on XC alone.
Don't rely on the traffic of ECC because keep in mind
that 2016 and 2020 is four years different.
Imagine all the stores and all the people that are adding
new stores every single day.
So organically,
you might not get found because there's so many people you're
competing with.
So the only way to stand out on monster your competitors
and get that consistent traffic all the time is by leveraging
branding and leveraging social media and email marketing,
which is a big thing that many people don't do on
ECC. As one of the one thing that I do frequently
on my YouTube channel.
And that's the number one thing I noticed,
no one is collecting emails.
They're not practicing email marketing,
which is really important for you to get that repeated customer,
to build your brand and most more,
right? Like targeting on Facebook and doing other things with that.
But you have to think outside of ECC,
you can't just create a store overload,
a couple listings and just wait for the traffic and the
money to come in.
And it doesn't work that way.
You have to drive your own traffic back to your store,
whatever you get from ECC,
from the building traffic that they provide you.
That's great,
but that should be extra.
You should be driving your own traffic using other sources.
Absolutely. I mean,
it's kind of similar to,
if you build a website,
of course,
people think that,
Oh, well,
if I build a website and then they sit and they
wait for the sales to come in,
well, that doesn't happen because nobody knows the website even exists
or Kirkland.
So I think with Etsy,
there's a little bit more advantage because you might be found
in search.
We have that built in audience already.
Yeah, it's possible.
And that's also why it was working so much better earlier
because not so many people were on the platform yet.
Just like I was saying a little bit ago,
like the link in your Instagram bio,
if you're doing a Facebook live about a certain product,
then you say,
go visit my Etsy shop.
If you don't have a website yet.
So absolutely.
And talking it up everywhere.
I totally agree with you with that.
What mistakes do you see people doing on Etsy?
We'll get into these mistakes right after a quick break.
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You know,
I think because it's social easy platform to sign up,
you don't have to pay thousands of dollars to start a
business on vaccine.
People treat it like a hobby and not like a real
business. They upload once in a while,
they don't have their rules.
They don't have their about me.
Story filled out.
They don't even have a logo.
They're not constantly fixing their store.
I'm constantly changing it.
Trying to think of,
okay, I did this six months from now and look at
it. I'm like,
ah, I could make it look better.
Right? So I'm constantly trying to fix it.
That's what I said in the beginning.
I'm rebranding my whole store right now to make it look
better. And I'm removing stuff.
It's a constant work.
It's not just creating the store and just sitting there and
be like,
okay, I guess I'll just wait for the money to come
in. But they treat it as a hobby.
They don't treat it as a real business.
And then I have people they'll tell me,
Hey, I'm not getting any sales.
I'll go do an audit of their store.
They don't have SEO done.
They have one image instead of using all 10 images to
showcase your product,
they have no bio.
They have no pictures like blank.
It looks like an incomplete store when you're shopping as a
buyer. And you're going to a store that doesn't have a
logo. You go to the listing description to read why you're
getting it.
Doesn't have anything in there.
You're like,
um, okay,
I'm going to go to the next door.
You lose people.
You're not engaging those people.
Or I always tell people your photo is what grabs the
person's attention,
right? It was makes them want to click it,
compels them to learn more about who you are as a
brand. Your listing description is what gives them the feeling of,
Oh, okay.
This is all I need to know about whatever they're buying.
I feel comfortable and helps them make an informed decision of
whether they want to proceed with the order.
And the SCO is how they found during the first place.
All of them combined together help you,
not just doing SEO and having bad photos,
not crafting a great listing description,
but you didn't optimize it for SEO.
Or maybe you have great photos,
but you didn't do the other two things.
Everything collectively works together to help you reach more people and
hopefully get more sales,
which is the ultimate goal.
Yeah. Yeah.
And I think that is one challenge on the platform overall,
not just unique to Etsy,
but potentially other places as well is that you are going
to have some hobbyists there just because that's,
he is known for handmade.
So you might have some teenagers who are throwing some product
up on Etsy.
It's kind of a business,
not really that kind of thing.
But if you're really there with serious business intent,
this can't be a Friday afternoon project.
You throw up some information,
hope for some sales,
see if it works and then either say yes or no,
or kind of forget about it,
right. If you're really serious,
you've got to do everything.
Like you just mentioned,
Nancy, filling it all out,
getting educated on the platform,
making sure that,
so when people come,
they really understand that it is a serious business.
Exactly. And treat it like a real business.
Like even if you didn't spend a lot of money to
start it up,
it just treated it like a real business when you do.
But like you said,
you will learn a lot.
You will grow in the platform.
It will teach you a lot of valuable lessons and you're
going to make mistakes.
We all make mistakes.
Especially in the beginning,
the key is pushing through them and keep learning and growing
You. And I talked,
I don't know if it was by comment already while we
were recording or when we were pre chatting.
But we did talk a little bit about the fact that
you also still,
at some point,
want your own website that you own so they can work
in tandem with each other.
How does that work?
So let's say someone starts and I think a lot of
people like it's the easier option because the platform is so
well built out already shopping carts,
integrated like all of that.
So most people would probably start with some type of an
e-commerce spot on Etsy,
right? Yeah.
I would recommend to start with ECC first.
So you could kind of like get started,
like you said,
it's a lot easier and people do tend to get overwhelmed.
Having just even thinking about having a blog because they don't
know really where to start.
However, the great thing about now in days is that there's
so many great resources that you could find to learn how
to build a site,
or you go hire someone if you have the budget,
obviously. But the first thing I would say is start with
your ECC store.
And once you have built it up that you have a
lot of listings,
you completed everything.
I do think that it's very necessary to have a blog
or website.
Let's call it a website,
a website.
I always recommend WordPress.
I feel like you could start with like Wix or one
of these platforms are very easy to start with over time.
You'll I'll grow that platform.
And I personally like WordPress,
because you could do so much,
it's an open platform.
You can pretty much customize it anywhere you want in the
beginning. Yes.
It will be a learning curve,
but in the long run,
you'll be so thankful that you're with them.
But whatever platform you choose,
just have a website outside of ECC.
Absolutely. For numerous reasons.
Exit could unfortunately suspend your account.
I mean,
there's countless people that I have a video on YouTube about
your account being suspended.
I guess so many people that tell me,
Nancy, you mentioned in the video,
ECC only suspense accounts based on one,
two, three.
I didn't do any of those things in my account got
suspended and it's been happening a lot lately.
I've no idea why majority of these people follow me.
They're great people.
I know their products.
So it is a little nerve wracking to know that it
could happen to anyone,
including myself,
that they could say,
okay, the store broke some type of policy.
Maybe you use one word that's trademark or something.
Not sure,
but they have been getting stores shut down.
For some reason it happens,
I guess.
But if you have your own website,
you don't lose everything.
That's one main reason that many people start a website on
the side,
you shouldn't start it because of the premises of my storm.
I get suspended.
You should start it because of the premises that you're trying
to build a real business,
you're trying to grow.
And with a website,
you could sell your product there.
You could grow your email list a lot easier than ECC
because we XC.
One of the cons is that when you're collecting emails,
you're allowed to do so,
but you have to put a link where people have to
copy that link,
put it in the browser,
head over to your email.
Sign up is not a clickable link because it's outside of
ECC. So therefore a lot of people are not going to
like copy and paste.
Unfortunately, unless they really wanted this con or whatever you're offering
for free.
They make it a lot harder on the website.
You could have little popups,
you could track people.
You could collect that email and tell Facebook,
Hey, I want to show I'm running a sales on my
Ziad. I want you to show my products to these people
that already engage with my brand,
that I know the likelihood of them buying is a lot
higher. So there's so many things you could do with a
blog. In addition to that,
having a website,
you will have a section for blogging because now you can
reach more people by providing value.
If you provide valuable content around what you fell,
that's the quickest way to grow your brand and drive more
traffic using the power of Google.
Totally agree.
And we do have it's either before or after this episode,
I don't remember where it falls in the scheme of things,
but we are going to be reviewing Shopify also,
which for product based businesses,
I think is a great option.
So WordPress or Shopify are great options,
but having that website,
you can see how Nancy's talking.
It serves different purposes and there's value to both of them
and they can work well together.
Exactly. There's so many things now in day,
there's a plugin that I use.
I'm also an ambassador for them just to kind of as
a disclaimer,
but it's a plugin it's called WordPress three 60.
And it's really nice because it takes about 10 minutes to
use you use it in your WordPress site.
And what it does is integrates your XC store to your
actual website.
And when people are shopping on your website,
if they end up buying something,
they add it to the cart and now it redirects them
back to ECC because that's the only way it works.
And it's nice because if they never heard of your brand
and they added to cart,
it will take them to ECC.
So they will feel a little bit more at ease of
buying. So that's another thing that you could do.
There's more plugins out there.
I'm sure,
but that's the one that I would recommend using.
I have it in my own website and it's just really
nice flow of things that you could actually promote your products
because on XC,
when you send traffic,
let's say you do Pinterest or you use a Facebook ad
or just organic traffic that you're sending back to your store.
When they click on your listing.
If they scroll down to read your listing description,
to get acclimated with your listing,
if they go a little bit too low on the page,
on the bottom,
it has your competitors,
the actually lists your competitors on the bottom of the page.
So you're driving the traffic to ECC,
but you have the chance that they might actually leave your
store and click on someone else's listing.
Versus when you have a website,
you could drive them to your actual website,
whether you have a plugin or not,
maybe you just sell your e-commerce stuff there as well,
but they're staying there and there's no other competition.
So that's another great benefit of having your website as well,
Multiple avenues to be able to buy your product,
I think is the overall thing.
And I think in my mind heard a couple of listeners
gasp like,
Ooh, my competitors are going to show up,
but guess what?
You could also then be showing up on other people's stores
if they scroll down to the bottom.
So it works both ways.
It goes both ways.
And you could look at that in your stats.
I get so many sales from other pages as well.
Like you said,
it's not such a negative thing,
but it is one thing that many people are concerned is
one of the trending topics that people tell me.
So I always tell them both sides,
like having a website will help you with that as well.
But like you just mentioned a valid point.
It doesn't always is a bad thing because people do find
my listings based on other people's results,
which is great as well.
Right now let's just stay focused on Etsy.
Okay. If someone hasn't started yet,
and they're thinking about starting an Etsy shop,
can you walk through what they would expect to see as
they got started?
So where would they go?
I'm guessing they'd head over to Etsy and look for a
button somewhere that says create a stores.
Yes. If you go to ecc.com,
I believe on the corner on the top,
right corner is gonna have ask you to register.
If you want to register a storm,
Do they need to be registered already as an official business
to open a show?
No, they don't.
You don't need a business license to start an Etsy store.
All you need to do is pretty much go to ecc.com
on the top right corner and have like a little button
that says sign in.
But if you don't have an account,
you just on the right top corner,
you click on,
sign in and then you'll see another button that says register.
And if you click there,
then you'll be able to go ahead and proceed with opening
or creating your account with access.
Okay. Another question,
I'm going to try not to interrupt you all the time,
but I am again right now,
if you have purchased on Etsy already,
so you probably created an account through the purchasing experience.
Would you log into that same account and then take it
from there?
Yes. You will log in through the same account and take
it from there.
Exactly. Okay.
If you logged in as a person versus your business,
like I have different email addresses for my different companies and
then also a personal email address.
Would there be any value to me keeping them separate?
So like anytime I'm buying,
I would just be my personal email,
but then I wanted to set up my Etsy account as
Sue at,
and then my business name.
Would there be any reason to do it that way?
Yeah, I think it's better if you keep a separate,
because a lot of people use one email account for everything
like personal and business,
but you want to start with the mentality that this is
a business account,
right? This is a business that you want to essentially grow.
So it just better to have a separate.
So you don't mix personal with business together.
Okay. Okay.
So two options,
like, you know,
sometimes, especially if someone's just starting and this is my recommendation
to everybody,
you may not for sure be settled into even your company
name yet.
You know,
if you're starting to test products,
test the waters,
you know how we were talking about,
you're not sure which products might be the most popular and
to niche down.
Yeah. So you could potentially open a shop.
I'm thinking you might tell me no Nancy,
but you might want to hold off on formalizing names and
emails until you really feel solid on what you're doing.
And you've gotten some traction and you know,
that it's work.
Yeah. I'm not against that.
But because when people tell me why,
I don't really know what I want to start with.
One of the other advice I give is,
okay, so the first thing you could do is you could
just start selling random things and kind of see what people
are engaging with,
what people are interacting with.
But once you find the products that are doing really well,
then you want to go ahead and eliminate all the other
stuff. So in the beginning,
yeah, I do agree with you.
You could kind of start it.
You don't have to formalize everything.
You could just start with different things.
Test the waters,
see what's worked for you.
And then later on,
say, okay,
this is going to be the business name.
This is going to be this.
And kind of set it up as you go Rename a
shop after you've called it something.
Or would you create a whole new yeah,
No, you could rename the shop.
I don't necessarily think you should recreate a whole new one.
Perfect. Okay.
So lots of flexibility there.
Okay. And you could always do something like Nancy designs that
way. You're not like niching so much.
And I say Nancy wedding designs,
and then later on,
you're not sending weddings since we're kind of keep it open
as well,
if you want it to the name.
Okay. Okay.
So we're creating a shop.
What happens then?
Well, once you create your shop,
I recommend using there's a tool called dot com and it's
free to sign up.
They do have a pro version.
I believe it's $10.
I signed up with them a couple years ago,
so it's $10 a month.
Hopefully it's still the same price.
And with E rank,
you're able to plug in your store.
Once you create your store,
you're able to plug in your store.
And it's such a wonderful tool because it helps you to
do market research.
You're able to see top sellers by category,
by country.
You're able to do keyword research.
You're able to see what's trending not only on ECC,
but on Google,
especially if you create your own website.
So you can start writing about those products and services and
start driving more traffic.
There's so many tools in Iran.
I highly recommend doing that.
I also recommend once you start building your store is using
the ECC sellers handbook.
If you don't know how to do something,
let's say you're trying to do your banner and your picture's
not coming out.
Right. And it's blurry or pixelated.
The XC seller's handbook has different categories of different things.
You could go in there and look for information about photography,
about shipping,
about legal stuff.
Getting started,
getting found,
SEO, pricing,
finances, taxes,
and the list goes on and on and on.
And this is one of the tools that many people don't
use as XC sellers.
And this is what makes ECC so special as well.
They pretty much give you like a blueprint of how everything
works on XC from the search engine to SEO,
to how to build a memorable shop.
All you have to do is just follow the guide,
but that's very useful for just pretty much anything that you
need help with.
They have a really solid guide,
but the fact is you have to access it and use
it Exactly,
but it's really great because a lot of the things that
people get stuck on are things that the excavator provides you,
the tools to help you with it,
just using it and getting to know the platform,
but actually is very simple to get started from the beginning.
When you open the account,
it tells you step one,
you name your shop.
Step two,
you put your billing information within four steps.
You already have your store open.
One thing that you do need to have before you open
the store is have one listing already.
So before you even register to open a store,
have whatever,
whether you're selling a physical product or digital product,
have that product,
like the photos,
the listing description,
your SEO have that already done because in order for you
to open the store,
you have to have one listing available.
Okay? You have to have at least one to actually open
the store.
But how many products would you suggest you have?
I say in the beginning,
when you're like,
before you start marketing really hard have at least 10 to
like 15 lifting.
Somebody built up that way.
When people do start,
when you start driving traffic to your store,
or if XC drives traffic back to your store,
organically, you have listings and it doesn't look like an empty
store. There are going to be the people that are going
to engage with your brand and start looking at your products.
I never say this a magical number when it comes to
how many listings I have to have to have sales,
because I have seen stores that literally have 24 products and
they make more money than stores that have 2000 products.
What's the difference between a listing of a product that can
be repetitively purchased.
Like let's say,
just candles versus a customized product.
That might be only one of a kind.
You want to know,
like the difference of like how you promote it And buys
a one of a kind,
because I've made it an,
all of my jackets that I make are different.
They all look different.
So I put pictures up and if they sell,
then it's no longer available versus someone who lets go with
knitting scarves.
Since we were talking about that earlier can continue to make
the same one over and over again,
regardless of how many are sold on the site.
So it's like a onetime off versus option for multiples.
I think the main difference is exactly what you just said.
The one product is more personalized while the other product,
multiple people could buy it and have the same product.
I think when you sell something that's personalized,
you have to make sure that you voice that not only
on the listing description,
but also on the photos and just let people know,
this is one of a kind that you can get elsewhere.
Do you have Manually pull it off once it's sold,
then Yes.
You could do two options.
You could have it out over renew,
especially if you know that you could recreate it again,
right? Maybe you do a different variation when it's something very
personalized like that.
A lot of times,
it's not like you said,
it's not the same thing that you're selling over and over.
It's going to be different.
So you could auto renew.
If you know that you're going to be able to add
another personalized item like that.
But if you know that this is one of a kind
only, and you can't be produced it again,
for some reason,
then you want out of renewal,
you would just,
once it's sold that one quantity,
it would deactivate the listing.
That's how we would normally do it.
That a little bit feels like a nightmare of doing that.
But what I could see someone doing is let's say you
have these customized jackets,
for example,
and maybe you have one picture that's all in like red,
black and gray tones.
And then you would say in your description,
these are all one of a kind,
and this is the color tone of this option.
And then you might have another that's blue,
green, and yellow or something.
Exactly. Or even with the candle situation,
if you have a candle that is personalized in a way
that maybe you put a person's name on the candle,
you could resell that over and over.
It's still a unique product because what you're changing is the
person's name.
And that's probably in that order checkout process where you have
the option of putting in that information.
Yes it is.
Yes. Once the person buys a personalized item,
they get this little box it's called note to seller and
that's where they put their personal lives information.
On what color you choosing for your jacket or what name
you're putting on the candle?
Or what names are you putting on the digital sign that
they're buying,
whatever they're buying at that moment.
Okay. Alright.
So walk through for us,
if you will.
Just so we get a feel for the sales process.
So now we have our shop up,
someone comes in and we've set it up properly,
all the right way with all the information SEL like everything
you've said,
so we're good to go.
You would give them an a plus for putting up their
shop. Okay.
And someone comes in and buys like,
okay, that's exciting,
but how do we find out about it?
And then what's the process for us to fulfill the role?
The first thing I recommend is having the seller X,
the app in your phone and your mobile device.
So there's an app for buyers and it's an app for
sellers. So you need the sellers one.
And what happens is normally when you get a sale,
you get a notification through your email.
But if you have the app,
you get a notification straight through your phone,
Okay. And then you jump up and down cause it's your
very first sale.
And it's super exciting.
Totally. And you hear strategic also as well versus when you
get really excited.
Okay. The first thing that I would say,
especially when you're first starting out is to make sure that
you are on top of your store,
make sure that you have the app,
you'll get the notification.
And then just to make sure that you go to the
actual order and sometimes people on the note to seller,
because that's where you send the personalization.
People ask questions there.
For some reason,
it's not meant for that,
but people do.
So. The best thing to do is anytime you get a
new order,
just briefly look at the order,
see if there's any questions.
If there is any,
they're just putting the information that they need.
Then you have that window,
whatever window you put in one to two days on toast
ship or one through five days,
depending on your schedule,
create the item or you personalize the item.
And once you have it ready,
obviously if it's a digital product,
you would send it to them through the ECC message.
If it is a physical product,
you will ship it to the customer.
I think for shipping products,
I don't ship.
But one thing that I have learned from my ECC support
group, I have over 30,000
members in that group,
is that a lot of them,
what they do is that they confirm the shipping address before
they ship it to the,
because a lot of people have an ECC account for years,
they moved,
but never changed their shipping address.
Oh, interesting point.
That's a big one that I have seen.
So many people get bad reviews because it was shipped to
the wrong address.
And that's the main reason why,
because the customer never updated their address in the backend.
So I think that's a big one that you need to
start doing just to double check,
just be like,
Hey, thank you so much for your order.
We are excited to ship it.
We're done with it.
We just want to double check that this is your right
address. Or just confirming that you're still on Salem street.
Exactly. Or something like that.
It doesn't have to be the whole address written out or
something. It doesn't have to exactly.
But as long as you at least confirming exactly.
Plus that starts a conversation with a customer.
So like there's a reason to do it and it's great
to do it too.
But so your getting the shipping address obviously from Etsy.
Exactly. Yes.
Okay. Is there a system where it's already created and you
can just press print on a computer or a labeling?
Yes. There is.
ECC provides you with printing services and you will sign up
through ECC and they have the pricing.
Or if you find a different source,
that's cheaper,
which a lot of people do on separately.
You could do that as well,
but it just depends on the pricing and which one you
want to use.
Okay. And probably it depends on your package too,
like what your product is,
but you have the options.
You're not limited in that.
Exactly. You're not limited at all.
Okay. So let's get back to this email for a minute.
Not being able to collect people's emails,
which I know has been.
I understand why they do it.
For sure.
If you are communicating back and forth to a customer like
confirming the address,
can you say,
Oh, while you're confirming,
can you share with me your email so we can stay
connected? I'm guessing that would be,
They actually let you collect emails.
The issue with access platform is that it's really hard to
do so because you know how,
when you have your own website,
you have like little popups or you could tell a customer
click here to join our email and they just click on
ECC. If you add any links,
whether it's Facebook,
email, anything,
that's South side of ECC,
that link doesn't become a hyperlink,
right? So now if you having your listing description,
make sure that you join our email list too.
As a first time customer,
you get 10% off.
Here's the link.
They can click on the link.
They have to copy and paste in order to go ahead
and sign up for that coupon.
Majority of people are not going to do that,
unfortunately, because we just want everything easy and fast.
And that's the hard part about growing an email is having
just an ECC store versus when you have a website that
you could collect emails really simple,
but it shouldn't stop you though.
That's what I'm trying to say.
Also, I have my email list and my banner,
I have it in my shop announcement.
I have another link my,
about me and I'm starting to incorporate it on all my
listings as well.
You should still promote it because you're going to get the
occasional person that will go ahead and copy and paste.
So answer your question.
Yes. You could ask the person,
Hey, by the way,
since you know,
whatever you're talking about,
you already built report with them.
They feel a little bit more comfortable with you.
You could ask them,
would you mind if I add you to an email list?
As long as you ask them X he's okay with it.
Could you say,
you know how it is?
And like,
nobody wants to get on another email list,
right? But could you say,
Hey, thanks for shopping at my store.
Just confirming,
I'm going to ship this over to you on Salem Avenue.
No, whatever.
Also, if you're willing to share with me your email address,
I'll send you a coupon for your next order.
Yeah. And you can say that,
of course You can say that.
And then it's okay if they respond and say,
yes, I'm on Salem.
And here's my email Long as they give you the email
and you're not just grabbing it from your dashboard.
Can I like that a lot better now.
And XC also has two integrations that they work with.
They work with a Weber and they work with mail folder.
You could use any email providers.
Yeah. Okay.
So they work with a Weber and who else?
And mail folder fold F O L D mail fold.
Okay. So once you're registered in your account,
if you go to your dashboard,
if you go to settings and you go to integrations,
you're going to see all the third party apps that they
work with,
that they are partnered with,
that you could use without feeling like,
is my account going to get suspended?
Am I not allowed to use?
You could see all the lists of different tools,
not just email.
Okay, perfect.
And I got to say that it's a used to be
the only one,
but the advantage of several other platforms come in where there's
a focus on handmade products only makes Etsy then want to
be stronger,
let you do more because they've got more competition.
So everyone gets better when those things happen.
Exactly. And they have done better.
So many more resources now.
Exactly more options for us.
So that's all good to finalize this out.
Share with us a little bit about the behind the scenes
numbers, the insights or the statistics or whatever it's called over
there. What can you learn about who's coming and how can
you use that information to help grow your shop?
Oh, I mean,
it's just amazing.
You could do market research on Etsy,
on the search feed.
You just type in whatever you're looking for that is relevant
to what you're selling or you could use a quicker way.
Is he rank.com?
Yeah. That's the one you talked about earlier.
Yes. And they're highly recommended because all the data from Iran
is pooled directly from ECC.
So the information is very relevant.
It's not like another tool that has nothing to do with
that. When you go in there,
you're able to view top sellers by categories,
by countries and when they open their store.
In my opinion,
that is a really great tool for market research because you're
first starting an ECC,
or you have an idea you want to sell personal life
candles, but you don't know if they do really well on
XC or not.
Well, you could do is do market research on the rank.
And you could look for stores that sell candles and they
are in your area in your country.
Or if you want to do worldwide and you could start
doing market research that way and start seeing what are their
best sellers.
So you could get an idea.
You can start seeing how many sales they get per day,
how much money they're making.
You can see everything.
Okay. Perfect.
Are you also able to see things kind of like you
can, when you have your own website with Google analytics,
where you can see which products people are looking at,
how quickly they're jumping off of your pages,
are you able to access all of that type of information
as well?
Yes, you can.
You actually have to connect your store.
Yourself was a very simple process.
You connect your store to Google analytics.
Oh, okay.
Well, I highly recommend it.
Just like when you have your website,
you should also connect it to Google analytics because XC just
gives you so much information about how people find you on
the Etsy search feed,
but you don't know how they found you before that.
Did they come from Pinterest?
And it gave you a little bit information,
but we Google analytics,
the real cool thing about Google analytics.
Once you connect your store to Google analytics,
you're able to see real time how many people are in
your store right now.
So you're able to see six people are in my store
right now at this second,
you're able to see what pages they're browsing.
You're able to see where those people came from.
You could see so much data on Google analytics compared to
ACCE. But what you do is you combine both of them
together to start your marketing strategy and take your business to
the next level,
because you're able to see like behavior,
like you're able to see,
okay, what platforms are really driving me traffic.
So what platform should I perform a little bit more?
Or have a,
like a content strategy there.
So, so much information that you're going to get.
I think that's one of the things that is not used
as often as they should be.
Another thing I've found with one of my clients is we
were looking at analytics and she was seeing that a lot
of people were landing on a specific product in her store,
but they weren't buying it.
But they were leading to other secondary products and making a
purchase. If originally you just said,
Oh, I'm not getting sales for product.
Number one,
that first product,
it's still serving a purpose because for some reason,
that's what people landed on when they searched and they're still
buying. So if someone were to eliminate that product because of
that, they could lose those sales because they never found her
in the first place.
Exactly. They could be selling something that one product organically they're
ranking really well.
Like the ranking on the first page of ECC,
maybe it's the first page of Google.
So that one product is driving tons of organic traffic to
the other product.
Like you just mentioned.
So sometimes it is so important to look at your data
because some people start,
they add products and they remove it.
And I always tell people,
you gotta like,
let us sit there,
collect the data,
analyze the data,
and then make an informed decision of what's working and what's
not working,
but you need to look at it first.
Like you said,
right? Do you need to give it time to do its
thing, whatever that's going to be.
And then you look at it and then you make decisions
accordingly. Exactly.
Wonderful. This has been such great information.
Do you want to say something to kind of summarize opportunities
that are available on Etsy?
Oh yes.
One thing I want to tell people is that with ECC
treat it like a real business is such an amazing platform
for anyone out there,
like moms that stay at home or anyone that wants to
start their own business,
but don't want to spend too much money,
creating a business.
It's a great platform.
And on top of that,
just being able to have a unique voice,
a place as you could brand it for your voice to
come out,
to create something that's amazing for other people that they will
want to buy from you.
But just started.
If you're in the fence of starting exi,
just start trying it and you're going to make mistakes,
but don't let fear stop.
You keep pushing through and build a store.
You're going to try,
you're going to fail.
You're going to be successful with it as well.
And the thing is just starting to quote,
that says,
you don't have to be great to start,
but you have to start to be great.
And that's essentially what you have to do with ECC.
And it's such an easy platform to use,
and they give you all the resources that you need.
In addition to that,
the seller's handbook is amazing.
There's so much value in there to help you grow as
an Etsy seller,
that once you start using it on a regular basis,
you're going to say to yourself,
why didn't I use this before?
And a great thing about the handbook.
When I create content,
I create content based on what ECC wants.
Not on my opinion.
Yes. I have my opinion.
I say,
these are things that I do that has helped me,
but I try to base everything on what ECC wants,
because ultimately it's their platform and they do change stuff on
a regular basis.
I try to keep up with that information.
And that's another reason why you need to use those resources
because it's the most accurate information out there.
Perfect. So if you're somebody probably after the first part of
this year,
how we've been where so many physical locations have been shut
down, right?
But if you're used to being out at craft shows every
single weekend or trade shows or whatever,
and you've never had really an online presence yet,
or you're just starting out and you're thinking,
okay, I'm going to have both at see,
seems like such a good solution for all the reasons that
we've talked about through this whole time.
Like you have the flexibility to adjust.
Once you've done your first product validation,
you can change your name.
You can test how products are selling and it can be
your entrance point into e-commerce in a very easy,
Yeah, we could start with taxi and then once you feel
more comfortable and you start getting the hang of it,
you could start yourself out of Lexia as well.
You could have a website,
you could start using social media.
You could do maybe even YouTube and create videos on how
you create your products.
A lot of people feel if I show people how to
do this,
they're going to steal my idea.
You'd be surprised.
There's so many people you could tell them,
this is how I did it.
And they still don't do it.
Or they might try it once and be like,
either I don't have the talent to do it.
Or this is so hard.
I will never try this again.
I think the point back to Etsy is that your time
is not lost if you have a presence on that seat,
because it can compliment other things that you add on down
the road.
So Nancy,
where can people find you?
And also tell us more about your support group and what
it's called?
Oh, of course people could find me.
I think the best place is my website is Nancy,
but the joe.com
and there you'll be able to find other resources that you
could use as an ACCE seller.
And my support group is called ECC sellers support group.
And once you find that you should be able to see
the about me.
And I'll say this group is hosted by Nancy buddy,
Joe. So that's the way you will know that that's my
group. I have currently,
I believe we have 30,000
members a little bit over 30,000
and this group is strictly for support.
So it's not,
there's other groups that you promote your products and services.
This group is specifically for,
if you're stuck.
If you have a question about,
Hey, you know,
I've been on that actually for six months,
I only got in three sales.
What are some things I could do?
You could drop your link and actually people go and give
you like a free mini critique.
I have amazing,
amazing support in that group.
Everyone helps each other out.
So if you put one post,
normally I'll get like 15 people to respond within 20 minutes
already trying to help somebody.
So it's a support group.
Wonderful. I love it.
Nancy, thank you so much.
I think a lot of us have been enlightened about the
ways of Etsy.
It's an exciting platform and you've cleared up some things for
us. So I look forward to you guys,
give biz listeners,
letting us know if you start a site on Etsy could
jump over to maybe Instagram,
follow both Nancy and me.
If you haven't already gift biz on rapt and let us
know in the DMS,
if you've started your Etsy account,
I also wanted to mention Sue,
if you don't mind for your wonderful people that listen to
you, but your audience,
I have an actual course where I teach people not only
how to build in our principle business,
but how to use social media and branding to leverage their
business to the next level.
So for your followers,
if they're interested,
they could get $200 off the course to sign up is
they're interested.
Okay. And would they just go over to your website and
find out about it?
I did was,
I'll send you the information and you'll have like a special
coupon that you use and then maybe you could put it
below the podcast.
So give biz listeners,
we'll put it in the show notes.
So if you're interested,
knowing more about Nancy's course,
just jump over to the show notes down where I have
resources that were mentioned in the show will be all the
resources Nancy's mentioned.
So he reign the Etsy,
sellers, handbook,
all of that,
but also whatever the discount code is or the link or
whatever you're going to give me,
Nancy, we'll have that sitting right there as well.
Okay. Perfect.
Okay. Wonderful.
Oh, thank you.
I really,
really appreciate your time today.
Take care,
Utah. Now,
you know all about selling and strengthening your brand on Etsy.
Remember the show notes page for links to everything we discussed.
And seriously,
I want to know about your store.
If you're already on Etsy or start up on this platform,
here's how you can tell me,
just jump over to Instagram,
follow gift biz unwrapped.
If you aren't already,
and then leave me a direct message telling me about your
shop. Give me your name so that I can go take
a peek and I'll definitely send you a private message back.
Alright, that's a wrap for part five of our six part
series on eCommerce sales platforms.
In our final week,
we're going to cover an online platform that quite honestly has
a lot of us confused.
And I'm talking about Google my business,
find out who it's right for,
because surprise,
it's not set up for all handmade businesses.
Let's clear up who should and should not be on Google
my business.
And if it's right for you,
how to do it correctly and use Google my business to
bring in sales,
make sure to subscribe,
to gift biz unwrapped.
If you haven't already,
that allows the next episode to automatically be downloaded,
ready, and waiting for you.
First thing next Monday morning,
did you know that if you're not subscribed,
sometimes it takes hours for the episode to become available to
you, but not when you subscribe.
So don't forget,
take a moment and do it right now.
And finally,
until next week,
remember you can catch me live in the breeze for those
Q and a questions.
Even if you don't have a question it's so valuable to
learn from other people's questions.
You'll hear more about that group in the outro clip,
closing out this show.
And that happens right now.
Be safe,
be well.
And I look forward to being together again next week.
I want to make sure you're familiar with my free Facebook
group called gift is breeze.
It's a place where we all gather and our community to
support each other.
Got a really fun post in there.
That's my favorite of the week.
I have to say where I invite all of you to
share what you're doing to show pictures of your product,
to show what you're working on for the week to get
reaction from other people and just for fun,
because we all get to see the wonderful products that everybody
in the community is making my favorite post every single week,
without doubt.
Wait, what,
aren't you part of the group already,
if not make sure to jump over to Facebook and search
for the group gift biz breeze don't delay.
Come join us in gift biz breeze.