Dylan Jahraus started working in corporate e-commerce, but eventually had to quit while trying to climb that ladder.
She tried her hand at Etsy as a side hustle, and was pleased to see that she could apply her extensive e-comm experience to the platform.
She’s been killing it on Etsy for years now, selling $1.5 million to date.
In this interview, she shares some of her best strategies and tips, explains best practices in everything from product pricing to thumbnails, and walks us through the process of going from $0 to $10k.
If you have an Etsy store, you simply can’t miss this episode; if you don’t have an Etsy store yet, this may very well inspire you to open one.
Watch the Full Interview
Dylan starts by sharing a bit of her background, talking about her life on the road as a military spouse and running several side hustles along the way.
When she tried out Etsy and sold her first product, she was hooked. In 5 years, she reached $1.5 million in sales.
After her first sale, she started applying her corporate e-commerce background to her strategy, and between her second and fourth month on the platform, she was already earning $10k in sales.
Dylan first talks about the possibilities for growth on Etsy and the types of products that you can sell, from digital downloads, and handmade products to commercially-made supplies, as well as the best-performing types of products there.
She stresses the importance of focusing on products that have purpose and utility, and explains how to get started on the platform and find ideas for products to sell.
She shares her tips for competitor research and then brainstorms product ideas for a niche that Jared suggests.
Then she talks about showing up in Etsy search, product pricing and thumbnails, and the very strategies she used to grow her own business.
Dylan compares using Etsy with other e-commerce platforms like WooCommerce and Shopify and shares info on how commissions work.
Jared gives her a hypothetical situation where he’s created his store, he’s done all the right things, but it’s still not taking off, and Dylan shares her ideas about what can be done and tries to help him troubleshoot those issues.
She then talks about the importance of power listings, why you need them to succeed, and how they work.
Finally, she shares her strategy on the fastest way to get from $0 to $10k on Etsy.
Topics Dylan Jahraus Talks About
- Her background
- How she got started on Etsy
- What happened in her initial months on the platform
- Products you can sell on Etsy
- Best-selling products & customer avatar
- How to get started on Etsy
- Competitor research
- Product pricing and thumbnails
- Her strategies
- Getting started without a social media following
- Etsy vs. other e-commerce platforms
- Commissions
- Shipping
- When your store is stuck
- Power listings
- $0 to $10k
- Ads on Etsy
Links & Resources
Transcript
Jared: All right. Welcome back to the niche pursuits podcast. My name is Jared Bauman. Today. Our guest is Dylan Jaras. Dylan, welcome on board.
Dylan: Thanks for having me, Jaren. Really excited to be here.
Jared: This is a fun topic. I don’t think we’ve ever talked about this, at least dedicate an entire episode to it on our podcast.
And we’ve been around a while. So we’re talking about Etsy today, which is really interesting, especially as it relates to what’s going on for a lot of people listening. I don’t want to bury the lead though, before we get into all that, can you introduce yourself to us? Tell us who you are. Maybe give us some backstory.
Dylan: Yes, yes. So I am, um, I’m a military spouse. I actually live in Southern California right now, and I’m from the Midwest, studied business on the East Coast, went into e commerce, corporate e commerce for a few years, um, but then met someone in the military, got married, started moving around a lot, and it’s really hard to Us, you know, climb the corporate ladder when you’re moving, you know, as frequently as every six months.
So they don’t, they don’t like that. So I started my own thing, um, with side hustling, dog walking, house sitting through something up on Etsy randomly. Then two months later it sold. And I thought, Oh no, now I have to ship this thing. What do I, how do I make this and ship it? And, uh, yeah, made over a million dollars profit within five years.
And, uh, now I’m teaching at the age of. A few thousand sellers.
Jared: So catch us up on when the Etsy bug, when you got bit by the Etsy bug, I suppose that’s a good way to put it. I mean, when you first sold a product on Etsy, so we can kind of understand how, how long of a timeframe this has been.
Dylan: Yeah. So that was about eight years ago.
Um, I got my first sale. Now I thought Etsy was going to be like eBay for crafters. That’s what I thought, like, you know, grandma’s knitting stuff, throwing it up and seeing what happens. Um, I didn’t realize that it takes, you know, really e commerce strategy applied to that platform. And it wasn’t until after that first sale, I started applying my corporate e commerce background to it by month four.
Um, so between month two and month four, I got up to 10, 000 per month. Uh, And haven’t looked back. So that’s, you know, that’s how quickly that happened.
Jared: Maybe let’s start with an overview of the Etsy platform. I think everyone listening will know Etsy, right. And kind of know what it is, but I think when it comes to being a seller on Etsy, the whole game changes compared to what it is like being a buyer on Etsy.
Dylan: Yes. Yes. And, um, you know, there are sellers who are treating it like a hobby, but then there are sellers who are doing, you know, up to 8 million a year. That’s, you know, those are the type of people I work with. People who are just starting out and people who do one to 8 million per year. Some of them have like 50 employees.
So this is actually, you know, it’s kind of like, you know, Amazon power sellers, right? So Etsy, they allow so many types of products that you might not think of. So digital products. Right. Digital downloads, spreadsheets, templates, um, a, you know, AI wall arts from, you know, things from mid journey, you could do handmade products or altered products.
You could literally sell supplies, commercially made supplies, just reselling things. So if you can see a margin opportunity in something, you can sell it. You know, an Etsy under certain categories. And then there’s like the vintage as well. Um, print on demand is really big, right? So you’re not shipping anything yourself.
You have a production partner. So there’s so many areas you can get into this. It doesn’t really discriminate. We have people, you know, teenagers and we have people in their eighties doing this.
Jared: For people who are listening, Amazon drop ship is a model that we have talked about before. A lot of people do affiliate marketing where you don’t actually have to create a product.
You just have to kind of figure out how to market somebody else’s product. What type of products you just went through, which products sell, but for people listening, what are the best performing types of products for Etsy? And maybe that also gets us into who is shopping on Etsy, you know, maybe give us a customer avatar if you could.
Dylan: Yeah, it’s going to be mostly women, but remember they’re still shopping for men. So like one of my top students who grew the fastest, he did almost half a million dollars in his first year. And he’s just selling one type of product men’s wallets. That’s all like so simple. He’s, he was like 22 at the time.
And I mean, he didn’t, he had so much money. He had never had that much money in his life, of course, and, um, life changing, but really I recommend focusing on products that have purpose or utility. So not. Nice to have frivolous items. Think about how could you help someone save time, make money or save money.
Um, if you are in the digital space, you don’t want to be touching any products, spreadsheets, website templates, funnels, uh, email templates. Like those are all things you could sell. You can also sell your services there.
Jared: I’m so glad you mentioned that because for anybody who’s kind of like, ah, this Etsy thing isn’t for me, like, I’m glad you went through some of the techie stuff that a lot of people listening are, are, are building on their own and, and I want to get into that, you know, like spreadsheets and services and these kinds of things.
I mean, the Etsy in my mind, and I’m sure the Etsy in a lot of people’s minds is selling, you know, like. You know, like if I needed like a, uh, uh, uh, like something to put them in my background of my podcast, you know, or if I needed something handcrafted, that would be where I would go. But I really do want people to hear before we get into the details of how to settle this up, like go through like all the different types of products you’re seeing sold on Etsy that I think will help people understand like this is a broader marketplace than perhaps our stereotypes give it credit for.
Dylan: Oh my goodness. Yes. Like I have, I have a girl, she, um, excuse me. She still works full time and great corporate job. She does spreadsheets within six months. She’s making 25, 000 a month and it’s less than a hundred listings. You don’t need a million products to be successful here. Um, so that’s just one example, website templates, even things like Kajabi, right?
Templates and funnels with, um, that integrate with Kajabi are great. Um, you know, 10, 20, 000 a month you could be doing, and these are things that you make once, make it once you list it and it keeps selling. So it’s not, um, I wouldn’t say it’s passive income. I hate that word because nothing’s passive. You know, it’s a lot of action up front, but it’s not passive.
You know, it’s definitely something where you can put the action up and up front and see the benefit for years.
Jared: Okay, perfect. Okay. So let’s, let’s kind of dig in here and let’s get into it. Like maybe let’s start, and I really would like you to walk us through. You don’t need me telling you how this process works best, but I think the first place to start is at the start.
Where does someone start when it comes to Etsy? Perhaps they have something in mind. They think they might be able to sell, or even before they open a shop, do they need to do research? Like, where does someone start?
Dylan: Yeah. So I think a lot of people make the mistake of looking at what’s selling on Etsy and then thinking, I’ll, I’ll do that.
I’ll copy that and make it my own. Well, you know, Etsy, it, it is late on the trend. So you’re about six to eight months too late. If you are copying things that are already on Etsy. So you really want to look at, you want to look outside of Etsy, um, blogs. Pinterest is huge. TikTok even. Huge for, for ideation, uh, looking to influencers, looking to premium brands and businesses.
Um, and really we focus on who do you want to sell to? So we’re not just picking a product. We’re looking at what customer do we want to target? And then we build the product mix for them. So you could say, I want to target, you know, content creators. Okay. What do content creators need? What helps them save time, save money, or make money?
And you can list all those things out. The best opportunities are where you go to Etsy. You search, let’s say a set of long tail keywords and the best sellers are ugly looking, you know, the, the mock ups the template, you know, the thumbnail is just not good. There’s maybe a price opportunity as well. Uh, that’s a really easy one.
To get in
Jared: a lot of us will be familiar with doing competitor research, whether it’s with SEO, whether it’s maybe on Amazon, right? We can go and look at the bestseller rating we can try to see. And there’s so, and even outside of those two platforms, like what sort of competitor research are you doing to validate your ideas?
Like how do you stumble upon a good idea and have a good sense that it’s worth pursuing, that it’s not a trend that you missed, that it’s not overly saturated. I mean, you know, I can see there being trepidation around which products and services to go into.
Dylan: Yes. So we, we actually give our students, um, it’s called the 10 step opportunity checklist, and it’s basically 10 questions to run your idea through, but we are focusing on Etsy.
So while we find the ideas outside of Etsy, we still do a search of those long tail keywords on Etsy. Because what matters is. Can you win in search results? That’s all that matters. And how you win is with your value proposition. So it’s your combination of your listing photo and your price. Okay. So that’s really all that matters.
No, one’s looking at your title. No, one’s looking at your SEO, how pretty it is. Um, no one’s, you know, looking through the listing description, because they’re not even going to click in if you’re not winning with your price in your thumbnail photo. So that’s really how you have to win. That’s where the competitor Analysis really starts.
Jared: So I’m going to, if it’s okay with you, I’m going to play like a, uh, an example scenario throughout the podcast here. Let’s uh, and I didn’t put this on the agenda, so I apologize in advance. We’re just going with here. The, uh, let’s say someone listening has a, a website about dogs, you know, um, or a email list about dogs or they’re creating content around dogs.
They have a successful Pinterest channel, maybe around dogs. Right. And, um, uh, they want to transition to Etsy. Maybe let’s play that through. Like, are we talking about. You know, a specialized dog collars. Are we talking about dog training courses and how are they going to go in and validate that up against some of the things you just talked about?
Dylan: Yeah. So if, if you’re just, you know, broad, general category about dogs, what I would do is look at some of the most premium, expensive dog breeds who spends the most money on their pets. Usually they treat them like children. And maybe they’re obsessed with a certain breed. They have like, you know, 15 border collies.
I don’t know. I don’t have dogs, but you know, they’re obsessed with a breed and it’s an expensive breed, you know, golden doodles. That’s one. It’s like a designer dog. Um, so offering items for those owners who are obsessed with that, um, people, you know, look at where people spend their time and money. Pets, that is definitely a thing.
So I wouldn’t, um, I wouldn’t focus too much on just dog mom, general, like dog mom stuff. You have to get a little more specific, right? So, um, I would look at, okay, how can we serve them in as many areas of their life as possible? Things for the dog, things for the dog owner, things for when the dog dies, like memorial, uh, new puppy, you know, new pet owner gifts.
Um, dog Christmas, right? Dog stocking stuffers, like, um, all of those things. And then what is purchased on a repeat basis? That’s another type of product we want to have. And then you are also going to want to front load your product mix with loss leaders. Really important to get traction on Etsy. So things that are low price point, low margin, you’re not going to lose money, but maybe it’s like, you know, your puppy’s first month checklist or something like that.
A digital product, maybe it’s 99 cents. You’re going to sell like 20 a day. Thanks.
Jared: Okay. So there’s a lot to talk about pricing and thumbnail and, um, how you build out these products, not just about getting a good product. Is this a good time to kind of go into some of those strategies so that people can learn how to, how to, how to get a listing to show up in search?
Dylan: Yeah, absolutely.
Jared: What is the combination that makes sense? Again, sticking with the golden doodle topic. I love it because golden doodles, you know, we’ve talked about that before with, um, I think it was Garrett Yamasaki last year who had a brand for, for dogs. And we talked about different dog brands and breeds.
Um, uh, what, how do you layer these products and how do you price and thumbnail them and what other factors show up in search?
Dylan: Yeah. So with search results, I mean, you really need to focus on long tail keywords. So you’re not having a pretty title. Uh, it’s, you know, not just something that you would call it to, like, let’s say it’s a painting of a dog.
You don’t want to call this like, you know, dog sleeping under the moon. Like that’s not going to get you found. You want to do like, you know, dog themed office wall decor or something like that are, um, that so long tail keywords. Number one. Easiest thing that people miss because you can have perfect pricing, perfect product without those long tail keywords, you will not get found.
So really being strategic around that, um, photos, photos really matter. That’s, that’s your branding. That’s, that’s how you create trust with people without having a track record. So photos really matter. And then pricing strategies too. Um, you don’t want to come out the gate, you know, being 20 percent higher, or even at the same price as your market leaders.
And now in those search results, you have to be willing to give your products away in order to get traction and get those reviews. And then you can pull the price lever. Um, we don’t want to be, it’s kind of like the Amazon model, right? They’re not, they weren’t making a lot of money when the Amazon first started, right?
It’s, um, acquiring customers, acquiring that, that feedback. So that’s what you do with the Nazi shop too.
Jared: So you basically need to go in there with a strong strategy to get in front of people and then get the product being purchased, even if it’s at a much lower price than you are targeting long term.
Dylan: Exactly. Short term, short term, give it away. Um, one of my mentors is Alex Hermosi, right? Just give so much value so they can’t say no, and then you can pull the price lever and you become highly profitable.
Jared: What are some of the tactics you use to grow your Etsy profits as quickly as you did? Maybe share some of the things that you used that you found were successful in helping you grow so rapidly.
Dylan: Yes. Um, social media is definitely one of those. Uh, so really Etsy ads, it’s one of the worst places to spend your money. They don’t give you control over really anything there. So would not recommend ads. I would, I would recommend organic social media strategies. So Facebook, Pinterest, um, sometimes Instagram, Tik TOK, even YouTube can be helpful.
Uh, blogging can be helpful as well. Building your email list, but social media, I like a combination of Facebook and Pinterest, and then, um, evolving your product mix. So not letting what’s working now be your bestseller a year from now. You’ve really, you know, I would say. Right now, what we’re seeing a lot on Etsy is people were successful in 2020 and they are relying on their same products from 2020 to carry them today.
Huge opportunity missed. You left so much on the table. So you’ve got to keep iterating, uh, with your product mix. So social media and iterations of your products.
Jared: Is this the type of thing where like, You know, let’s say you have a, a, a bestseller, uh, you know, golden doodle, uh, bracelet, and it goes and does really well.
Does the algorithm of Etsy continue to feed that and you’re updating that product inside that same listing? Or is it going to naturally kind of sunset and you as a storefront need to collectively be launching new products to continue to catch the wave of the next, you know, like you talked about the next trend.
Dylan: Yeah. So that listing, you know, let’s say it does really well in 2020 and it’s maybe a color that is really hot in 2020 and like an emerald green or something. And then basically you’re going to see it start to fade as new, new trends, new things come into those search results. Your, your listing is going to rank lower and lower.
So yes, you should be updating that listing. Now, if you want to take full advantage of. That revenue history, I would use that same listing shell, just update the actual product within it.
Jared: Okay. That’s a, that, that makes sense. That makes sense. Um, what are their, what are their tips, especially for some starting off who maybe doesn’t have a social media following yet, you know, maybe that’s not something they’ve developed or they, they, uh, they don’t have one that’s going to lead to enough traction to get themselves off the ground.
Dylan: Yes. Um, I, I really am a big proponent of some kind of more guerrilla marketing techniques on Facebook where you don’t even need a following. All you need is, you know, a random profile. You could create a profile just for this and really getting into Facebook groups where your customers are. For example, golden doodles, we could go with this example.
There’s so many Facebook groups for breeders, right? For people who are obsessed with golden noodles and, um, they are, you know, That is their life. That is their world. And getting into all those Facebook groups, let’s say a golden doodle puppy, Facebook group, all these people are posting pictures of their new puppy.
Well, they’re spending money and time on that puppy. They’re gonna buy the t shirt that says, you know, my little, my little girl, Betty is my best golden doodle thing ever. Like, I mean, they’re obsessed and that’s when they’re spending money. They’re primed to spend. So get into those Facebook groups, promote your products.
Um, it’s. It’s, you don’t need a following for that. Yeah.
Jared: Why Etsy over doing it on your own? You know, uh, you have a website, uh, you can drop WooCommerce store on it or maybe start up with Shopify. Uh, I have a feeling I know some of the things you’re going to say, but you know, walk us through why we would pick Etsy versus some of these other platforms to sell with.
Dylan: Yeah. My question to you would be how quickly do you want to make money? How quickly do you want to see a hundred sales a month? How much money do you have to spend on ads right now? Have you done Facebook ads before? Do you, are you proficient with ads? Uh, and if the answer to that is no, like I, I really caution you against starting a website because you’re going to end up with a huge traffic problem.
You’ll have this beautiful website. You know, usually it’s not beautiful. The first. Round, right? Your first sites, you know, looking a little sketch sometimes, but, uh, it might, you know, look pretty good, but then you have no customers. What’s the plan for that? It’s the same people who, you know, put all this time into the product and then not the marketing.
Well, how are you going to get found? How are you going to get traffic and sales? So. Really, I recommend Etsy as the best place to launch a brand because it’s the fastest place you’re gonna get traffic in sales. And then you expand onto your website, expand onto other platforms, but Etsy’s traffic, I mean their marketing team.
I actually just had a call with a VP at Etsy an hour ago and talking about what they’re doing for sellers and um, what they are. You know, what information and insights they provide you with about your customers. They’re coming out with a lot of new insights that are just going to help you learn quickly about your customer.
And you can’t get that with just a Shopify site that has no traffic.
Jared: Let’s say that, um, uh, you know, somebody sticks with Etsy launches on Etsy. Walk through the commissions that you’re going to have, what you get paid. Does it tier, you know, like all the payment stuff, right? Cause obviously I see he’s taking a cut of that. Um, what does it look like for someone and how does it scale as they grow?
Dylan: Yeah, the best part is that, uh, it, it stays the same. So no matter if you are, you know, brand new seller or if you’re at, you know, higher level, the commission just So you, your pricing strategies, you know, you can be confident in knowing your margin basically. Now the one thing, you know, Etsy’s fee is much lower than Amazon, but they do have a variable cost, which is offsite ads.
And once you’re hitting, um, I believe it’s 10, 000 right now. They do turn on offsite ads is which, and that’s where they push your products through like Google ads. For example, um, now you don’t have a choice in which listings they push. They just have free reign of your shop. And that would take, um, up to, uh, uh, it’s, it’s a pretty significant percentage depending on if you were grandfathered in or not.
So it could be up to like 20 percent roughly of your total. Now, you know, when you have offsite ads turned on, once you’ve hit that threshold and you can accommodate for that in your pricing.
Jared: So walk, go into the details there again, if you could like, um, gifted a minimum of 10, 000 per month or in total for this to happen.
Dylan: Um, in total. So once you’re hitting, I believe it’s in the year. Um, I’m not sure if it’s the fiscal year or the first 12 months of when you started off to look into that. But, um, it’s, yeah, once you’re at that 10, 000 threshold, they start promoting your listings, not every listing, just ones, um, that they think would do well through like Google ads.
They’ll also put it on like Bing and Yahoo and, um, It’s not often that this will happen. Your listings actually have to be, you know, highly searched products on, on these sites. But, uh, I would say it is a risk. So if someone comes in through an ad, an offsite ad, they call it, then let’s say they buy something else.
Well, Etsy will take a percentage of that. And it’s really just paying for their ad spend.
Jared: Got it. Okay. What is the commission structure like on a regular account? Like what can someone expect to give Etsy from a normal sale?
Dylan: Yes. So, um, it depends on the, uh, yeah, I guess it depends on if you’re a grandfathered in or not.
Um, so right now it’s about, there’s a listing fee, so 20, 25 cents. And then, I mean, that’s nothing. Um, and then it’s about 6 percent and then a 3 percent transaction, which you’re going to pay on Shopify anyways. Like you’re going to pay a transaction fee anyways for your payment processor. Um, if you do have your products listed in a different currency, there would also be, um, I think they call it like a currency conversion percentage.
Um, so that’s something to consider for international sellers. So if you are, let’s say, you know, your banking is all in the UK, but you’re selling your products in U S dollars, there’s going to be a small, small fee, but it’s, it’s so nominal compared to what your marketing budget would be on Shopify. Okay.
Jared: Okay. Good deal. So we got a per transaction fee. Sounds very similar to like a credit card processor. Like if you get, you know, you’re going to run payments through like a credit card processor, you’re usually going to pay like a per, per, per, uh, run fee plus a percentage. Um, and then yes, if you’re running foreign transactions, there’s obviously the currency exchange and usually a little bit added on top of that.
Um, Let’s talk about shipping and, and all that, you know, obviously if people are living in the world of kind of digital downloads or digital delivery, I’m guessing that’s a pretty simple process that takes care of itself. But if you’re shipping products, you know, again, relating to the Amazon world, right?
Like there’s three PLS that as you get bigger, you can kind of get them to help with, or you can obviously send all your product to Amazon and they’ll have fulfilled by Amazon. But with Etsy, like, As you grow and as you scale, what are some of the, uh, some of the things you need to be aware of as you have inventory and you need to ship out product?
Dylan: Oh, you cut out for a sec. Um, but you’re asking about the shipping, the shipping.
Jared: Yeah. Yeah. Go through some of the shipping, uh, considerations.
Dylan: So it’s great that Etsy actually partners with. Shipping carriers. So you get discounted rates and you can, if you purchase your shipping labels through Etsy, you are covered by the seller protection program, which means if something is broken, if it’s lost, um, if there’s like an issue with shipping or delivery or something, they cover you, which is fantastic.
So that’s something to consider. I do recommend purchasing your shipping labels through Etsy if possible, and they cover everything. So customs, all the forms, like they’re all great. Printed and done for you. So it’s so easy. That’s why it’s really easy to start outsourcing things like packaging and shipping to maybe an employee or something who comes in and does that part for you.
Jared: Okay. Um, I want to circle back a little bit into some of the more advanced techniques, if we could, I know you’ve been touching on them, dripping them, kind of alluding to different things, but if we could just maybe. Take the second half here or the last, the last bit of this to get a little bit more advanced.
And let me frame it this way. Let’s say somebody goes out and starts their golden doodle Etsy shop and they, you know, they’ve done their research, they’ve done their homework. They’ve tried to make a attractive pricing, good thumbnails, do the long tail research. It’s been a month or a month or two, and it’s not going anywhere.
Um, like what can we do at that point where we’ve done the basics? Hopefully the basics have been done right, but we’re not getting the traction that we think we can.
Dylan: Yeah. So I would say if your SEO is on point and if you are pricing to basically give it away for the first few sales, right. And no one wants it.
Then sometimes it’s an issue with product market fit. Maybe it’s, you know, kind of, we all think our baby’s the cutest and then it’s like, maybe it’s not the cutest. Um, that’s where. We run into some problems and I see this happen with people maybe who are in the wrong product category where they are trying to do print on demand t shirts or something that requires kind of some design skills and they are trying to learn design skills right now and they don’t, they didn’t come in with that and it can take a lot longer to get traction because designs just aren’t looking good.
So I would recommend at that point. Really transitioning into something that, uh, you, you aren’t at a deficit in, in such an important area like design. So maybe you you’re better off with spreadsheets or, or website templates or something that is a little harder to mess up than like, you know, apparel.
Yeah,
Jared: that makes a lot of sense. Any other. Tips for getting unstuck. Product market fit is a great one. Uh, and again, you’re, you’re, you’re talking to a, a fairly tech, tech, uh, tripping on my words here, a fairly tech savvy audience. I don’t know why that was so hard to say. A fairly tech savvy audience that’s going to be able to lean into things, uh, like the SEO and other digital components to help their Etsy store do better.
Dylan: Yes. So in that case, um, sometimes you’re better off starting a new shop. So Etsy does give you a boost in your first really 30 to 45 days. We see in the algorithm where you don’t have a negative quality score for your shop yet. The longer you stay open without sales, they give you, it’s called your quality score.
Um, and it’s becomes negative. So as your conversion rate is lower and lower and lower, you’re going to rank lower and Lower and lower. So sometimes you’re better off starting a brand new shop. And it’s funny. I had actually had someone who she, she was stuck at 40 sales for the longest time, like for like six months, she puts the products into a new shop.
She gets, I was a hundred sales in 34 days because. Same products, same strategies, new shop.
Jared: Well, we know about that over, uh, in the, uh, non Etsy world. In many cases, I could give you a lot of use cases there. I want to ask you about this. I thought it was a good time. You put in our agenda here, something about using power listings to really skyrocket growth.
Can we talk about that?
Dylan: Yeah. So. Really with Etsy, if you’re looking for revenue and profit here, you need to have some listings that are, I call them power listings. They do at least 20, 000 in their lifetime. These are going to be bestsellers. They’re going to have bestseller badges. They’re going to be really cemented at the top of search because of the order velocity behind them and the revenue history.
So the whole idea with a power listing is to make it a listing that anyone Could buy from. So it has all the options available. Not so many where it’s analysis paralysis, but for example, let’s say it is a, let’s say you’re selling website templates. Well, maybe you have, you know, the template by itself.
Maybe you have the template with full installation. Maybe you have the template with, you know, 10 customization features added and they’re all variations within one listing. So that way. Yes, you can serve the person who wants the template for 100, but then, you know, at the other end of the spectrum, you have a variation where you’re doing a full migration for someone and it’s 2, 000.
That is a power listing. So serving someone, uh, in as many different, you know, variations of that thing as possible, and it’s going to be reflected in the pricing. Within the listing.
Jared: Interesting. Okay. So is the strategy to build a power, like a power listing, right? That’s something that’s, like you said, not everything under the sun, but a collection of options that will allow it to attract a variety of different price points and people.
Do you also then build those out as individual products or individual services that you would list in a separate? Yeah. You know, URL, basically
Dylan: you would. Yes. And you would, because you want to show up under as many long tail keywords as possible. And Etsy does limit, um, because of the kind of constraints of where you put your SEO in, they limit how many long tail keywords you could fit in there.
So for example, if you had the website template and then you had the full, like done for you with installation, migration, everything, you would want to still have separate listings for those. And then one listing that’s like offering all the bundle options possible.
Jared: Okay. Okay. That makes sense.
Dylan: Yeah.
Jared: Um, let me give you another hypothetical here.
Uh, I love this hypothetical because this is basically what’s going through my mind the entire interviews. If I wanted to get to 10, 000 a month in revenue as quickly as possible, what would be your game plan or your approach?
Dylan: Yes. So it would be really by targeting profitable customers who are already coming to Etsy and building your product mix around them so that you can serve them in many areas.
And they’re shopping with you frequently because we don’t want transactions. We need to focus on the LTV. So lifetime value of your customer, and that’s, that’s really where it starts. And then in terms of building your product mix, you need to front load that heavily with loss leaders. That’s going to get your order velocity up, but we have to counterbalance that with some things that are going to drive revenue.
So those might be, you know, an average order value of, you know, 500. For something at that end, you’re going to get to 10, 000 a month. So much faster. If you have some higher ticket products in your, in your mix, but you can’t just have only high ticket products are only low ticket loss leaders. You’ve got to have the combination, those loss leaders, what they’re going to do.
You’re going to front load with that. So maybe your first 15 of your first 20 listings are loss leaders, you’re going to get, you know, maybe your first thousand orders on loss leaders, and then it’s going to elevate the ranking of your higher price point listings. That’s the fastest way to get to 10k.
Jared: Yeah. If I were to summarize and seriously, tell me where if I’ve gotten it wrong, but if I were to summarize, You need low priced products, i. e. loss leaders to generate sales velocity, which tweaks the algorithm and to get reviews because you need a volume of reviews. So the combination of having a high CTR, a high number of sales, especially early on to get a nice seller rating, and then those reviews is vital, but you also have to.
Eventually, whether you start off that way or pretty quickly drip it in, you have to have a variety of products at a variety of price points that do profit. Otherwise that’s where the money is and you need to get there. And the best way to get there is to, to definitely have some higher ticket items.
Dylan: Absolutely. Higher ticket items and also items that buy, uh, that people buy more frequently. So like on a reoccurring basis, maybe it’s, you know, once a month, once a year where they’re going to keep coming back for more.
Jared: Okay. That’s interesting. That’s a good way to think about it. And, and poses a little bit of a challenge, I’m sure, but also is, you know, it’s probably also where a lot of the separation comes from people who just do that transactional type of sales and they don’t have people coming back versus people who create products that get people coming back over and over again.
Dylan: Yes. And that’s, that’s the thing. If you want to hit 10, 000 a month, like you could do that in a transactional way, but you’re always going to be chasing sales. If you’re wanting to get to 10, 000 so that you can then get to 30, 000, you will need compounding growth, which means you’re going to need your customers to keep coming back.
Jared: Maybe, let me ask you just to, again, I’m just trying to. Get people’s brains going. Um, I’m looking right here. I bought my desk. I wish I could show it in the podcast. I bought my dad’s beautiful desk. It’s like an oak desk, oak finished desk from somebody on Etsy. Did a great job. It came with the legs. All I had to do was screw the legs in.
It was, it was beautiful. Um, it was actually recommended by my friend. Um, he bought from there. How would some, but I’m trying to think like, how would somebody like that create me coming back to buy more? It feels so transactional. I feel like, and I’m wondering, there’s some products. That feels so transactional in nature that how do you increase LTV lifetime value of a customer from something like this desk scenario I’m giving you.
Dylan: Yeah. So with that, I would look at what else would this person be buying? First of all, maybe some kind of like conditioning wood oil or something to like care for that specifically. And maybe it’s, you know, enough for like a year supply or six months supply to care for that. And with instruction saying once a month, you know, rub this thing on it.
I don’t know. That’s one idea. Um, another idea would be what else would you have on the desk? Maybe it’s a riser for your laptop. Maybe it’s, um, something, you know, like a 3d printed accessory that you clip onto the side that holds your mic or, you know, something like that. Um, what else do you have around your desk?
Do you have a display? Do you have, um, you know, do you, you have a laptop? Okay. How do you carry that laptop away from the desk? You know, when you’re going to work in the car, maybe you have, um, some kind of a case or something for, you know, Your work things. So that’s, that’s what I would be thinking. You know, you have the desk.
What else do you need for the desk? That makes a lot of sense.
Jared: Okay. Last. Question last question that, um, I’ll throw at you, uh, some people here are going to have experience running, say Facebook ads and running ads through Google and these kinds of things. Like, do you see success with people actually running ads to their products on Etsy instead of building a social media following or in addition to building a social media following?
And if so, like, what are some of the things you see work well when running ads to your products?
Dylan: Yes. So the first part of your question just cut out. Um, but it’s some people have social media, some don’t, and. How do they run ads to your products from social?
Jared: Yeah. So let’s take the scenario of somebody where, um, uh, they have experience in ads and they don’t necessarily have a social media following that can drive the type of revenue they want.
Um, what are some success, uh, tips you have for people who want to run ads, whether it’s be through maybe Facebook ads through Google ads or other ad platforms to their Etsy products.
Dylan: Yes. And I would say definitely Facebook ads for Etsy. Um, specifically, yeah, for Etsy, I would start there. Uh, I would also really look at creating a lookalike audience around maybe you have a website and you have, you know, your best customers from your website, or maybe there’s, you know, a competitor or something.
Now there are, um, Some great tools. We’ve actually looked into like scraping certain data. Um, now I have a COO in our company who does this part. So this is his expertise, not mine, but you know, creating a really strong look alike audience, um, for that of people who actually convert on your type of products.
Jared: Yeah, good, good. Um, any that we didn’t talk about that you think is important or that we touched on, but didn’t go into in enough depth, um, from, uh, from our interview today.
Dylan: Yeah. So, I mean, I would say if, if anyone is looking for, you know, extra income, like even like, you know, five to 10, 000 a month, something like that, um, Etsy really is a great place to do that.
And you can do it in conjunction with other people. You know, a lot of other things you have going on and you could probably take things you already have, get them up on Etsy. So it’s not even about creating new products necessarily, but maybe using tools that you’ve made for yourself or for other parts of your business and selling those on Etsy.
You’d be really surprised, especially if it’s a kind of more utility focused product, uh, what type of volume you could, you could get from Etsy.
Jared: It’s great inspiration. I’ll tell you, I’m sure a lot of people interested listening will be hearing this as a great add on to what they’re already doing online.
A lot of people listening will see this as a great opportunity to take something online that maybe was working. It isn’t working now and find a new platform to get success from it. So there’s a lot of different angles. I think this could apply. And certainly there’s a stereotype that I’ve always had a Betsy and you’ve opened my eyes to a lot of the different things that Etsy can do that.
You know, I think I’ve just Miss accurately, uh, or misplaced, um, in, in terms of what it’s, what’s possible there. Now I know you have a free, um, checklist people can, can download, but, um, where can people find you? Tell us how we can learn more about what you offer.
Dylan: Yeah. So Instagram’s a great place to go.
Just at Dylan Jara’s. J A H R A U S is the last name. And then, uh, we also have a podcast, um, Etsy Seller Success with Dylan Jarrus. We do a lot of content there. YouTube is probably the favorite though because it’s really visual, you know, explanations of things. And that’s just Dylan Jarrus on YouTube. We have, I, my gosh, hundreds and hundreds of videos there.
If you are just looking for free guidance, it’s a good place to start.
Jared: Okay. We’ll get all that listed in the show notes. Um, Dylan, thanks for coming on board. I really appreciate everything you shared.
Dylan: Yeah. Thanks for having me. Really happy to be here. Thank you.
Jared: All right. We’ll talk again soon. Bye bye.
