In January 2024, I was hesitant on listing my products on Etsy due to the fees being significantly higher than Shopify, the amount of existing sellers, and that I am already paying for my current platform - why not push to grow this one? Well, I found that if you are a new business with a small following base, it's challenging to drive traffic to your own website. No matter how awesome your website is, if you do not have a big following or consistently post on social media - organic traffic is difficult.
I took the leap to list on Etsy regardless of my fears because even though there are over 7 MILLION sellers, there are over 96 MILLION active buyers. That is millions of people I could reach with my brand, story, and products.
I started off with a few listings to see how they would do and immediately got discouraged. I kept telling myself, why am I being scared? I just started!! Between March and August, I got 1 to 2 orders per month and I was super excited because I only had about 8 listings up! In September, I started listing more products and then BOOM..... 7 orders in one month. For some, that's really low. But at the time, that was a lot of orders on a platform I barely started using.
For October, I ran a birthday sale and beat my September numbers by 2. WOAH NOW, WATCH OUT. I was so hype and I wanted to keep the momentum going into the holidays. So, I posted new items, consistently posted on my social media and then it happened. In November, I reached 34 sales in one month. Just when I thought that was a record, I actually beat it in December, closing out the month with a whopping 85 orders ALL while working full-time, spending time with family, hosting holiday parties, and more.
I ended 2024 with 144 orders and actually did more in revenue than I did across vendor shows and Shopify sales combined!
If you were like me and wondering if you should list on Etsy - my advice? Believe in yourself and what do you have to lose? If you don't believe in yourself, don't expect others to do it for you.
It's January 17, 2025 and I hit 171 sales.
