Ready to start your own Etsy shop?
Etsy can be an intimidating platform because it’s usually the first step crafters take from a local customer base to an international base. All of a sudden, you’re in the big leagues – you need to figure out SEO, how to ship products, how to market your items to someone who can’t physically see or touch it beforehand.
The good news is, if you haven’t opened an Etsy store yet, you can use my link to get 40 free listings. This gives you lots of opportunities to try out the platform without making an upfront financial investment (you’ll still have to pay the related fees when you sell your items, but this will be covered by the item’s purchase price.)
Resources to help your new Etsy business
There are also tons of great resources available to help you succeed. Etsy has a really comprehensive Seller Handbook which covers everything you need to know to sell on Etsy: SEO, best practices for photography, pricing, branding, shipping – it’s all there!
I highly recommend joining the Canadian Etsy Shop Support group on Facebook and read through their files. They have some great resources on setting your shop currency (I have mine set to USD), figuring out shipping, and helpful tips and tricks.
Another popular Facebook group is Etsy Canada Sellers, they’re very helpful if you have questions on getting things set up or how to handle a customer.
Once you’re signed up, you can join Etsy teams to help promote your items, ask questions and get feedback or advice. Two of the biggest Canadian Etsy teams are Canada Team and Etsy Canada but there are often smaller, local groups as well that are worth checking out.
Learn Etsy SEO and marketing
CreativeLive has a few Etsy videos on topics like getting started, SEO, and bookkeeping. If you keep an eye on their On Air videos, you can watch them for free on specific days. Sign up for an account so you can add them to your watchlist and get an e-mail reminder the day before so you don’t miss out.
Legal Stuff
Starting an Etsy shop is like starting any other business. You can check for local resources, like how to register your business, on this page: Starting a Business in Canada.
Depending on what you’re selling, there may be other regulations to follow, like packaging and labelling guidelines or textile labelling guidelines.
Shipping
Canada Post wrote a handy little how-to guide to getting your Etsy store started with some interesting links.
You can choose as few or as many countries to ship to as you like. I currently ship to Canada and the US, and about 90% of my sales are to Americans.
For shipping to the US, I use & highly recommend ChitChats, which actually makes it less expensive to mail to the US than within Canada via CP. You can try them out with my referral link and get $10 free postage. The downside of them is that locations are somewhat limited.
If you’re already selling on Etsy, I’d love to hear how you’re feeling about it! If you haven’t taken the plunge yet, what is holding you back?
If this post helped you out, I’d love if you could share it on Pinterest!
Hello & welcome!
I'm Shanley, the serial creative behind The Crafty Beaver blog. I'm a Canadian maker, mama, and coffee fiend.
This is a great article! One of the things missing from this article though are the sometimes outrageous fees Etsy charges! Selling on Etsy has it’s pros and cons. Most of the businesses I work with are surprised at the fees they pay to Etsy when I break it down for them using this etsy fees guide from Paperless Books (a bookkeeping service in Canada). The take home message that I give to my clients when I manage their bookkeeping is that, if they want to have more control over fees, they should invest in their own website and build a clientelle there. Otherwise enjoy the ton load of traffic that Etsy brings 🙂
Yes, great point, thanks for sharing this resource! I’ve seen many social media posts from people who are new to selling on Etsy and are surprised/confused by some of the fees. I still think it’s a great place for most sellers to start because of the low cost to list items and the amount of buyers using the platform. For an established business, having your own site certainly has many advantages though.
Just a heads-up, you seem to have misspelt Etsy as ETST in the banner image!