Selling on Etsy for Beginners – 6 months Update for Xiang Li Art (July 2024)
July 16, 2024 · Fei Wu
In February of this year, we started the Xiang Li art store on Etsy It has been 6 months since the store opened and we wanted to share with you our key insights and takeaways on the progress so far as beginner sellers on Etsy. We had also posted a blog previously (Etsy for Beginners) on this website right after we had opened the online store with our learnings from the initial stages of the process.
We would like to create these updates and reports on a monthly basis. If you’d like to follow along, please subscribe to our newsletter (in the footer of this blog post).
Selling on Etsy key Stats: Breaking it down in numbers
High-Level Stats on the Store’s Performance
We started the store with integration with POD platforms (Printify and Printful) with marketing through Etsy ads and social media (on Facebook and Instagram) by the Xiangliart team. Here are some of the key stats on the store’s performance:
- We opened the store with about 30 listings and gradually increased the total number of listings to 215 currently, which is approximately adding 9 listings/week
- Total number of visits to the store till date = 1976 (added about 90 visits/week)
- Total number of sales till date = 9 (approximately 1.5 sales/month, all US-based)
- Total of 71 shoppers favorited 62 of the shop listings till date
- Total number of shop followers till date = 16
These numbers clearly show that the fan club is growing. And it is also a confirmation that online shoppers are looking for uniquely designed artistic items like the ones on Xiangliart Etsy store. So there is progress, however not as fast as one would like it to be. We are being patient, learning something new every day given the ever-changing nature of e-commerce technology and trends, and applying lessons learnt as we go along. It is definitely NOT set it and forget it.
For managing and selling on an Etsy store (or any online store for that matter) and to continue to bring new and repeated customers, one has to be constantly evolving and tweaking the listing and marketing approach.
Key Stats on how online shoppers found Xiang Li Art Etsy store
Doing a deep dive into the key stats above from our Etsy Store account, we are able to understand what is working well vs. what needs improvement for the marketing approach.
What is working well:
- Etsy ads and Etsy app are working well in bringing traffic to the site (this includes Etsy Search through the app)
- The work we are putting into increasing the brand awareness of the Etsy store through the physical exhibitions, Xiang Li website, and online articles is also working in the right direction. (as you can see in the number for ‘Direct & other Traffic’ )
- Xiang Li has had three exhibitions for her original art this year in physical gallery spaces which has also contributed tremendously towards increasing awareness of her artwork and visits to her Etsy shop
What needs improvement:
- Etsy search (directly from Etsy.com website) – This low number here would be expected as more and more online shoppers are now shopping through the phone app
- Etsy marketing & SEO – According to Etsy – These are visits from traffic through Offsite Ads on Google and Bing or search engine optimization to drive more traffic to your shop from external channels. We need to do more research here to look into possible solutions to make Etsy marketing more effective for us
- Social media has brought in some traffic but the number in the table above shows that we could do better. As a next step, we are going to review our social media marketing approach and make changes to it accordingly
Tools and strategies that have helped us with finding ways to optimize ‘keywords’ tagging
As we mentioned in our previous blog post, tagging your listings with the right and relevant keywords is VERY important in getting visibility for your online store.
There are different tools and strategies that are available out there for store owners to use. Here we can share information about the two tools that have helped us in researching and optimizing the keywords tagging thus far.
- Etsy search analytics – easily available data in the Etsy Shop Manager
See below for a very small snapshot of the search query information from Etsy analytics for the Xiangliart store. These stats have helped us to identify some of the trending search queries that have led shoppers to our store. We use this information to tweak our tag words continuously.
- Everbee – a third-party Product Research and Marketing Platform that easily integrates with your Etsy store to give you insightful metrics on what is trending, how listings similar to yours sell on Etsy, the revenue, listing age etc. along with detailed metrics on the tag words used by those listings. One can use this information in many different ways. For example, you can use it to determine the existing competition on Etsy for a product like yours. You can then make informed decisions regarding whether you want to launch it or not. The analysis from this tool can be used very creatively and effectively to steer your product forward.
You can create an Everbee account for free but a monthly/yearly subscription is required to use its full analytics capability. In our opinion, it is a very worthwhile membership!
Hope these takeaways have been insightful and helpful for you. We will continue to provide you all with our update and insights as we go along. It is a fun and exciting journey, but patience and evolving continuously are highly desirable qualities for a successful journey!
This blog post has been a very helpful exercise for us as well to document and analyze our learnings and chart the way forward accordingly.
Please leave comments regarding anything you would like to share from your Etsy store experience or any other questions!
Tripti & Fei
About the author
Tripti Gore Chandorkar, the creator and writer behind “triptiji,” launched her blog to celebrate her passion for art, creative projects, and connections with family and friends. With a lifelong love for fine art and writing, Tripti has woven art into her daily life as an enthusiast and hobbyist. Seventeen years ago, her friend Fei Wu introduced her to the artwork of Xiang Li (Fei’s mom), a master artist showcased at xiangliart.com. Since then, Tripti has joined in contributing to Li’s blog, collaborating on designs, and participating in festivals, events, and gallery shows. Through “triptiji,” she shares her journey in the art world and her dedication to supporting other female artists.
More about Tripti