Setting up an Etsy shop 2 – registering to sell on Etsy

Ok, South Africans (and others!), hope all is going well.. If you’ve got your Paypal account all set up, great – if not, please see my previous post! 🙂

So – here are the basics on how to sell on Etsy:

• Go to http://www.etsy.com/sell?ref=so_sell and click on “Open an Etsy shop”
• It will then ask you to sign in – if you are already an Etsy member, do so – otherwise you will have to click on the “register” tab
• Fill out the info as required. Now’s the time to note – if you open a 2nd shop, you will need a different email address for this!
• Once you’ve done all this, check your email, as they’ll send you a verification link you’ll have to click on before continuing..
• Your shop settings should come up – I keep all my listings in dollars – I find this much simpler. Etsy doesn’t offer a Rand value (we’re not a big enough market!) – and as I previously said, most customers seem to be in the US (and Canada) so this seems best..
• Next up – your shop name – fill it in 🙂

Wow – I’m doing this as I type (I’m setting up a shop to sell some of my vintage Sanrio collection) – and they have made it so nice and simple! So I’ll just list a couple of things you might not know:

• For your shop banner – they are very specific – the image must be 760×100 pixels in size, no bigger than 2MB, and I’d recommend a JPEG. If you have a photo-editing programme like Photoshop, you can do this there.. Otherwise, ask a knowledgeable friend to help, or else you can always browse Etsy – there are lots of graphic artists who will design a banner etc for you, at a charge 🙂
• You can also now add a profile picture and shop announcement. You can also add shop sections (useful for jewellery – you can separate earrings from necklaces etc, which makes browsing easier for the customer)
• I would also suggest adding SHOP POLICIES now.. These will basically state your policies towards shipping & returns etc.. I know it seems a bit scaly, but what I did was look at a whole lot of other established sellers of similar items on Etsy – you can learn a lot from their policies, and then refine for yourself 😉

Here’s a look at a quick banner I made up – kept it really simple, as this is really just a temporary shop for me!

Ok, now it’s almost time to add your items for sale! Etsy recommends listing at least 8 items to start, but I personally aim to have 30-40 listed at a time, so your shop listings at least go onto a 2nd page 🙂

I’m going to list photography tips & item set up in my next post (hopefully tomorrow) – but in the meantime, here a few more things you might need to know:

• You are charged 20 cents (US$) for every item you list, and when you sell it, Etsy takes a 3.5% commission on your sale. They’ll send you a bill every month, which will need to paid by a certain date. You can pay with your credit card, or with Paypal.
• When you’re setting up your shop – you will see a “Get Paid” tab at the top – click on this for payment options. I would suggest just clicking on Paypal (you’ll just have to enter your Paypal login email address), and letting all customers pay that way. I have “Other” set up on my shops, in case a local customer wants to do an EFT – but I’ve had soooo many customers click this hoping to pay with a credit card, then I have to send a Paypal payment request etc etc – it’s quite a schlep! So, just Paypal payment is my advice!
• 1 more thing before the shop is setup – click on the “Billing” tab at the top. You will have to enter your credit card details here, and they will validate your card. This is for billing purposes, although, as I have said, you can pay with Paypal funds. But you have to do this to verify yourself as a seller..

Ok, so that’s a whole lot to do for now. I hope this helps with the setup of your shop – and will post more about Photography tips, postage info etc soon 🙂 Have a great rest of your weekend!! Megan xx

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