My small business Etsy tip of the week!

Original thread on the Etsy forum


After so many of you beat down my door (about 2 or 3 to be fair) to offer a regular installment to help you improve your business and overall wealth, I'm going to start posting my tip of the week. It may not be anything revolutionary or earth shattering, but that's only because I want to fit in with the rest of the forum advice.

So without further delay- my tip of the week:

'Be yourself. Yes, you. Those little voices in your head aren't always right, but they'll quiet down a little of you do as they say. How does this relate to your business? Well, if you want to sell customized jars for folks to store their urine in- just go with it. You may not have instant success, but all you have to do is find your target market. I suggest group meetings at local mental institutions. 

In all seriousness though, inject your personality into your shop. Yes, yes, you've heard this from me before. But I'm saying it again cause you probably weren't paying attention that time. You probably got all distracted by the new and improved broken site change that Etsy had just rolled out.

You must be yourself so buyers will know you are the artist. They aren't buying mass produced items which they can get at their local Target. They are buying a piece of you. And by all means price yourself accordingly. Charge a fair hourly rate for yourself. All the other professionals who sell themselves do. It's smart to heed their long standing business strategy.

And if you don't want to be unique and would rather just play up to Etsy trends, by all means do that too. That's still you inserting your personality. It's just that your personality wants money and lots of it. I'm down with that.'