Learn To Make Your Own Inventory

If you are thinking of expanding the inventory you offer, you may not have to look far. You may have sourced inventory in the past but there is an alternative. Maybe making your own inventory is the way to go.

This could be a great option if you are in a remote location from the stores where you usually source your items. Maybe the weather is keeping you close to home or creating items is a way for you to wind down. Either way the outcome could help you increase your inventory.

If you are thinking this is a good idea but do not know what to make or how to make it, you should take a look at Craftsy.com. Crafty is a directory of crafting classes you can attend online. The site offers classes on everything from knitting and crocheting to cake decorating and weaving. For the experienced, crafter the site offers projects and patterns to help you find new items to make.

Once you have your items, you could use them as gifts or sell them on sites like Etsy.com, Goodsmiths.com, or TopHatter.com. Craftsy is currently offering free mini-workshops. Click here to see a list of the free classes.

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You Can Sell On Etsy Even If You Are Not Into Crafting

Image courtesy of the DaniKfashion Etsy Shop

As the Christmas shipping season starts to reach its peak, it is time to start thinking about next year. What plans are you making to build your business? If you are looking for a new place to sell the items you source at thrift stores or if you make items to sell, Etsy is a site you should consider if you are not already using it.

The Etsy marketplace is growing in leaps and bounds. Sellers have reported a large increase in sales. Those that have been around for a year or more have reported that sales have more than doubled.

Etsy is a fantastic community of buyers and sellers. At first glance, the website looks more like an online store than a community made up of many sellers. This more familiar feel is appealing to online shoppers. Maneuvering around Etsy is straightforward; sellers can showcase their items and are sure to attract the right buyers. The set up of Etsy seems to be more conducive to ensuring that sales are accurate. What is meant by this is buyers get a true picture and description of what they are purchasing. Sometimes other online sales communities do not give as clear a picture.

As a seller, you might wonder if Etsy will draw enough buyers. The proof is in the statistics and the news is great! Small businesses and individuals who sell on Etsy are boasting about their sales. With the holiday season upon us, Etsy is ready and has distinct holiday showcases in place. Buyers are sure to get original, in many cases handmade, gift items for the holidays.

As you review how you sell and where you sell, remember Etsy. Even if you do not make handmade items to sell on Etsy, remember that those crafters need supplies as well. From old sweaters to torn jeans or toilet paper rolls to old books, crafters often use uncommon items for their creations. Take a look around Etsy to see what other items could be sold to this creative bunch.

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Etsy Wholesale to Connect Crafters and Sellers

Image courtesy of DeMoss Designs

As we find ways to build our inventory, we can often find ourselves moving along with the pack. Sometimes we find what we sell is being sold by many other sellers as well. It can be a waiting game. That is okay. But there are other items you could consider.

Marketplace sites like Etsy, Goodsmith, and Bonanza give crafters and other creative artists the opportunity to offer their wares to a large community of shoppers who are looking for something original. This is also an opportunity for you as a seller to find an original product to offer. Many Etsy sellers are offering wholesale pricing on the products when they are sold in lots. You may find woodcrafted items or sewn items that may be great to offer during the holiday season.

For the Etsy sellers who are looking for a little help in getting started selling wholesale, Etsy is creating a wholesale marketplace. While the site has not launched yet, Etsy is accepting sign-up for both wholesale vendors and buyers. Once the site is launched, this will allow you to connect to many sellers in the Etsy community who are looking to connect with sellers. For the crafter, it gives them an opportunity to concentrate on the actual art and not finding the individual customer. For the seller, it is a chance to find unique and uncommon items to offer your buyers. To sign-up, visit this link.

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Etsy Promotes Sellers with Free Google Shopping Ads

Starting in October, those using Google as their search engine may begin to see some different results. This is due to the new version of 'Google Shopping' that the internet powerhouse company has announced. This rebranding of their product search will give higher placement in search results to those that pay for it. Etsy.com will be investing heavily to ensure that their listings remain near the top. Etsy has seen over $500 million in sales so far in 2012 alone and will be investing $250,000 to help their U.S. sellers remain at the top of the Google search results for the rest of the year. This investment will help Etsy better compete with other top online sellers.

After Google's new policy has launched, customers that are “Googling” will see that these new pay-for-placement listings labeled uniquely in the search results and the usual search results will be listed below the paid slots.

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Celebrity Chooses Etsy TO Support Charity

Image courtesy of Rose's Etsy ShopMany of us use online selling sites as a way to create income or support causes we support. I have written in the past about stars who have chosen eBay to run auctions to support their favorite charities. Now a celebrity has chosen Etsy to support her latest cause.

Comedian and talk show host Rosie O’Donnell is now using the site to help raise money for a charity that is important to her and her family. The charity O’Donnell is supporting is The Desmoid Tumor Research Foundation. Her partner, Michelle Rounds, is battling the rare condition. Three in one million are affected by the condition that can be life threatening or even fatal if it grows undetected near vital organs.

The listings are original pieces of art that Rosie created. In the past, Rosie has used eBay to sell these items but currently there are no listing attributed to her eBay account. Rosie has used Etsy in the past to support her charity, Rosie’s Broadway Kids (now known as Rosie’s Theater Kids), which helps to fund arts education to low-income children in New York City.

To view Rose’s listings, visit Etsy. To find out more about this rare condition, please visit The Desmoid Tumor Foundation.

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Etsy Gets Ready For the Holiday Season

There are a few changes going on at Etsy that are in the working to make the Holiday season more successful for Etsy shop keepers.

Recently, Etsy began offering shopkeepers the option to accept credit cards (and not just PayPal) for purchases made in their shops. The direct checkout option is seen as a way of getting more customers to buy on Etsy by using a direct checkout that does not involve PayPal in any way. Many crafters are seeing increases in sales in the few weeks since the credit card option has been available.

With the credit card payments, the money is held in the shop’s account and is scheduled for disbursement to the shopkeeper’s bank account each Monday. Shopkeepers do have the option to schedule a deposit more quickly if they wish. The processing fee is 3% + $0.25 per order.

To help those who are looking to try out the direct checkout for their shop, Etsy is waiving all credit card processing fees for the month of September. To find out if your shop is eligible to sign up for direct checkout, please click here.

With direct checkout as an option, Etsy is bringing on a new selling tool. This fall, Etsy Gift Cards will become available in the US. The gift cards will only be available for use in shops that have the direct checkout option available. Etsy will also use the gift cards as promotional tools for the site this holiday season. The ability to accept gift cards is a feature Etsy sellers and buyers have been requesting for quite a while. The gift card will be a promotional code that can be emailed to the buyer.

In order to develop the system that would allow gift cards to be accepted at any store on its site, Etsy had to add the direct checkout option to its site. PayPal does not allow a central checkout. PayPal checkouts are unique to each seller and cannot accept gift cards. To see what experiences some Etsy sellers have had since adding direct checkout to their shops, click here.


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Etsy Asks Sellers for Tips

Image courtesy of Zazzle.com
Etsy.com is an online marketplace much like eBay.com. Etsy’s product offerings are usually vntage items or handmade items created by the sellers themselves. If you sell on Etsy.com, then you may be aware of the Etsy Seller Handbook. The handbook, which is really a mini-site found on Etsy.com, covers lots of information to help the Etsy seller be more successful. To help make the handbook more relevant to the Etsy seller, Etsy’s Seller Education team has decided to go to the source for help!

Etsy sellers are being invited to provide any advice or tips they have learned to the Seller Education team. Thos e tips will be added to the online handbook. The team had noticed that many sellers were sharing lots of great information through forums and other seller communities and thought it would be a great idea to get some of those tips on the site.

If you are an Etsy seller and have something to share for the handbook, please click here to find the submission form.


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Improve Your Listing Photos with This Free Tool

The photos of the items for your listings are a very important part of marketing your items. They represent your item first in terms of attracting customers to your listing. People often use the look of the item in the photo as a way of determining the condition of the item. With that in mind, I suggest that you may careful attention to the photos you take for your listings. Once that is done, you may need to do a few things to clean up the picture.

Adobe Photoshop is an expensive option for cleaning the images and making them more attractive to a potential buyer. At nearly $700 for the latest version, that software may not be the best option for the typical seller. Thankful, there is another tool that can help and it will not make that large a dent in your budget.

Fotofuze.com is an online image manipulation tool that can be used to clean up your listing photos. The free tool helps convert the photos to look as if they were taken by a professional. Below are a few before and after photos.

You take the photo, upload it to Fotofuze, highlight the item and its shadow, and process. The process takes less than a minute work. There is even an option to create 3D views of your product. The tool can be connected to Etsy (just choose this option when you sign up). With that connection, you can even enhance the photos on listings that are already live. It is hard to believe it but yes, this tool is free!

Take a look at this quick overview of how to use Fotofuze.




Click here to sign-up.


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How to Sell on Etsy – Part Two

Lisa, one of my coaching clients and an Etsy seller, continues her series on how to sell on Etsy.

Smart marketing on Etsy will significantly increase your chances for a sale. This article is designed to help you understand your marketing options and how to use them to your advantage. A Showcase is just one of the marketing services Etsy provides. There is a long list of general Showcase categories to choose from, for example jewelry. Each general category is broken out into a more specific category, for example earrings.

Customers are able to access the showcases through the Etsy home page. Because there are so many items and categories on Etsy, many customers choose to find items through the Showcases. The cost for a Showcase on Etsy is $7 for 24-hours. There are even more visible Showcases on Etsy that cost $15 for 24-hours, but I recommend you try the less expensive Showcases to start with.

There are a limited number of Showcase spots available for each day, so you will be seen by buyers, but it’s important to choose one of your most eye-catching items to use in your Showcase and excellent photos of your item are key to Showcase success. This will help ensure that buyers will be interested enough to click through on your item. Once they have clicked through, they are in your store. If the item they have clicked on doesn’t interest them, there is a good chance they will browse through your store increasing your chance of a sale.

Business cards are an inexpensive and relatively effective marketing tool. Be sure to send your business card or several business cards with every sale. Ask local businesses if they would allow you to put your business cards by the register. Some businesses even provide a bulletin board for local business owners to display their cards. While business cards shouldn’t be your only marketing tool, they are a great way to get your name out.

Today’s social media outlets are an incredible FREE way to market your Etsy business. Etsy even provides a tool that allows you to easily post every item you list to your Facebook page.

Tweet about your Etsy business on Twitter and add a link to your store. Since Twitter limits Tweets to 140 characters, you will want to take advantage of the FREE software available to shorten your url. This will leave you more room for your marketing copy. Tinyurl.com is one of many of these FREE software tools.

You can visit Lisa's Etsy store here.

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How to Sell on Etsy – Part One

Thanks to Lisa for submitting this guest post. If you have considered selling anything homemade, give Etsy a try in addition to selling on eBay.

Etsy is a terrific venue if you sell handcrafted items or craft supplies because Etsy is limited to just those categories. You have the advantage of a very targeted audience!

The down-side – the competition is quite fierce. Exceptional photos, unique, high quality items and creative marketing are your keys to success.

Below you will find the “basics” for getting started on Etsy.

An Esty shop is free. Shop set-up is fairly straightforward and Etsy makes it even easier by walking you through the process.

Once you have set up your shop, you can begin listing items. There are no auctions on Etsy.

The cost to list an item is 20 cents. If you have multiple of the same item, the cost is 20 cents per item, not per listing. Your listing is active for 4 months.

When an item sells, Etsy’s take is 3.5% of the selling price.

Sellers can accept Paypal, checks, money orders and any other forms of payment the seller has access to.

Feedback on Etsy is similar to eBay with the only exception being that sellers can leave negative feedback for buyers.

You can market your listings several ways on Etsy. Some are free and others come at a cost. There is no seller email marketing available on Etsy which makes social networking (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) extremely important marketing tools for Etsy sellers.

Billing on Etsy is monthly. Paying your bill is an easy manual process through Paypal. Etsy does not provide automatic withdrawal for bill payment.

Part One of How to Sell on Etsy should answer most of your basic questions and help you get started (etsy.com). Stay tuned for more details on marketing your Etsy shop and exciting tips and tricks for selling success in Part Two of How to Sell on Etsy.


Click here to visit Lisa's Etsy shop.

If you would like to submit a guest post, follow these guidelines and send it to me at ebaycoach@yahoo.com.

Limit your post to 300 words.
Topic must address selling online, eBay, or other helpful eCommerce tip.
Include a link to your website, blog, eBay store, Etsy store, etc.

Happy Selling!

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