We are enjoying a wonderful Indian Summer here in Ireland and I’m guilty of spending more time outside in the sunshine and less time working on “Your Etsy Profit Machine!”
Don’t be too hard on me though because it won’t be long before the weather turns colder and I start making up for my summer inactivity!
Etsy continues to provide a regular and enjoyable income stream for me and I thought I would use this post to share a couple of tips that will help you with your own Etsy shop (use this link to get started for FREE if you haven’t opened your shop yet)
The Problem With Free Shipping
I have been offering free shipping on everything in my Etsy shop as an experiment during the summer.
I increased my prices to cover the extra cost hoping that the lure of free shipping would increase my sales but I have to report that this hasn’t been the case.
The problem with offering free shipping on Etsy is that browsers aren’t aware that you offer this benefit.
When Etsy buyers search for the items they are interested in they are presented with a page of search results which shows the image, the first part of the title and the price – this means that my slightly more expensive items (because the price includes the shipping cost) compare unfavorably to similar items from my competitors who are charging a shipping fee.
Most buyers will simply scan the results and lean towards the best price if there are several sellers selling identical items.
Click on the image to open it in a new window
The potential buyer is only aware of my generous offer if they click through to my item and then click on the shipping & policies tab.
I have considered adding the words “FREE SHIPPING” to the start of my title although this will reduce the number of descriptive words shown. Another idea is to add a watermark to the image – have you considered this problem and hit on a workable solution?
How To Boost The Impact of Your Coupons
As you know from my previous posts on the subject, I love using Etsy’s Coupon Codes to encourage multiple sales and repeat buyers.
I keep a close eye on how many buyers use my Coupon Codes and it is clear that “Buy 5 Get 1 Free!” is much more popular than “Buy 5 Save 20 Percent!”
The discount is, of course the same whichever offer you choose but I believe that the offer of 1 item for free is much more attractive to most people because it is easier to understand and the word “FREE” always carries more impact.
This image shows how I create my coupon;
Click on the image to open it in a new window
The individual item price is 7.50 (Euros) so I choose a minimum purchase of 37.50 (5×7.50) and a fixed discount of 7.50
Coming Soon……
Your Etsy Profit Machine!
In this over 100 page course….
I’ll show you how to easily get tons of excellent high demand products for just pennies that sell like hotcakes on Etsy for tens or even hundreds of dollars!
That’s 300% – 1850% pure profits!
And if you don’t have “Pennies” to spend on Etsy products that’s OK!
Because I’ll even show you how to get unlimited popular Etsy products for free! – that can be sold fast at high prices for quick profits & lets you pocket 100% of the cash!
I’ll also show you how to easily create powerful Etsy listings fast that are irresistible to viewers.
And I’ll show you tons of super simple ways to draw lots of hungry buyers to your Etsy store too!
That’s not all!
I’ll also show you how to get repeat sales & multiple sales from the same buyers over and over and over again!
And I’LL show you how to tap into Etsy’s “social scene” (the right way) to quickly ramp up your sales & profits!
I’ll even show you how to easily tap into the power of FaceBook to draw in tons more buyers & create an avalanche of additional profits!
Best of all!…
I’ll reveal how even a complete newbie can find tons of hidden high profit Etsy niches fast.
So you don’t get trapped into wasting your valuable time on dead end product listings (like so many others).
All this and much, much more is COMING SOON so keep a very close eye on your inbox!
STOP PRESS!
Your Etsy Profit Machine! is LIVE!!
Click on the graphic
 | Want 5 easy side hustles? Get your FREE guide: "5 Easy Etsy Product Lines You Can Do Right Now!" |
Stuart enjoy the Indian Summer it short and winter will be here before you know it. Family time with your boys too, they grow fast… We will be here waiting for your new product so enjoy…
Reg B.
Shop doesn’t have anything in it yet but that will be coming soon. Have 3 books with images to upload. Thank you for all your wonderful help. I have followed you for quite some time and will continue to do so.
You might try saying something like Buy 4 pick another one for free.
Hugs
Marilyn aka G-Ma
Thanks for sharing some of your ideas regarding Etsy with us, Stuart. I love your store and have added it to my favorites. Continued success to selling on Etsy!
“pay only for 4” why didn’t you use the “get one free” on your main page? FREE, at least to Americans, is one of the top 5, if not number one word we will respond to. “Pay only for 4” sounds a little awkward and not something I’ve heard very much. Not sure if that would be an inducement to me. FREE always works.
Stop! (works as well with a trained dog)
Fire!
Free!
BOGO (buy one, get one free) That’s the first section I check every week when my grocery store newsletter arrives. I’m sure you’re subscribers will have several more amusing words than I’ve listed.
I too am looking forward to seeing your new course. Have you given your Etsy shop name as I would be interested to see how it looks in the Etsy environment.
Kind regards, Jenny
You can check out my Etsy shop here, Jenny; https://www.etsy.com/shop/Victorianaprint?ref=hdr_shop_menu
Stuart,
I had an Etsy store for several years and never sold enough product to cover my cost. I am looking forward to your new program to see if it will give me some insight into what I may have been doing wrong.
Stuart:
1. Do yourself and we your fans a favor and put a specific date deadlline on “soon”.
2. “Buy 5 and save 20%” is not the same as “Buy 5 and get 1 free”, so that may be why it doesn’t do as well. In fact, “Buy 5 and save 20%” is so ambiguous that it could mean several different things.
Thanks for raising the point about my discount offer being ambiguous Brian & Jim – I use the shop announcement which appears just under the shop name and banner to reinforce my message “Buy any 5 pay only for 4” I also add this message to the top of my item descriptions so hopefully my buyers are in no doubt as to what my offer gives them.
Sorry to be so vague about when “Your Etsy Profit Machine!” will be available. In any project like this I use the services of other people such as graphic designers and web site builders so it is difficult to say exactly when it will all be ready until it is actually done.
I can say that the project is very near completion and I anticipate launching in the next couple of weeks.
Thanks for your patience!
That’s why I like using http://www.elance.com
They must meet your deadline or they do not get paid and you are likely to give them less than a five star review. I’ve used elance for over 10 years and have been extremely happy with every project. Also, I really enjoy working with people from around the world. So far, they include Spain, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, Canada, Australia. The prices are so low also compared to those in the USA.
I agree.
Hi Stuart,
A curious thing I noticed about your popular discount is in the wording, ‘Buy 5 get 1 free’, when I first read it I thought this meant that if I were to buy 5 i’d get the 6’th for free, kindda like how the BOGOF offers work in the supermarket.
Obviously your offer is saying that if you buy 5 prints then you’ll get the 5th free. It would be interesting to see how many of your customers use this coupon and end up buying 6 prints? Or maybe it’s just me 🙂
Jim
Hi Stuart, as always your ideas motivate me to try harder and since I have been trying out the promotions I am starting to notice more orders coming through. I’ve also used Facebook better and am looking forward to getting your new book when finished to find other ways to be more successful on Etsy, which I think is a much better environment for some of my goods than eBay.
Thanks
Regards Jayne