New Etsy Shops: Realistic Expectations

You’ve Been Mislead With New Etsy Shops

You’ve got a new Etsy shop or you are someone with very few sales. You’ve probably seen countless YouTube videos boasting about earning $30k in 30 days or making $10k from digital products, yet you’re hearing crickets. What do you do now? What should you realistically expect from Etsy? Where do you go from here? Are you wasting your time?

Addressing the Expectations

In today’s video, I dive into why this happens and what you need to expect when you launch an Etsy shop. I’ll also share five things you can do over the next five days to work through this initial lull that almost all shops experience. Before we get started, please subscribe to my channel. I love giving free value on YouTube, and seeing that subscriber count go up is like a little “thank you” from the viewers. Also, drop in the comments how much money you made on Etsy in your first 30 days! It would be interesting for everyone to see and hear.

My Story

Welcome back to my channel. If you’re new here, my name is Dylan Jahraus. I’m an Etsy shop owner, a former corporate e-commerce professional, and now a full-time business coach for Etsy sellers. I work with hundreds of sellers one-on-one to help them scale their shops to multi-six figures using real e-commerce strategies far beyond just following trends, niching down, or having good pictures. If you want my help one-on-one, reach out on Instagram @DylanJahraus.

The Initial Struggle

As a coach, I talk to many Etsy sellers who have just started selling on Etsy. They might have 50 listings up and have had the shop open for three weeks, maybe a month, with no sales. They panic, feel like things are completely broken, and start doubting if Etsy is right for them. They consider starting a second shop, trying Amazon KDP, or drop shipping on Shopify instead.

This constant pivoting is problematic. They try something, don’t see immediate results, then pivot, try something else, don’t see immediate results, and pivot again. They spend a year or longer doing this, skimming the surface of many entrepreneurial ventures without learning anything substantial because they move on too quickly.

Breaking the Cycle for New Etsy Shops

We need to break this cycle to gain traction. You need to get comfortable not getting sales right away. Instead of just sitting and waiting in that discomfort, be like ducks—calm, cool, collected on the surface, but furiously paddling underneath. If you commit to one thing and work diligently on it, you will become an expert and be successful.

My Experience with New Etsy Shops

You may not get a sale for the first two weeks or even the first month. Heck, I didn’t get my first sale in my new Etsy shop until two months in on Etsy, yet I was able to scale to $10k/month by month four and then $134k in the first 12 months.

Five Steps to Take Over the Next Five Days

While you’re sitting in the discomfort of no sales, I encourage you to take these five steps over the next five days:

1. Unique SEO for Each Listing: Make sure each listing has completely unique SEO. Many shops copy and paste the same title across all listings, limiting themselves to only being found for those search terms. Use as many long-tail keywords as possible to appear in more search results. Over the next five days, make your SEO as varied as possible.
2. Revamp Your Photos: Don’t stick with the same photos you launched with. Photos and mockups have a significant learning curve. Keep improving and testing different backgrounds and mockups. Test at least ten different mockup or photo background types when starting. If you’re stuck with zero sales, start mixing in new photos or mockups over the next five days.
3. Start Marketing Immediately: Don’t wait until you have sales or until your shop is perfect to start marketing. As soon as you have a listing up, get 20 static posts up on Instagram with strong cohesive branding and start driving traffic via Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Facebook and Instagram provide immediate results, while Pinterest is a long game. Driving traffic yourself is more effective than Etsy ads.
4. Create Loss Leaders: Focus on building high-ticket items, but remember that expensive items require more trust. Loss leaders are lower margin, lower price point items designed to drive up your order number quickly. They’re easier and faster to list. Spend the next five days launching one new loss leader each day.
5. Continue Hustling for Cash Flow: If you’re living paycheck to paycheck, don’t stop everything else just to focus on Etsy. Work on Etsy in every spare moment, but also find other ways to generate cash flow, like walking dogs, house sitting, babysitting, grocery delivery, driving for Uber, or picking up part-time hours. This creates breathing room so you can give Etsy the patience and consistency it requires.

Conclusion

I hope this gave you some perspective on what to do in the lull when you first launch your shop. I challenge you to do these five things over the next five days. If you need one-on-one help with your shop, reach out. I have a program that can get you on the path to multi-six figures on Etsy.

Feel free to reach out to me on Instagram @DylanJahraus if you have any questions or need further assistance. Keep pushing forward and don’t give up!