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Gift biz unwrapped episode 278.
Speaker:The key thing is to build a memorable shop,
Speaker:to make sure that you're building your brand.
Speaker:As you're building your store attention,
Speaker:gifters bakers,
Speaker:crafters, and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.
Speaker:Whether you have an established business or looking to start one.
Speaker:Now you are in the right place.
Speaker:This is gift to biz unwrapped,
Speaker:helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.
Speaker:Join us for an episode,
Speaker:packed full of invaluable guidance,
Speaker:resources, and the support you need to grow.
Speaker:Your gift biz.
Speaker:Here is your host gift biz gal Sue moon Heights.
Speaker:Hi there.
Speaker:It's Sue and it makes me so happy to have you
Speaker:here today.
Speaker:If this is your first time listening to the show,
Speaker:you've picked a great episode to begin with.
Speaker:We're covering the platform that started it all.
Speaker:We're handmade.
Speaker:E-commerce is concerned Etsy,
Speaker:but before we get to that,
Speaker:I want to make sure that you're aware of the Q
Speaker:and a sessions I have going on over in my Facebook
Speaker:group, gift biz breeze every Tuesday and Thursday at 1130 central.
Speaker:So that's 1230 Eastern,
Speaker:nine 30 Pacific.
Speaker:I'm answering your questions on starting and growing your business around
Speaker:your handmade products.
Speaker:There are three ways to submit a question you can ask
Speaker:live. If you're able to come on the show,
Speaker:right when it's Erin,
Speaker:you can put it in the comment section under my pinned
Speaker:post over in the group or through this super fun audio
Speaker:link. You'll find@giftbizunwrapped.com
Speaker:forward slash ask.
Speaker:So what you do there is you can record your message
Speaker:on the fly,
Speaker:no sending an email or even needing to show up,
Speaker:live for the show.
Speaker:Just let me know where you're stuck and let's get you
Speaker:moving forward.
Speaker:That recording link again is gift biz,
Speaker:unwrapped.com forward slash ask.
Speaker:And now the star of the day at sea,
Speaker:you are going to hear how to get started.
Speaker:Some of the common mistakes to avoid intricacies of Etsy that
Speaker:you need to know about that will lead to more sales
Speaker:and resources galore.
Speaker:This conversation is jam packed with valuable information.
Speaker:I'll have all the links mentioned over in the show notes
Speaker:page. So don't worry about capturing them while you're listening.
Speaker:What I want most is for you to consume the strategy
Speaker:and the overall system,
Speaker:the tools and the tech can come later.
Speaker:Are you ready?
Speaker:Let's dive into all things Etsy today.
Speaker:I am so excited to introduce you to Nancy by DDO.
Speaker:Nancy works with Etsy sellers who want to build a thriving
Speaker:Etsy business and embrace the and venture.
Speaker:She also helps current Etsy sellers scale their business by leveraging
Speaker:the power of branding and social media.
Speaker:Do you currently struggle with sales or have a hard time
Speaker:finding your target audience or you're passionate about your handmade products,
Speaker:but don't have a growth strategy in place for Etsy,
Speaker:or maybe you're right at the beginning,
Speaker:trying to decide if at T is right for you at
Speaker:all. We'll be diving into all of this today on the
Speaker:show. Nancy,
Speaker:welcome to the gift biz on wrapped podcast.
Speaker:Hi, I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker:Thank you for having me Sue.
Speaker:I really appreciate it.
Speaker:Okay. Thank you.
Speaker:And I've been,
Speaker:so looking forward to this conversation all about Etsy,
Speaker:but I'm delaying all of us just a little bit longer,
Speaker:cause I want you to share,
Speaker:what's become a tradition on the show.
Speaker:Here is a way of us knowing a little bit more
Speaker:about you by way of your description of a motivational candle.
Speaker:That's totally you.
Speaker:So if you were to say color and maybe a sane
Speaker:or some type of a quote or a mantra,
Speaker:what would your candle look like?
Speaker:So my candle will be white and the name of the
Speaker:candle will be kindness.
Speaker:And my mantra,
Speaker:or like the quote that I will pick is from Jim
Speaker:Carey. The effect you have another's is the most valuable currency
Speaker:there is.
Speaker:And that's like my favorite quote on how you treat others
Speaker:Is the most valuable currency.
Speaker:I totally agree with you.
Speaker:Well, I already loved the vibe and that's what we're going
Speaker:to do here.
Speaker:Right? We're going to treat others really well because we're going
Speaker:to share with them everything about Etsy.
Speaker:How about that?
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:Yes, But in time and give us a little bit of
Speaker:your history that led into Etsy.
Speaker:Oh, of course.
Speaker:So I've been in the digital space now for 11 years.
Speaker:And when I first started around 2009,
Speaker:when the recession hit and I lost my home,
Speaker:I was really young.
Speaker:I was like 23 years old.
Speaker:I lost my home and my job,
Speaker:they went on bankruptcy.
Speaker:So at that moment I have heard of people making money
Speaker:online. But back then the weren't the resources like we have
Speaker:now in days.
Speaker:So I really didn't know too many people in line.
Speaker:It wasn't like my field.
Speaker:So I started learning about how to make money online and
Speaker:I don't have the success story like everyone else does.
Speaker:Like some people do after one year,
Speaker:they started making a lot of money online.
Speaker:For me,
Speaker:it took years to make money online.
Speaker:But what I did was I did my regular job nine
Speaker:to five,
Speaker:and then I did my side hustle for 11 years basically.
Speaker:And I started learning about blogging.
Speaker:I started learning about creating a blog,
Speaker:flipping it and selling it.
Speaker:I started doing affiliate marketing.
Speaker:I went to a lot of different conferences on blogging,
Speaker:affiliate, marketing,
Speaker:social media,
Speaker:et cetera.
Speaker:And I almost self taught myself how to do all of
Speaker:these things online.
Speaker:And I had to pretty much start from scratch and teach
Speaker:myself in the beginning.
Speaker:Everything I knew,
Speaker:I failed a lot to be quite honest.
Speaker:I feel more than more than success in my life.
Speaker:In 2015,
Speaker:I got married to my husband.
Speaker:The year before that I got engaged and someone mentioned,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:you should buy stuff on XC.
Speaker:They have handmade products for your wedding.
Speaker:And before that,
Speaker:I don't recall ever hearing about exi,
Speaker:always the blogging for the market and other stuff,
Speaker:but e-commerce was something that I never thought I could do
Speaker:because I wasn't crafty and I didn't know how to make
Speaker:stuff. So I never thought about that field.
Speaker:And because I was already in the digital space,
Speaker:like I said earlier,
Speaker:I was a digital marketer and I already knew about products
Speaker:and services.
Speaker:I started noticing when I went shopping in there for my
Speaker:own wedding,
Speaker:all these stores were making a killing on digital products and
Speaker:digital product.
Speaker:For those that are listening is basically something you buy,
Speaker:you download and the person doesn't send you anything physically.
Speaker:So I went and bought like a wedding sign and a
Speaker:couple other things for my wedding.
Speaker:And I remember paying $65.
Speaker:I got all these beautiful items and I'm the one that's
Speaker:gonna edit the file.
Speaker:I'm the one that's going to go ahead and take it
Speaker:to Kinko's to get printed.
Speaker:And my light bulb went up and I was like,
Speaker:huh, I had an aha moment.
Speaker:And I was like,
Speaker:I wonder if I could start an Etsy store.
Speaker:And because I wasn't experienced,
Speaker:like I said,
Speaker:with anything e-commerce or digital products or crafty,
Speaker:I actually started selling quotes with word.
Speaker:So I would type in a quote using word document.
Speaker:I would save it as a JPEG.
Speaker:I built my first store.
Speaker:I did it as a case study for my blog on
Speaker:how to make money on ECC.
Speaker:And luckily the first year without experience and with tons of
Speaker:mistakes, I made a little bit over 21,000
Speaker:on Axiom.
Speaker:That's kind of how it started with XD and me.
Speaker:I really liked that you shared your story because I think
Speaker:your story is more similar to how lots of people start
Speaker:out. You know?
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:let's face it.
Speaker:There are those stories where someone goes on and makes a
Speaker:killing right away.
Speaker:But there are more people like you and I who try
Speaker:something, you kind of stumble into things.
Speaker:Exactly. That's how I feel.
Speaker:Yeah. Like if first off,
Speaker:if the recession would have never happened,
Speaker:you might've been on a totally different course.
Speaker:You have to follow your path.
Speaker:And honestly,
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:people who have listened to me for awhile,
Speaker:no, this is how I feel.
Speaker:But so Nancy,
Speaker:this is kind of with you and me just talking is
Speaker:I'm not a proponent of people just quitting everything they're doing
Speaker:and going all in with all the stress and the financial
Speaker:risks. I like what you did,
Speaker:where you were building it up on the side.
Speaker:And even though it took longer,
Speaker:it had to be so much calmer a progression.
Speaker:Exactly. I always talk about that as well.
Speaker:Exactly. I agree with you Again,
Speaker:I'm going to say,
Speaker:and this is more for people who haven't been hanging out
Speaker:here for a while is if you do have a nine
Speaker:to five right now,
Speaker:that doesn't mean you can't start working on your business now
Speaker:and you also don't have to feel bad that you're doing
Speaker:both like that side hustle,
Speaker:in my opinion is a much easier way to get started
Speaker:because you don't have all the stress of having to make
Speaker:all this money right away.
Speaker:Exactly. I totally agree.
Speaker:So I totally get the progression.
Speaker:So you were blogging and then you were getting married.
Speaker:You went over to Etsy.
Speaker:Oh, I also really like how you were testing everything out
Speaker:and then documenting over on your blog.
Speaker:Yes. I would do a lot of different posts on how
Speaker:to make money online.
Speaker:So that's what at the moment was what was driving more
Speaker:traffic to my site because there are other people like myself
Speaker:trying to make money online.
Speaker:So I would try different things and I would just share
Speaker:my experiences.
Speaker:Okay. And are,
Speaker:do you have a presence on Etsy right now?
Speaker:Yes, I do.
Speaker:Okay. And where's your store?
Speaker:The main store that I use now is called Nancy marketing
Speaker:tools. Okay.
Speaker:And what would we see if we went there?
Speaker:One is more meant for ECC sellers and business resources and
Speaker:I'm in the stages of rebranding it again.
Speaker:But that is more for just anyone out there that has
Speaker:a small business or you're an ECC seller.
Speaker:You'll find resources for your business.
Speaker:Got it.
Speaker:Okay. So now let's talk at T specifically,
Speaker:there are so many platforms now out there at T used
Speaker:to be the only one,
Speaker:like if you were looking for handmade,
Speaker:pretty much everybody knew to go to it.
Speaker:Yes, exactly.
Speaker:There a trend starters.
Speaker:Yeah. They started everything.
Speaker:Where is it today?
Speaker:What would you say in terms of the positioning of everyone
Speaker:that's out there?
Speaker:Where does that see fall today?
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:they're doing pretty good.
Speaker:Their stocks are really high right now.
Speaker:This is the highest I've ever been there.
Speaker:Like a bottle,
Speaker:$106 per stock.
Speaker:I own a couple of stocks.
Speaker:So I keep track on that.
Speaker:I kind of figured as much.
Speaker:No, they're doing pretty good ECC.
Speaker:It's a great marketplace for anyone wanting to start a business.
Speaker:Doesn't cost a lot to start your very own business on
Speaker:Etsy. And it's a great marketplace for anyone out there that
Speaker:is very crafty and know how to create things that are
Speaker:handmade. You can also sell vintage and supplies,
Speaker:but it is a great platform for just about any niche,
Speaker:especially if you have something very unique to sell as well.
Speaker:Okay. Why should somebody choose?
Speaker:Let's say Etsy over Amazon handmade or some other platform online.
Speaker:What does that ti have?
Speaker:That's different.
Speaker:I think what ECC is,
Speaker:when you shop on Amazon,
Speaker:you never say I got this from the store called Nancy
Speaker:marketing tools,
Speaker:right? You say Amazon,
Speaker:somebody asks you,
Speaker:what did you get that you normally would say,
Speaker:Amazon, when you buy an XC,
Speaker:it's a little bit different because the experience is who you
Speaker:bought it from.
Speaker:And then people will say,
Speaker:okay, I got it from this seller.
Speaker:Her store name is,
Speaker:this is her store name.
Speaker:Make sure that you visit her.
Speaker:It's more the way that they have,
Speaker:you have a store,
Speaker:you could share your personal story.
Speaker:You could have a voice,
Speaker:the tools and resources that they give you so you could
Speaker:grow your business.
Speaker:They are amazing.
Speaker:So it's more of a platform where you are a unique
Speaker:feller versus Amazon.
Speaker:I feel is more like you are behind Amazon.
Speaker:So I think if you go To Amazon and I'm keep
Speaker:telling everybody,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:I'm doing this series of multiple platforms here and I'm keep
Speaker:telling everybody,
Speaker:I want you to hear all about all the platforms.
Speaker:And then you decide which one or more are right for
Speaker:you, right?
Speaker:Because all the platforms have pros and cons.
Speaker:I feel,
Speaker:I do agree with you.
Speaker:And I think that one thing I always try to teach
Speaker:everyone is okay.
Speaker:XC is really great for branding yourself as a business owner,
Speaker:but don't stop there,
Speaker:especially with what I sell.
Speaker:I sell digital products.
Speaker:So digital products,
Speaker:once you make them one time,
Speaker:you just open loading and keep selling them and selling them,
Speaker:you don't have to keep redoing the work.
Speaker:So the Gordon thing about digital products is you.
Speaker:If you really want it to have multiple incomes of streams,
Speaker:well, you could essentially do to be quite honest,
Speaker:is maybe built your brand on XC,
Speaker:but still have an Amazon handmade.
Speaker:They'll go to Shopify and have your website there and kinda
Speaker:like venture out in different platforms because you're selling a digital
Speaker:product. Once you create it,
Speaker:you did all the work already.
Speaker:Okay? So on Etsy,
Speaker:digital products are still considered handmade products.
Speaker:It's not just for physical handmade.
Speaker:Exactly. It's also for digital handmade.
Speaker:So this is a really important point.
Speaker:I think you guys is,
Speaker:as you look at multiple streams of income,
Speaker:regardless of what you make,
Speaker:okay, is there a way that you could add a digital
Speaker:element to it as well?
Speaker:Maybe you make beaded jewelry and you could put a tutorial
Speaker:together to show someone how to do one of the very
Speaker:simple designs of beaded jewelry,
Speaker:for example.
Speaker:And you could sell that online and just like Nancy saying,
Speaker:you make it wine to build it.
Speaker:Once it's now a product.
Speaker:And guess what different than your jewelry that you make,
Speaker:you don't have to have supplies.
Speaker:There's no production cost it's already done.
Speaker:This is something to think about as you're strategically considering how
Speaker:you're growing your business.
Speaker:Exactly. And you could do it with so many different types
Speaker:of niches.
Speaker:Like you said,
Speaker:jewelry, if you do knitting,
Speaker:you could do a medium pattern of what you knit it.
Speaker:Right? And you could sell that as a download,
Speaker:like a PDF,
Speaker:showing somebody how to make a hat,
Speaker:something that's simple,
Speaker:and you can sell them like for $5 and create a
Speaker:digital product out of it is really,
Speaker:really cool.
Speaker:So I'm feeling like getting back to this idea of Amazon
Speaker:handmade versus Etsy.
Speaker:When somebody goes to Amazon,
Speaker:they're specifically looking for a certain type of product for the
Speaker:most part.
Speaker:So maybe they're looking for pink baby blankets,
Speaker:right? Yes.
Speaker:And probably not looking as much for the store,
Speaker:but when they go to Etsy,
Speaker:I think they probably look product specific,
Speaker:but once they link into the store or they saw you
Speaker:on Facebook and they know about your Etsy store or your
Speaker:Instagram link is heading people to the Etsy store,
Speaker:which I see a lot,
Speaker:then they know you by store name.
Speaker:So they also look for your shop specifically.
Speaker:Yes, exactly.
Speaker:And another thing you said is the whole personalization.
Speaker:That's another big key factor that I didn't mention is that
Speaker:with ECC,
Speaker:you could pretty much get anything customized.
Speaker:And that's why it's great for people that are getting married
Speaker:or for baby showers for things like that.
Speaker:Because you could literally just send someone a picture and say,
Speaker:Hey, you know,
Speaker:I'm thinking of something like this,
Speaker:or you could go to a store and 90% of their
Speaker:products you could personalize.
Speaker:And that's the great thing about buying on Etsy as well.
Speaker:You get something very unique and different.
Speaker:And again,
Speaker:I think with a lot of these platforms,
Speaker:particularly at sea,
Speaker:if people don't know you from the beginning,
Speaker:it's a great way for people just to learn and find
Speaker:out about you as a maker in total.
Speaker:Because a lot of people just,
Speaker:aren't going to know you're there.
Speaker:When you're at craft shows,
Speaker:you're only limited to someone who walks the show.
Speaker:When you're on Facebook,
Speaker:you're limited to the people who are liking your page or
Speaker:part of your group.
Speaker:If they even see your posts,
Speaker:because we know all the issues with social media,
Speaker:right? But this is just another channel where you can become
Speaker:discovered with your product because your products would show up.
Speaker:And the platform is so big on Etsy.
Speaker:And I think the last statistics I saw was that both
Speaker:buyers and sellers were continually growing.
Speaker:Yes, they are.
Speaker:This has grown so much.
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:one of the key things now is that a lot of
Speaker:people worry about,
Speaker:well, how am I going to stand out in a saturated
Speaker:market when there's so many stores selling similar products?
Speaker:And the key thing is to build a memorable shop,
Speaker:to make sure that you're building your brand as you're building
Speaker:your store,
Speaker:because it's growing so much that in 2016,
Speaker:you could upload something.
Speaker:And most likely within a month after uploading a couple of
Speaker:listings, you'll start getting some traction.
Speaker:It is getting a little bit harder because there's so many
Speaker:people joining the platform.
Speaker:Okay. I'm glad you addressed that because I have had a
Speaker:lot of people say to me that they're not getting the
Speaker:results from Etsy,
Speaker:that they did five years ago,
Speaker:for example.
Speaker:Well, perhaps they're not because they're still doing the same thing
Speaker:that they did five years ago.
Speaker:Yeah. And that's what Forms change over time.
Speaker:So when you talk about a memorable shop,
Speaker:can you go deeper with that?
Speaker:Oh, what types of things would people do to make their
Speaker:shop memorable?
Speaker:Of course,
Speaker:the first thing is the branding is really important.
Speaker:Making sure that you have a brand,
Speaker:like when people look at your different listings,
Speaker:if they were to see them separately in the search feed,
Speaker:would they recognize that this is from that one store,
Speaker:Nancy marketing tools?
Speaker:Would they recognize you as a brand?
Speaker:Because once you get recognized as a brand and people start
Speaker:noticing who you are,
Speaker:then you could charge even premium prices and even raise your
Speaker:prices up as well.
Speaker:So that's one key element.
Speaker:The second key element is,
Speaker:especially when you're first starting out is to micromanage down.
Speaker:A lot of people feel like if they micro niche,
Speaker:that they're not going to get sales,
Speaker:that they need to sell a whole bunch of different things.
Speaker:They feel like they need to sell mugs and tots and
Speaker:principals and keychains and a whole bunch of different varieties.
Speaker:But when you do that,
Speaker:you actually confuse yourself as well as your target audience.
Speaker:Like you don't really know who is your target audience,
Speaker:because you got like 10 different people that you're trying to
Speaker:sell to.
Speaker:So when you try to sell to everyone,
Speaker:you sell to no one,
Speaker:you have to make sure that you niche down and stick
Speaker:with that for a little bit,
Speaker:to see if you start getting some traction and your audience
Speaker:eventually will tell you the things that they want from you.
Speaker:And once you start branding initial down,
Speaker:people will start telling you,
Speaker:Hey, you should have this on your store,
Speaker:or this will be cool if you have this.
Speaker:And then you create a robust line around those products.
Speaker:And then once you have a brand,
Speaker:then you can start adding different elements of different things,
Speaker:as long as it's related to your niche.
Speaker:But that's the best way to kind of start a brand
Speaker:and grow.
Speaker:And the third thing is don't rely on XC alone.
Speaker:Don't rely on the traffic of ECC because keep in mind
Speaker:that 2016 and 2020 is four years different.
Speaker:Imagine all the stores and all the people that are adding
Speaker:new stores every single day.
Speaker:So organically,
Speaker:you might not get found because there's so many people you're
Speaker:competing with.
Speaker:So the only way to stand out on monster your competitors
Speaker:and get that consistent traffic all the time is by leveraging
Speaker:branding and leveraging social media and email marketing,
Speaker:which is a big thing that many people don't do on
Speaker:ECC. As one of the one thing that I do frequently
Speaker:on my YouTube channel.
Speaker:And that's the number one thing I noticed,
Speaker:no one is collecting emails.
Speaker:They're not practicing email marketing,
Speaker:which is really important for you to get that repeated customer,
Speaker:to build your brand and most more,
Speaker:right? Like targeting on Facebook and doing other things with that.
Speaker:But you have to think outside of ECC,
Speaker:you can't just create a store overload,
Speaker:a couple listings and just wait for the traffic and the
Speaker:money to come in.
Speaker:And it doesn't work that way.
Speaker:You have to drive your own traffic back to your store,
Speaker:whatever you get from ECC,
Speaker:from the building traffic that they provide you.
Speaker:That's great,
Speaker:but that should be extra.
Speaker:You should be driving your own traffic using other sources.
Speaker:Absolutely. I mean,
Speaker:it's kind of similar to,
Speaker:if you build a website,
Speaker:of course,
Speaker:people think that,
Speaker:Oh, well,
Speaker:if I build a website and then they sit and they
Speaker:wait for the sales to come in,
Speaker:well, that doesn't happen because nobody knows the website even exists
Speaker:or Kirkland.
Speaker:So I think with Etsy,
Speaker:there's a little bit more advantage because you might be found
Speaker:in search.
Speaker:We have that built in audience already.
Speaker:Yeah, it's possible.
Speaker:And that's also why it was working so much better earlier
Speaker:because not so many people were on the platform yet.
Speaker:Just like I was saying a little bit ago,
Speaker:like the link in your Instagram bio,
Speaker:if you're doing a Facebook live about a certain product,
Speaker:then you say,
Speaker:go visit my Etsy shop.
Speaker:If you don't have a website yet.
Speaker:So absolutely.
Speaker:And talking it up everywhere.
Speaker:I totally agree with you with that.
Speaker:What mistakes do you see people doing on Etsy?
Speaker:We'll get into these mistakes right after a quick break.
Speaker:Yes. It's possible.
Speaker:Increase your sales without adding a single customer.
Speaker:How you ask by offering personalization with your products,
Speaker:wrap a cake box with a ribbon saying happy 30th birthday,
Speaker:Annie, or at a special message and date to wedding or
Speaker:party favors for an extra meaningful touch.
Speaker:Where else can you get customization with a creatively spelled name
Speaker:or find packaging?
Speaker:That includes a saying whose meaning is known to a select
Speaker:to not only our customers willing to pay for these special
Speaker:touches. They'll tell their friends and word will spread about your
Speaker:company and products.
Speaker:You can create personalized ribbons and labels in seconds.
Speaker:Make just one or thousands without waiting weeks or having to
Speaker:spend money to order yards and yards print words in any
Speaker:language or font,
Speaker:add logos,
Speaker:images, even photos,
Speaker:perfect for branding or adding ingredient and flavor labels.
Speaker:To for more information,
Speaker:go to the ribbon print company.com.
Speaker:You know,
Speaker:I think because it's social easy platform to sign up,
Speaker:you don't have to pay thousands of dollars to start a
Speaker:business on vaccine.
Speaker:People treat it like a hobby and not like a real
Speaker:business. They upload once in a while,
Speaker:they don't have their rules.
Speaker:They don't have their about me.
Speaker:Story filled out.
Speaker:They don't even have a logo.
Speaker:They're not constantly fixing their store.
Speaker:I'm constantly changing it.
Speaker:Trying to think of,
Speaker:okay, I did this six months from now and look at
Speaker:it. I'm like,
Speaker:ah, I could make it look better.
Speaker:Right? So I'm constantly trying to fix it.
Speaker:That's what I said in the beginning.
Speaker:I'm rebranding my whole store right now to make it look
Speaker:better. And I'm removing stuff.
Speaker:It's a constant work.
Speaker:It's not just creating the store and just sitting there and
Speaker:be like,
Speaker:okay, I guess I'll just wait for the money to come
Speaker:in. But they treat it as a hobby.
Speaker:They don't treat it as a real business.
Speaker:And then I have people they'll tell me,
Speaker:Hey, I'm not getting any sales.
Speaker:I'll go do an audit of their store.
Speaker:They don't have SEO done.
Speaker:They have one image instead of using all 10 images to
Speaker:showcase your product,
Speaker:they have no bio.
Speaker:They have no pictures like blank.
Speaker:It looks like an incomplete store when you're shopping as a
Speaker:buyer. And you're going to a store that doesn't have a
Speaker:logo. You go to the listing description to read why you're
Speaker:getting it.
Speaker:Doesn't have anything in there.
Speaker:You're like,
Speaker:um, okay,
Speaker:I'm going to go to the next door.
Speaker:You lose people.
Speaker:You're not engaging those people.
Speaker:Or I always tell people your photo is what grabs the
Speaker:person's attention,
Speaker:right? It was makes them want to click it,
Speaker:compels them to learn more about who you are as a
Speaker:brand. Your listing description is what gives them the feeling of,
Speaker:Oh, okay.
Speaker:This is all I need to know about whatever they're buying.
Speaker:I feel comfortable and helps them make an informed decision of
Speaker:whether they want to proceed with the order.
Speaker:And the SCO is how they found during the first place.
Speaker:All of them combined together help you,
Speaker:not just doing SEO and having bad photos,
Speaker:not crafting a great listing description,
Speaker:but you didn't optimize it for SEO.
Speaker:Or maybe you have great photos,
Speaker:but you didn't do the other two things.
Speaker:Everything collectively works together to help you reach more people and
Speaker:hopefully get more sales,
Speaker:which is the ultimate goal.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:And I think that is one challenge on the platform overall,
Speaker:not just unique to Etsy,
Speaker:but potentially other places as well is that you are going
Speaker:to have some hobbyists there just because that's,
Speaker:he is known for handmade.
Speaker:So you might have some teenagers who are throwing some product
Speaker:up on Etsy.
Speaker:It's kind of a business,
Speaker:not really that kind of thing.
Speaker:But if you're really there with serious business intent,
Speaker:this can't be a Friday afternoon project.
Speaker:You throw up some information,
Speaker:hope for some sales,
Speaker:see if it works and then either say yes or no,
Speaker:or kind of forget about it,
Speaker:right. If you're really serious,
Speaker:you've got to do everything.
Speaker:Like you just mentioned,
Speaker:Nancy, filling it all out,
Speaker:getting educated on the platform,
Speaker:making sure that,
Speaker:so when people come,
Speaker:they really understand that it is a serious business.
Speaker:Exactly. And treat it like a real business.
Speaker:Like even if you didn't spend a lot of money to
Speaker:start it up,
Speaker:it just treated it like a real business when you do.
Speaker:But like you said,
Speaker:you will learn a lot.
Speaker:You will grow in the platform.
Speaker:It will teach you a lot of valuable lessons and you're
Speaker:going to make mistakes.
Speaker:We all make mistakes.
Speaker:Especially in the beginning,
Speaker:the key is pushing through them and keep learning and growing
Speaker:You. And I talked,
Speaker:I don't know if it was by comment already while we
Speaker:were recording or when we were pre chatting.
Speaker:But we did talk a little bit about the fact that
Speaker:you also still,
Speaker:at some point,
Speaker:want your own website that you own so they can work
Speaker:in tandem with each other.
Speaker:How does that work?
Speaker:So let's say someone starts and I think a lot of
Speaker:people like it's the easier option because the platform is so
Speaker:well built out already shopping carts,
Speaker:integrated like all of that.
Speaker:So most people would probably start with some type of an
Speaker:e-commerce spot on Etsy,
Speaker:right? Yeah.
Speaker:I would recommend to start with ECC first.
Speaker:So you could kind of like get started,
Speaker:like you said,
Speaker:it's a lot easier and people do tend to get overwhelmed.
Speaker:Having just even thinking about having a blog because they don't
Speaker:know really where to start.
Speaker:However, the great thing about now in days is that there's
Speaker:so many great resources that you could find to learn how
Speaker:to build a site,
Speaker:or you go hire someone if you have the budget,
Speaker:obviously. But the first thing I would say is start with
Speaker:your ECC store.
Speaker:And once you have built it up that you have a
Speaker:lot of listings,
Speaker:you completed everything.
Speaker:I do think that it's very necessary to have a blog
Speaker:or website.
Speaker:Let's call it a website,
Speaker:a website.
Speaker:I always recommend WordPress.
Speaker:I feel like you could start with like Wix or one
Speaker:of these platforms are very easy to start with over time.
Speaker:You'll I'll grow that platform.
Speaker:And I personally like WordPress,
Speaker:because you could do so much,
Speaker:it's an open platform.
Speaker:You can pretty much customize it anywhere you want in the
Speaker:beginning. Yes.
Speaker:It will be a learning curve,
Speaker:but in the long run,
Speaker:you'll be so thankful that you're with them.
Speaker:But whatever platform you choose,
Speaker:just have a website outside of ECC.
Speaker:Absolutely. For numerous reasons.
Speaker:Exit could unfortunately suspend your account.
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:there's countless people that I have a video on YouTube about
Speaker:your account being suspended.
Speaker:I guess so many people that tell me,
Speaker:Nancy, you mentioned in the video,
Speaker:ECC only suspense accounts based on one,
Speaker:two, three.
Speaker:I didn't do any of those things in my account got
Speaker:suspended and it's been happening a lot lately.
Speaker:I've no idea why majority of these people follow me.
Speaker:They're great people.
Speaker:I know their products.
Speaker:So it is a little nerve wracking to know that it
Speaker:could happen to anyone,
Speaker:including myself,
Speaker:that they could say,
Speaker:okay, the store broke some type of policy.
Speaker:Maybe you use one word that's trademark or something.
Speaker:Not sure,
Speaker:but they have been getting stores shut down.
Speaker:For some reason it happens,
Speaker:I guess.
Speaker:But if you have your own website,
Speaker:you don't lose everything.
Speaker:That's one main reason that many people start a website on
Speaker:the side,
Speaker:you shouldn't start it because of the premises of my storm.
Speaker:I get suspended.
Speaker:You should start it because of the premises that you're trying
Speaker:to build a real business,
Speaker:you're trying to grow.
Speaker:And with a website,
Speaker:you could sell your product there.
Speaker:You could grow your email list a lot easier than ECC
Speaker:because we XC.
Speaker:One of the cons is that when you're collecting emails,
Speaker:you're allowed to do so,
Speaker:but you have to put a link where people have to
Speaker:copy that link,
Speaker:put it in the browser,
Speaker:head over to your email.
Speaker:Sign up is not a clickable link because it's outside of
Speaker:ECC. So therefore a lot of people are not going to
Speaker:like copy and paste.
Speaker:Unfortunately, unless they really wanted this con or whatever you're offering
Speaker:for free.
Speaker:They make it a lot harder on the website.
Speaker:You could have little popups,
Speaker:you could track people.
Speaker:You could collect that email and tell Facebook,
Speaker:Hey, I want to show I'm running a sales on my
Speaker:Ziad. I want you to show my products to these people
Speaker:that already engage with my brand,
Speaker:that I know the likelihood of them buying is a lot
Speaker:higher. So there's so many things you could do with a
Speaker:blog. In addition to that,
Speaker:having a website,
Speaker:you will have a section for blogging because now you can
Speaker:reach more people by providing value.
Speaker:If you provide valuable content around what you fell,
Speaker:that's the quickest way to grow your brand and drive more
Speaker:traffic using the power of Google.
Speaker:Totally agree.
Speaker:And we do have it's either before or after this episode,
Speaker:I don't remember where it falls in the scheme of things,
Speaker:but we are going to be reviewing Shopify also,
Speaker:which for product based businesses,
Speaker:I think is a great option.
Speaker:So WordPress or Shopify are great options,
Speaker:but having that website,
Speaker:you can see how Nancy's talking.
Speaker:It serves different purposes and there's value to both of them
Speaker:and they can work well together.
Speaker:Exactly. There's so many things now in day,
Speaker:there's a plugin that I use.
Speaker:I'm also an ambassador for them just to kind of as
Speaker:a disclaimer,
Speaker:but it's a plugin it's called WordPress three 60.
Speaker:And it's really nice because it takes about 10 minutes to
Speaker:use you use it in your WordPress site.
Speaker:And what it does is integrates your XC store to your
Speaker:actual website.
Speaker:And when people are shopping on your website,
Speaker:if they end up buying something,
Speaker:they add it to the cart and now it redirects them
Speaker:back to ECC because that's the only way it works.
Speaker:And it's nice because if they never heard of your brand
Speaker:and they added to cart,
Speaker:it will take them to ECC.
Speaker:So they will feel a little bit more at ease of
Speaker:buying. So that's another thing that you could do.
Speaker:There's more plugins out there.
Speaker:I'm sure,
Speaker:but that's the one that I would recommend using.
Speaker:I have it in my own website and it's just really
Speaker:nice flow of things that you could actually promote your products
Speaker:because on XC,
Speaker:when you send traffic,
Speaker:let's say you do Pinterest or you use a Facebook ad
Speaker:or just organic traffic that you're sending back to your store.
Speaker:When they click on your listing.
Speaker:If they scroll down to read your listing description,
Speaker:to get acclimated with your listing,
Speaker:if they go a little bit too low on the page,
Speaker:on the bottom,
Speaker:it has your competitors,
Speaker:the actually lists your competitors on the bottom of the page.
Speaker:So you're driving the traffic to ECC,
Speaker:but you have the chance that they might actually leave your
Speaker:store and click on someone else's listing.
Speaker:Versus when you have a website,
Speaker:you could drive them to your actual website,
Speaker:whether you have a plugin or not,
Speaker:maybe you just sell your e-commerce stuff there as well,
Speaker:but they're staying there and there's no other competition.
Speaker:So that's another great benefit of having your website as well,
Speaker:Multiple avenues to be able to buy your product,
Speaker:I think is the overall thing.
Speaker:And I think in my mind heard a couple of listeners
Speaker:gasp like,
Speaker:Ooh, my competitors are going to show up,
Speaker:but guess what?
Speaker:You could also then be showing up on other people's stores
Speaker:if they scroll down to the bottom.
Speaker:So it works both ways.
Speaker:It goes both ways.
Speaker:And you could look at that in your stats.
Speaker:I get so many sales from other pages as well.
Speaker:Like you said,
Speaker:it's not such a negative thing,
Speaker:but it is one thing that many people are concerned is
Speaker:one of the trending topics that people tell me.
Speaker:So I always tell them both sides,
Speaker:like having a website will help you with that as well.
Speaker:But like you just mentioned a valid point.
Speaker:It doesn't always is a bad thing because people do find
Speaker:my listings based on other people's results,
Speaker:which is great as well.
Speaker:Right now let's just stay focused on Etsy.
Speaker:Okay. If someone hasn't started yet,
Speaker:and they're thinking about starting an Etsy shop,
Speaker:can you walk through what they would expect to see as
Speaker:they got started?
Speaker:So where would they go?
Speaker:I'm guessing they'd head over to Etsy and look for a
Speaker:button somewhere that says create a stores.
Speaker:Yes. If you go to ecc.com,
Speaker:I believe on the corner on the top,
Speaker:right corner is gonna have ask you to register.
Speaker:If you want to register a storm,
Speaker:Do they need to be registered already as an official business
Speaker:to open a show?
Speaker:No, they don't.
Speaker:You don't need a business license to start an Etsy store.
Speaker:All you need to do is pretty much go to ecc.com
Speaker:on the top right corner and have like a little button
Speaker:that says sign in.
Speaker:But if you don't have an account,
Speaker:you just on the right top corner,
Speaker:you click on,
Speaker:sign in and then you'll see another button that says register.
Speaker:And if you click there,
Speaker:then you'll be able to go ahead and proceed with opening
Speaker:or creating your account with access.
Speaker:Okay. Another question,
Speaker:I'm going to try not to interrupt you all the time,
Speaker:but I am again right now,
Speaker:if you have purchased on Etsy already,
Speaker:so you probably created an account through the purchasing experience.
Speaker:Would you log into that same account and then take it
Speaker:from there?
Speaker:Yes. You will log in through the same account and take
Speaker:it from there.
Speaker:Exactly. Okay.
Speaker:If you logged in as a person versus your business,
Speaker:like I have different email addresses for my different companies and
Speaker:then also a personal email address.
Speaker:Would there be any value to me keeping them separate?
Speaker:So like anytime I'm buying,
Speaker:I would just be my personal email,
Speaker:but then I wanted to set up my Etsy account as
Speaker:Sue at,
Speaker:and then my business name.
Speaker:Would there be any reason to do it that way?
Speaker:Yeah, I think it's better if you keep a separate,
Speaker:because a lot of people use one email account for everything
Speaker:like personal and business,
Speaker:but you want to start with the mentality that this is
Speaker:a business account,
Speaker:right? This is a business that you want to essentially grow.
Speaker:So it just better to have a separate.
Speaker:So you don't mix personal with business together.
Speaker:Okay. Okay.
Speaker:So two options,
Speaker:like, you know,
Speaker:sometimes, especially if someone's just starting and this is my recommendation
Speaker:to everybody,
Speaker:you may not for sure be settled into even your company
Speaker:name yet.
Speaker:You know,
Speaker:if you're starting to test products,
Speaker:test the waters,
Speaker:you know how we were talking about,
Speaker:you're not sure which products might be the most popular and
Speaker:to niche down.
Speaker:Yeah. So you could potentially open a shop.
Speaker:I'm thinking you might tell me no Nancy,
Speaker:but you might want to hold off on formalizing names and
Speaker:emails until you really feel solid on what you're doing.
Speaker:And you've gotten some traction and you know,
Speaker:that it's work.
Speaker:Yeah. I'm not against that.
Speaker:But because when people tell me why,
Speaker:I don't really know what I want to start with.
Speaker:One of the other advice I give is,
Speaker:okay, so the first thing you could do is you could
Speaker:just start selling random things and kind of see what people
Speaker:are engaging with,
Speaker:what people are interacting with.
Speaker:But once you find the products that are doing really well,
Speaker:then you want to go ahead and eliminate all the other
Speaker:stuff. So in the beginning,
Speaker:yeah, I do agree with you.
Speaker:You could kind of start it.
Speaker:You don't have to formalize everything.
Speaker:You could just start with different things.
Speaker:Test the waters,
Speaker:see what's worked for you.
Speaker:And then later on,
Speaker:say, okay,
Speaker:this is going to be the business name.
Speaker:This is going to be this.
Speaker:And kind of set it up as you go Rename a
Speaker:shop after you've called it something.
Speaker:Or would you create a whole new yeah,
Speaker:No, you could rename the shop.
Speaker:I don't necessarily think you should recreate a whole new one.
Speaker:Perfect. Okay.
Speaker:So lots of flexibility there.
Speaker:Okay. And you could always do something like Nancy designs that
Speaker:way. You're not like niching so much.
Speaker:And I say Nancy wedding designs,
Speaker:and then later on,
Speaker:you're not sending weddings since we're kind of keep it open
Speaker:as well,
Speaker:if you want it to the name.
Speaker:Okay. Okay.
Speaker:So we're creating a shop.
Speaker:What happens then?
Speaker:Well, once you create your shop,
Speaker:I recommend using there's a tool called
free to sign up.
Speaker:They do have a pro version.
Speaker:I believe it's $10.
Speaker:I signed up with them a couple years ago,
Speaker:so it's $10 a month.
Speaker:Hopefully it's still the same price.
Speaker:And with E rank,
Speaker:you're able to plug in your store.
Speaker:Once you create your store,
Speaker:you're able to plug in your store.
Speaker:And it's such a wonderful tool because it helps you to
Speaker:do market research.
Speaker:You're able to see top sellers by category,
Speaker:by country.
Speaker:You're able to do keyword research.
Speaker:You're able to see what's trending not only on ECC,
Speaker:but on Google,
Speaker:especially if you create your own website.
Speaker:So you can start writing about those products and services and
Speaker:start driving more traffic.
Speaker:There's so many tools in Iran.
Speaker:I highly recommend doing that.
Speaker:I also recommend once you start building your store is using
Speaker:the ECC sellers handbook.
Speaker:If you don't know how to do something,
Speaker:let's say you're trying to do your banner and your picture's
Speaker:not coming out.
Speaker:Right. And it's blurry or pixelated.
Speaker:The XC seller's handbook has different categories of different things.
Speaker:You could go in there and look for information about photography,
Speaker:about shipping,
Speaker:about legal stuff.
Speaker:Getting started,
Speaker:getting found,
Speaker:SEO, pricing,
Speaker:finances, taxes,
Speaker:and the list goes on and on and on.
Speaker:And this is one of the tools that many people don't
Speaker:use as XC sellers.
Speaker:And this is what makes ECC so special as well.
Speaker:They pretty much give you like a blueprint of how everything
Speaker:works on XC from the search engine to SEO,
Speaker:to how to build a memorable shop.
Speaker:All you have to do is just follow the guide,
Speaker:but that's very useful for just pretty much anything that you
Speaker:need help with.
Speaker:They have a really solid guide,
Speaker:but the fact is you have to access it and use
Speaker:it Exactly,
Speaker:but it's really great because a lot of the things that
Speaker:people get stuck on are things that the excavator provides you,
Speaker:the tools to help you with it,
Speaker:just using it and getting to know the platform,
Speaker:but actually is very simple to get started from the beginning.
Speaker:When you open the account,
Speaker:it tells you step one,
Speaker:you name your shop.
Speaker:Step two,
Speaker:you put your billing information within four steps.
Speaker:You already have your store open.
Speaker:One thing that you do need to have before you open
Speaker:the store is have one listing already.
Speaker:So before you even register to open a store,
Speaker:have whatever,
Speaker:whether you're selling a physical product or digital product,
Speaker:have that product,
Speaker:like the photos,
Speaker:the listing description,
Speaker:your SEO have that already done because in order for you
Speaker:to open the store,
Speaker:you have to have one listing available.
Speaker:Okay? You have to have at least one to actually open
Speaker:the store.
Speaker:But how many products would you suggest you have?
Speaker:I say in the beginning,
Speaker:when you're like,
Speaker:before you start marketing really hard have at least 10 to
Speaker:like 15 lifting.
Speaker:Somebody built up that way.
Speaker:When people do start,
Speaker:when you start driving traffic to your store,
Speaker:or if XC drives traffic back to your store,
Speaker:organically, you have listings and it doesn't look like an empty
Speaker:store. There are going to be the people that are going
Speaker:to engage with your brand and start looking at your products.
Speaker:I never say this a magical number when it comes to
Speaker:how many listings I have to have to have sales,
Speaker:because I have seen stores that literally have 24 products and
Speaker:they make more money than stores that have 2000 products.
Speaker:What's the difference between a listing of a product that can
Speaker:be repetitively purchased.
Speaker:Like let's say,
Speaker:just candles versus a customized product.
Speaker:That might be only one of a kind.
Speaker:You want to know,
Speaker:like the difference of like how you promote it And buys
Speaker:a one of a kind,
Speaker:because I've made it an,
Speaker:all of my jackets that I make are different.
Speaker:They all look different.
Speaker:So I put pictures up and if they sell,
Speaker:then it's no longer available versus someone who lets go with
Speaker:knitting scarves.
Speaker:Since we were talking about that earlier can continue to make
Speaker:the same one over and over again,
Speaker:regardless of how many are sold on the site.
Speaker:So it's like a onetime off versus option for multiples.
Speaker:I think the main difference is exactly what you just said.
Speaker:The one product is more personalized while the other product,
Speaker:multiple people could buy it and have the same product.
Speaker:I think when you sell something that's personalized,
Speaker:you have to make sure that you voice that not only
Speaker:on the listing description,
Speaker:but also on the photos and just let people know,
Speaker:this is one of a kind that you can get elsewhere.
Speaker:Do you have Manually pull it off once it's sold,
Speaker:then Yes.
Speaker:You could do two options.
Speaker:You could have it out over renew,
Speaker:especially if you know that you could recreate it again,
Speaker:right? Maybe you do a different variation when it's something very
Speaker:personalized like that.
Speaker:A lot of times,
Speaker:it's not like you said,
Speaker:it's not the same thing that you're selling over and over.
Speaker:It's going to be different.
Speaker:So you could auto renew.
Speaker:If you know that you're going to be able to add
Speaker:another personalized item like that.
Speaker:But if you know that this is one of a kind
Speaker:only, and you can't be produced it again,
Speaker:for some reason,
Speaker:then you want out of renewal,
Speaker:you would just,
Speaker:once it's sold that one quantity,
Speaker:it would deactivate the listing.
Speaker:That's how we would normally do it.
Speaker:That a little bit feels like a nightmare of doing that.
Speaker:But what I could see someone doing is let's say you
Speaker:have these customized jackets,
Speaker:for example,
Speaker:and maybe you have one picture that's all in like red,
Speaker:black and gray tones.
Speaker:And then you would say in your description,
Speaker:these are all one of a kind,
Speaker:and this is the color tone of this option.
Speaker:And then you might have another that's blue,
Speaker:green, and yellow or something.
Speaker:Exactly. Or even with the candle situation,
Speaker:if you have a candle that is personalized in a way
Speaker:that maybe you put a person's name on the candle,
Speaker:you could resell that over and over.
Speaker:It's still a unique product because what you're changing is the
Speaker:person's name.
Speaker:And that's probably in that order checkout process where you have
Speaker:the option of putting in that information.
Speaker:Yes it is.
Speaker:Yes. Once the person buys a personalized item,
Speaker:they get this little box it's called note to seller and
Speaker:that's where they put their personal lives information.
Speaker:On what color you choosing for your jacket or what name
Speaker:you're putting on the candle?
Speaker:Or what names are you putting on the digital sign that
Speaker:they're buying,
Speaker:whatever they're buying at that moment.
Speaker:Okay. Alright.
Speaker:So walk through for us,
Speaker:if you will.
Speaker:Just so we get a feel for the sales process.
Speaker:So now we have our shop up,
Speaker:someone comes in and we've set it up properly,
Speaker:all the right way with all the information SEL like everything
Speaker:you've said,
Speaker:so we're good to go.
Speaker:You would give them an a plus for putting up their
Speaker:shop. Okay.
Speaker:And someone comes in and buys like,
Speaker:okay, that's exciting,
Speaker:but how do we find out about it?
Speaker:And then what's the process for us to fulfill the role?
Speaker:The first thing I recommend is having the seller X,
Speaker:the app in your phone and your mobile device.
Speaker:So there's an app for buyers and it's an app for
Speaker:sellers. So you need the sellers one.
Speaker:And what happens is normally when you get a sale,
Speaker:you get a notification through your email.
Speaker:But if you have the app,
Speaker:you get a notification straight through your phone,
Speaker:Okay. And then you jump up and down cause it's your
Speaker:very first sale.
Speaker:And it's super exciting.
Speaker:Totally. And you hear strategic also as well versus when you
Speaker:get really excited.
Speaker:Okay. The first thing that I would say,
Speaker:especially when you're first starting out is to make sure that
Speaker:you are on top of your store,
Speaker:make sure that you have the app,
Speaker:you'll get the notification.
Speaker:And then just to make sure that you go to the
Speaker:actual order and sometimes people on the note to seller,
Speaker:because that's where you send the personalization.
Speaker:People ask questions there.
Speaker:For some reason,
Speaker:it's not meant for that,
Speaker:but people do.
Speaker:So. The best thing to do is anytime you get a
Speaker:new order,
Speaker:just briefly look at the order,
Speaker:see if there's any questions.
Speaker:If there is any,
Speaker:they're just putting the information that they need.
Speaker:Then you have that window,
Speaker:whatever window you put in one to two days on toast
Speaker:ship or one through five days,
Speaker:depending on your schedule,
Speaker:create the item or you personalize the item.
Speaker:And once you have it ready,
Speaker:obviously if it's a digital product,
Speaker:you would send it to them through the ECC message.
Speaker:If it is a physical product,
Speaker:you will ship it to the customer.
Speaker:I think for shipping products,
Speaker:I don't ship.
Speaker:But one thing that I have learned from my ECC support
Speaker:group, I have over 30,000
Speaker:members in that group,
Speaker:is that a lot of them,
Speaker:what they do is that they confirm the shipping address before
Speaker:they ship it to the,
Speaker:because a lot of people have an ECC account for years,
Speaker:they moved,
Speaker:but never changed their shipping address.
Speaker:Oh, interesting point.
Speaker:That's a big one that I have seen.
Speaker:So many people get bad reviews because it was shipped to
Speaker:the wrong address.
Speaker:And that's the main reason why,
Speaker:because the customer never updated their address in the backend.
Speaker:So I think that's a big one that you need to
Speaker:start doing just to double check,
Speaker:just be like,
Speaker:Hey, thank you so much for your order.
Speaker:We are excited to ship it.
Speaker:We're done with it.
Speaker:We just want to double check that this is your right
Speaker:address. Or just confirming that you're still on Salem street.
Speaker:Exactly. Or something like that.
Speaker:It doesn't have to be the whole address written out or
Speaker:something. It doesn't have to exactly.
Speaker:But as long as you at least confirming exactly.
Speaker:Plus that starts a conversation with a customer.
Speaker:So like there's a reason to do it and it's great
Speaker:to do it too.
Speaker:But so your getting the shipping address obviously from Etsy.
Speaker:Exactly. Yes.
Speaker:Okay. Is there a system where it's already created and you
Speaker:can just press print on a computer or a labeling?
Speaker:Yes. There is.
Speaker:ECC provides you with printing services and you will sign up
Speaker:through ECC and they have the pricing.
Speaker:Or if you find a different source,
Speaker:that's cheaper,
Speaker:which a lot of people do on separately.
Speaker:You could do that as well,
Speaker:but it just depends on the pricing and which one you
Speaker:want to use.
Speaker:Okay. And probably it depends on your package too,
Speaker:like what your product is,
Speaker:but you have the options.
Speaker:You're not limited in that.
Speaker:Exactly. You're not limited at all.
Speaker:Okay. So let's get back to this email for a minute.
Speaker:Not being able to collect people's emails,
Speaker:which I know has been.
Speaker:I understand why they do it.
Speaker:For sure.
Speaker:If you are communicating back and forth to a customer like
Speaker:confirming the address,
Speaker:can you say,
Speaker:Oh, while you're confirming,
Speaker:can you share with me your email so we can stay
Speaker:connected? I'm guessing that would be,
Speaker:They actually let you collect emails.
Speaker:The issue with access platform is that it's really hard to
Speaker:do so because you know how,
Speaker:when you have your own website,
Speaker:you have like little popups or you could tell a customer
Speaker:click here to join our email and they just click on
Speaker:ECC. If you add any links,
Speaker:whether it's Facebook,
Speaker:email, anything,
Speaker:that's South side of ECC,
Speaker:that link doesn't become a hyperlink,
Speaker:right? So now if you having your listing description,
Speaker:make sure that you join our email list too.
Speaker:As a first time customer,
Speaker:you get 10% off.
Speaker:Here's the link.
Speaker:They can click on the link.
Speaker:They have to copy and paste in order to go ahead
Speaker:and sign up for that coupon.
Speaker:Majority of people are not going to do that,
Speaker:unfortunately, because we just want everything easy and fast.
Speaker:And that's the hard part about growing an email is having
Speaker:just an ECC store versus when you have a website that
Speaker:you could collect emails really simple,
Speaker:but it shouldn't stop you though.
Speaker:That's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker:Also, I have my email list and my banner,
Speaker:I have it in my shop announcement.
Speaker:I have another link my,
Speaker:about me and I'm starting to incorporate it on all my
Speaker:listings as well.
Speaker:You should still promote it because you're going to get the
Speaker:occasional person that will go ahead and copy and paste.
Speaker:So answer your question.
Speaker:Yes. You could ask the person,
Speaker:Hey, by the way,
Speaker:since you know,
Speaker:whatever you're talking about,
Speaker:you already built report with them.
Speaker:They feel a little bit more comfortable with you.
Speaker:You could ask them,
Speaker:would you mind if I add you to an email list?
Speaker:As long as you ask them X he's okay with it.
Speaker:Could you say,
Speaker:you know how it is?
Speaker:And like,
Speaker:nobody wants to get on another email list,
Speaker:right? But could you say,
Speaker:Hey, thanks for shopping at my store.
Speaker:Just confirming,
Speaker:I'm going to ship this over to you on Salem Avenue.
Speaker:No, whatever.
Speaker:Also, if you're willing to share with me your email address,
Speaker:I'll send you a coupon for your next order.
Speaker:Yeah. And you can say that,
Speaker:of course You can say that.
Speaker:And then it's okay if they respond and say,
Speaker:yes, I'm on Salem.
Speaker:And here's my email Long as they give you the email
Speaker:and you're not just grabbing it from your dashboard.
Speaker:Can I like that a lot better now.
Speaker:And XC also has two integrations that they work with.
Speaker:They work with a Weber and they work with mail folder.
Speaker:You could use any email providers.
Speaker:Yeah. Okay.
Speaker:So they work with a Weber and who else?
Speaker:And mail folder fold F O L D mail fold.
Speaker:Okay. So once you're registered in your account,
Speaker:if you go to your dashboard,
Speaker:if you go to settings and you go to integrations,
Speaker:you're going to see all the third party apps that they
Speaker:work with,
Speaker:that they are partnered with,
Speaker:that you could use without feeling like,
Speaker:is my account going to get suspended?
Speaker:Am I not allowed to use?
Speaker:You could see all the lists of different tools,
Speaker:not just email.
Speaker:Okay, perfect.
Speaker:And I got to say that it's a used to be
Speaker:the only one,
Speaker:but the advantage of several other platforms come in where there's
Speaker:a focus on handmade products only makes Etsy then want to
Speaker:be stronger,
Speaker:let you do more because they've got more competition.
Speaker:So everyone gets better when those things happen.
Speaker:Exactly. And they have done better.
Speaker:So many more resources now.
Speaker:Exactly more options for us.
Speaker:So that's all good to finalize this out.
Speaker:Share with us a little bit about the behind the scenes
Speaker:numbers, the insights or the statistics or whatever it's called over
Speaker:there. What can you learn about who's coming and how can
Speaker:you use that information to help grow your shop?
Speaker:Oh, I mean,
Speaker:it's just amazing.
Speaker:You could do market research on Etsy,
Speaker:on the search feed.
Speaker:You just type in whatever you're looking for that is relevant
Speaker:to what you're selling or you could use a quicker way.
Speaker:Is he rank.com?
Speaker:Yeah. That's the one you talked about earlier.
Speaker:Yes. And they're highly recommended because all the data from Iran
Speaker:is pooled directly from ECC.
Speaker:So the information is very relevant.
Speaker:It's not like another tool that has nothing to do with
Speaker:that. When you go in there,
Speaker:you're able to view top sellers by categories,
Speaker:by countries and when they open their store.
Speaker:In my opinion,
Speaker:that is a really great tool for market research because you're
Speaker:first starting an ECC,
Speaker:or you have an idea you want to sell personal life
Speaker:candles, but you don't know if they do really well on
Speaker:XC or not.
Speaker:Well, you could do is do market research on the rank.
Speaker:And you could look for stores that sell candles and they
Speaker:are in your area in your country.
Speaker:Or if you want to do worldwide and you could start
Speaker:doing market research that way and start seeing what are their
Speaker:best sellers.
Speaker:So you could get an idea.
Speaker:You can start seeing how many sales they get per day,
Speaker:how much money they're making.
Speaker:You can see everything.
Speaker:Okay. Perfect.
Speaker:Are you also able to see things kind of like you
Speaker:can, when you have your own website with Google analytics,
Speaker:where you can see which products people are looking at,
Speaker:how quickly they're jumping off of your pages,
Speaker:are you able to access all of that type of information
Speaker:as well?
Speaker:Yes, you can.
Speaker:You actually have to connect your store.
Speaker:Yourself was a very simple process.
Speaker:You connect your store to Google analytics.
Speaker:Oh, okay.
Speaker:Well, I highly recommend it.
Speaker:Just like when you have your website,
Speaker:you should also connect it to Google analytics because XC just
Speaker:gives you so much information about how people find you on
Speaker:the Etsy search feed,
Speaker:but you don't know how they found you before that.
Speaker:Did they come from Pinterest?
Speaker:And it gave you a little bit information,
Speaker:but we Google analytics,
Speaker:the real cool thing about Google analytics.
Speaker:Once you connect your store to Google analytics,
Speaker:you're able to see real time how many people are in
Speaker:your store right now.
Speaker:So you're able to see six people are in my store
Speaker:right now at this second,
Speaker:you're able to see what pages they're browsing.
Speaker:You're able to see where those people came from.
Speaker:You could see so much data on Google analytics compared to
Speaker:ACCE. But what you do is you combine both of them
Speaker:together to start your marketing strategy and take your business to
Speaker:the next level,
Speaker:because you're able to see like behavior,
Speaker:like you're able to see,
Speaker:okay, what platforms are really driving me traffic.
Speaker:So what platform should I perform a little bit more?
Speaker:Or have a,
Speaker:like a content strategy there.
Speaker:So, so much information that you're going to get.
Speaker:I think that's one of the things that is not used
Speaker:as often as they should be.
Speaker:Another thing I've found with one of my clients is we
Speaker:were looking at analytics and she was seeing that a lot
Speaker:of people were landing on a specific product in her store,
Speaker:but they weren't buying it.
Speaker:But they were leading to other secondary products and making a
Speaker:purchase. If originally you just said,
Speaker:Oh, I'm not getting sales for product.
Speaker:Number one,
Speaker:that first product,
Speaker:it's still serving a purpose because for some reason,
Speaker:that's what people landed on when they searched and they're still
Speaker:buying. So if someone were to eliminate that product because of
Speaker:that, they could lose those sales because they never found her
Speaker:in the first place.
Speaker:Exactly. They could be selling something that one product organically they're
Speaker:ranking really well.
Speaker:Like the ranking on the first page of ECC,
Speaker:maybe it's the first page of Google.
Speaker:So that one product is driving tons of organic traffic to
Speaker:the other product.
Speaker:Like you just mentioned.
Speaker:So sometimes it is so important to look at your data
Speaker:because some people start,
Speaker:they add products and they remove it.
Speaker:And I always tell people,
Speaker:you gotta like,
Speaker:let us sit there,
Speaker:collect the data,
Speaker:analyze the data,
Speaker:and then make an informed decision of what's working and what's
Speaker:not working,
Speaker:but you need to look at it first.
Speaker:Like you said,
Speaker:right? Do you need to give it time to do its
Speaker:thing, whatever that's going to be.
Speaker:And then you look at it and then you make decisions
Speaker:accordingly. Exactly.
Speaker:Wonderful. This has been such great information.
Speaker:Do you want to say something to kind of summarize opportunities
Speaker:that are available on Etsy?
Speaker:Oh yes.
Speaker:One thing I want to tell people is that with ECC
Speaker:treat it like a real business is such an amazing platform
Speaker:for anyone out there,
Speaker:like moms that stay at home or anyone that wants to
Speaker:start their own business,
Speaker:but don't want to spend too much money,
Speaker:creating a business.
Speaker:It's a great platform.
Speaker:And on top of that,
Speaker:just being able to have a unique voice,
Speaker:a place as you could brand it for your voice to
Speaker:come out,
Speaker:to create something that's amazing for other people that they will
Speaker:want to buy from you.
Speaker:But just started.
Speaker:If you're in the fence of starting exi,
Speaker:just start trying it and you're going to make mistakes,
Speaker:but don't let fear stop.
Speaker:You keep pushing through and build a store.
Speaker:You're going to try,
Speaker:you're going to fail.
Speaker:You're going to be successful with it as well.
Speaker:And the thing is just starting to quote,
Speaker:that says,
Speaker:you don't have to be great to start,
Speaker:but you have to start to be great.
Speaker:And that's essentially what you have to do with ECC.
Speaker:And it's such an easy platform to use,
Speaker:and they give you all the resources that you need.
Speaker:In addition to that,
Speaker:the seller's handbook is amazing.
Speaker:There's so much value in there to help you grow as
Speaker:an Etsy seller,
Speaker:that once you start using it on a regular basis,
Speaker:you're going to say to yourself,
Speaker:why didn't I use this before?
Speaker:And a great thing about the handbook.
Speaker:When I create content,
Speaker:I create content based on what ECC wants.
Speaker:Not on my opinion.
Speaker:Yes. I have my opinion.
Speaker:I say,
Speaker:these are things that I do that has helped me,
Speaker:but I try to base everything on what ECC wants,
Speaker:because ultimately it's their platform and they do change stuff on
Speaker:a regular basis.
Speaker:I try to keep up with that information.
Speaker:And that's another reason why you need to use those resources
Speaker:because it's the most accurate information out there.
Speaker:Perfect. So if you're somebody probably after the first part of
Speaker:this year,
Speaker:how we've been where so many physical locations have been shut
Speaker:down, right?
Speaker:But if you're used to being out at craft shows every
Speaker:single weekend or trade shows or whatever,
Speaker:and you've never had really an online presence yet,
Speaker:or you're just starting out and you're thinking,
Speaker:okay, I'm going to have both at see,
Speaker:seems like such a good solution for all the reasons that
Speaker:we've talked about through this whole time.
Speaker:Like you have the flexibility to adjust.
Speaker:Once you've done your first product validation,
Speaker:you can change your name.
Speaker:You can test how products are selling and it can be
Speaker:your entrance point into e-commerce in a very easy,
Speaker:Yeah, we could start with taxi and then once you feel
Speaker:more comfortable and you start getting the hang of it,
Speaker:you could start yourself out of Lexia as well.
Speaker:You could have a website,
Speaker:you could start using social media.
Speaker:You could do maybe even YouTube and create videos on how
Speaker:you create your products.
Speaker:A lot of people feel if I show people how to
Speaker:do this,
Speaker:they're going to steal my idea.
Speaker:You'd be surprised.
Speaker:There's so many people you could tell them,
Speaker:this is how I did it.
Speaker:And they still don't do it.
Speaker:Or they might try it once and be like,
Speaker:either I don't have the talent to do it.
Speaker:Or this is so hard.
Speaker:I will never try this again.
Speaker:I think the point back to Etsy is that your time
Speaker:is not lost if you have a presence on that seat,
Speaker:because it can compliment other things that you add on down
Speaker:the road.
Speaker:So Nancy,
Speaker:where can people find you?
Speaker:And also tell us more about your support group and what
Speaker:it's called?
Speaker:Oh, of course people could find me.
Speaker:I think the best place is my website is Nancy,
Speaker:but the joe.com
Speaker:and there you'll be able to find other resources that you
Speaker:could use as an ACCE seller.
Speaker:And my support group is called ECC sellers support group.
Speaker:And once you find that you should be able to see
Speaker:the about me.
Speaker:And I'll say this group is hosted by Nancy buddy,
Speaker:Joe. So that's the way you will know that that's my
Speaker:group. I have currently,
Speaker:I believe we have 30,000
Speaker:members a little bit over 30,000
Speaker:and this group is strictly for support.
Speaker:So it's not,
Speaker:there's other groups that you promote your products and services.
Speaker:This group is specifically for,
Speaker:if you're stuck.
Speaker:If you have a question about,
Speaker:Hey, you know,
Speaker:I've been on that actually for six months,
Speaker:I only got in three sales.
Speaker:What are some things I could do?
Speaker:You could drop your link and actually people go and give
Speaker:you like a free mini critique.
Speaker:I have amazing,
Speaker:amazing support in that group.
Speaker:Everyone helps each other out.
Speaker:So if you put one post,
Speaker:normally I'll get like 15 people to respond within 20 minutes
Speaker:already trying to help somebody.
Speaker:So it's a support group.
Speaker:Wonderful. I love it.
Speaker:Nancy, thank you so much.
Speaker:I think a lot of us have been enlightened about the
Speaker:ways of Etsy.
Speaker:It's an exciting platform and you've cleared up some things for
Speaker:us. So I look forward to you guys,
Speaker:give biz listeners,
Speaker:letting us know if you start a site on Etsy could
Speaker:jump over to maybe Instagram,
Speaker:follow both Nancy and me.
Speaker:If you haven't already gift biz on rapt and let us
Speaker:know in the DMS,
Speaker:if you've started your Etsy account,
Speaker:I also wanted to mention Sue,
Speaker:if you don't mind for your wonderful people that listen to
Speaker:you, but your audience,
Speaker:I have an actual course where I teach people not only
Speaker:how to build in our principle business,
Speaker:but how to use social media and branding to leverage their
Speaker:business to the next level.
Speaker:So for your followers,
Speaker:if they're interested,
Speaker:they could get $200 off the course to sign up is
Speaker:they're interested.
Speaker:Okay. And would they just go over to your website and
Speaker:find out about it?
Speaker:I did was,
Speaker:I'll send you the information and you'll have like a special
Speaker:coupon that you use and then maybe you could put it
Speaker:below the podcast.
Speaker:So give biz listeners,
Speaker:we'll put it in the show notes.
Speaker:So if you're interested,
Speaker:knowing more about Nancy's course,
Speaker:just jump over to the show notes down where I have
Speaker:resources that were mentioned in the show will be all the
Speaker:resources Nancy's mentioned.
Speaker:So he reign the Etsy,
Speaker:sellers, handbook,
Speaker:all of that,
Speaker:but also whatever the discount code is or the link or
Speaker:whatever you're going to give me,
Speaker:Nancy, we'll have that sitting right there as well.
Speaker:Okay. Perfect.
Speaker:Okay. Wonderful.
Speaker:Oh, thank you.
Speaker:I really,
Speaker:really appreciate your time today.
Speaker:Take care,
Speaker:Utah. Now,
Speaker:you know all about selling and strengthening your brand on Etsy.
Speaker:Remember the show notes page for links to everything we discussed.
Speaker:And seriously,
Speaker:I want to know about your store.
Speaker:If you're already on Etsy or start up on this platform,
Speaker:here's how you can tell me,
Speaker:just jump over to Instagram,
Speaker:follow gift biz unwrapped.
Speaker:If you aren't already,
Speaker:and then leave me a direct message telling me about your
Speaker:shop. Give me your name so that I can go take
Speaker:a peek and I'll definitely send you a private message back.
Speaker:Alright, that's a wrap for part five of our six part
Speaker:series on eCommerce sales platforms.
Speaker:In our final week,
Speaker:we're going to cover an online platform that quite honestly has
Speaker:a lot of us confused.
Speaker:And I'm talking about Google my business,
Speaker:find out who it's right for,
Speaker:because surprise,
Speaker:it's not set up for all handmade businesses.
Speaker:Let's clear up who should and should not be on Google
Speaker:my business.
Speaker:And if it's right for you,
Speaker:how to do it correctly and use Google my business to
Speaker:bring in sales,
Speaker:make sure to subscribe,
Speaker:to gift biz unwrapped.
Speaker:If you haven't already,
Speaker:that allows the next episode to automatically be downloaded,
Speaker:ready, and waiting for you.
Speaker:First thing next Monday morning,
Speaker:did you know that if you're not subscribed,
Speaker:sometimes it takes hours for the episode to become available to
Speaker:you, but not when you subscribe.
Speaker:So don't forget,
Speaker:take a moment and do it right now.
Speaker:And finally,
Speaker:until next week,
Speaker:remember you can catch me live in the breeze for those
Speaker:Q and a questions.
Speaker:Even if you don't have a question it's so valuable to
Speaker:learn from other people's questions.
Speaker:You'll hear more about that group in the outro clip,
Speaker:closing out this show.
Speaker:And that happens right now.
Speaker:Be safe,
Speaker:be well.
Speaker:And I look forward to being together again next week.
Speaker:I want to make sure you're familiar with my free Facebook
Speaker:group called gift is breeze.
Speaker:It's a place where we all gather and our community to
Speaker:support each other.
Speaker:Got a really fun post in there.
Speaker:That's my favorite of the week.
Speaker:I have to say where I invite all of you to
Speaker:share what you're doing to show pictures of your product,
Speaker:to show what you're working on for the week to get
Speaker:reaction from other people and just for fun,
Speaker:because we all get to see the wonderful products that everybody
Speaker:in the community is making my favorite post every single week,
Speaker:without doubt.
Speaker:Wait, what,
Speaker:aren't you part of the group already,
Speaker:if not make sure to jump over to Facebook and search
Speaker:for the group gift biz breeze don't delay.