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There is so much that goes into running a successful Etsy shop that it can be an overwhelming and time-consuming endeavor. Not only are you making and selling your handmade goods, but you are also wearing many different hats. Finding ways to save time and streamline the whole process can go a long way in being successful while maintaining a good balance between your Etsy shop and the other aspects of your life. While there is no shortage of ways to help optimize your workflow, we’ve come up with a few examples of ways to streamline your business.
Build a Schedule
Decision paralysis can be one of the biggest time wasters for someone trying to accomplish any goal with lots of moving parts. With so many things needing to be done to be a successful Etsy shop owner, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by your task list that you become unable to decide what takes priority. One excellent way to help you through your task list is to create a schedule of your weekly Esty tasks. Maybe you dedicate an entire day exclusively to creating new listings or pick out time slots to dedicate to certain tasks. How this looks is entirely up to you. The goal is to plan it out and start making it routine.
Take Advantage of The Slower Seasons
If you are a seasoned Etsy seller, you more than likely know when your busier seasons and off-seasons are. For many Etsy shops, sales taper off during the summer months, creating a 3–4 month long off-season.
While it may be tempting to close up shop and go have a poolside cocktail, using this time to prepare for when sales pick up again may be a better use of your free time. Consider using this time to create new products or build up a robust inventory to carry you through the busier season ahead. If you’re productive during the slower times, your future self will thank you when that holiday rush heats up during the fall and you have a head start!
Batch Out Your Photography
Chances are you have multiple items you want to list to your Etsy shop. Batching out photos for multiple items is a great way to minimize repeated setup time before and after taking photos. This is especially important if like most of us, you don’t have a dedicated area for photography that you can leave staged
The trick here is to come with a game plan. Before you ever even turn on your camera, write down a quick list of all the shots you need for your products so that you have a punch list and can run through each of your products quickly.
Build A List of Your Most-Used Tags and Keywords
Keywords are large part of how your products are found on Etsy, so using the right keywords for each of your products is so important. Etsy pulls keywords from your listing’s title, description, and the thirteen tags you get to enter while building a listing. Keeping a list that you can copy and paste from not only allows you to quickly drop keywords into a new listing, but also helps you easily see what tags you are using the most across your listings.
eRank has a keywords list feature that will help you simplify the process of creating lists of keywords to help you during the process of researching and building your listings. You can also use the listing builder section of this tool to help you quickly create titles and tags for your listing.
Create Similar Listings Together
One way to get the creative side of your brain working, and stay working is to batch out listings of similar products together. By the time you have built one or two listings, your brain will get in the groove for the types of products you are working through, and you will be able to work through the process more quickly.
Another way that working on similar listings is that you can borrow keywords and the general structure of your descriptions to use across multiple listings. When you have a general idea of what you want to say in a listing description, the process of making the description unique to that product should come to you much quicker.
Create Social Media Marketing Assets When You Create Your Listings
You should have marketing in mind when you are building your listings, so it makes sense to come up with an initial idea for social media to announce your new listing to your followers. You can use one of your listing photos for this, or you can get creative and create something specific for social media. If you aren’t photoshop or design-software savvy, you can try a service like Canva to help you create some pretty cool designs.
Plan For Fewer Trips To The Shipping Carrier
We know you can’t control when orders come in, but you can control your handling time. One way to help reduce the amount trips to your favorite shipping carrier is to include enough handling time that you can plan one or two shipping drop-off days a week. For example, if you set your products with a 2 day handling window, and a customer placed an order one Monday, That package wouldn’t be due out until Wednesday. In this scenario, you could get away with dropping off shipments on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Another even more convenient option is to see if your package carrier offers pickup. If you are located in the US, the USPS offers package pickup that you can conveniently schedule through Etsy. You can also print off a scan sheet that condense all your orders into one barcode for the carrier to scan.
Know When to Ask for Help
Etsy sellers by their nature are often a very self-sufficient group of people that take pride in building their shops from the ground up on their own. Despite that, there is nothing wrong with asking for help, or finding a third party to handle some of your needs. Perhaps bookkeeping and taxes are bogging down your day-to-day, this might be a sign it’s time to seek the assistance of an accountant. If there is a part of your business that is slowing you down, chances are there is a third party, or person willing to help you. The bottom line is to not let one aspect of running your Esty shop suck the fun and creativity out of your craft.
Let’s Get Down To Business
These are just a few of the many things you can do to help create a smooth and efficient workflow for your Etsy shop. Do you have any time saving or helpful tips for Etsy sellers? Share them over in our Facebook group.
