I'm walking you through the 5 things to do when you audit and elevate your Etsy shop for more sales and success. 🥳

I would say there are 5 main things to look at when going through your shop. If you are not the kind of person who is going to be very objective about their shop then you may want to buddy up with a friend and swap shops. 

When you are working on it all the time it can be difficult to take an objective look so buddying up can be so helpful. 

If you are in the HBSA course we have a Facebook group for students and you can put the link to your shop in there and ask for feedback from me, the team and other bosses, which is something I love.  This is not available in the free group as all the members haven't been through the course and know the dos and don'ts from my course. 

1. Overall Branding

Look at your shop, or your buddies shop and look at the branding. Is it cohesive across all the plat forms? I see this a lot we have peoples shops with one type of branding and then on their IG its different colours, a different logo, so its not cohesive.

You don't go into Apple and see one logo and then on their website its a completely different logo, its ALL cohesive. 

Your branding does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to building trust, building that rapport with people when they are coming in to view. So when they then go onto your email list or your social media or another touch point and there is a different logo, the colours are a bit different, it instills doubt into their heads wondering if it's still the same place and it can put them off looking. 

The other thing is does it make sense to the target market,

"Is it clear what you sell?"

"Does it make sense for the products you sell?"

For example let's say you make a lot of seascapes, and you do a lot of work with like water and the beach and that kind of thing and then your branding is very gothic and very dark. It's not going to make sense. People who are viewing art or pieces like seascapes are not going to be attracted to gothic branding. BUT if you sell gothic jewellery that's going to be a perfect match right? 

There are a lot of psychological triggers when it comes to looking at branding, certain colours can trigger different emotions in different people for example so there is that to consider as well. 

Branding is something that I would say 90% of the people I work with, need some work when it comes to their branding  because it's not something we are born knowing what to do. We either have the creative eye or we don't, or you know what colours attract you the best or you don't, Its definitely something we need to learn. 

Don't just go for the colours that you love! Colours mean a lot to people, you know they say blue is a serious reassuring colour, yellow is very happy, joyful all that kind of thing. These should be considered when you choose your colours. 

Is your branding cohesive across your Etsy shop, website, social media platforms, packaging, all of your touch points? 

You really need to make sure your branding is doing a lot of the heavy lifting, building that foundational trust that they can buy from you and you are the right choice.

2. Target Market 

You really need to make sure this is SPOT ON! I know I'm going to get questions about how do I know what my target market is, how do I know if I have the right one? 

I have videos galore about this on my YouTube Channel  and if you get my book, this is also a workbook as well so you will be able to work through it, you will be guided, coached through it and it goes a little more in depth than a video could.

If you really want to get stuck in, then join HBSA as this is where we really go deep, we have 'Target Market Bootcamp' '17 Ways to find your Target Market' and so much more, as well as the Facebook Group for support, so you can check in, get feedback, ask questions.

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You should be able to walk into a shop and understand who it's for, what type of person would shop there, if you are the target market for that shop you should be instantly attracted to it. 

For example, if you are in the UK you may know the shop Oliver Bonas, that's my target market store! Whenever I walk in there I'm like "oh I love it in here"....., its bright, colourful, vintage style, its really boho, its right up my street and whenever I go in there I always end up buying something. 

That should be the same for you shop as well.

So.....

• Who is the shop for?
• Does it make sense?
• Is it too broad?
• Are you trying to attract everybody?

For example let's say your product attracts mums, are you trying to attract all the mums, are you narrowing the scope just a tiny bit or is it too narrow? Have you gone the other way and thought I know I'm going to go with mums who like this and have kids of this particular age and this and this and this....... Again my book 'How to be a handmade boss' will help you with that. 

3. Products

So I like to call it the 'Tantalising Trifector' it's basically a trio of things, so imagine the 3 legs of a stool. Each leg is different,

1.  Your branding
2.  Your target market 
3.  Your products

They should all be working in tandem. It doesn't matter where you sell these, your trio should always be cohesive. 

Is there a wide enough selection for the whole scope o your target market to buy or are you just focusing in one product at one price point? I have seen success with both depending what your reasoning is behind it.  Does it work with your branding? because what I see a lot of is lots of really colourful products with really muted branding. Sometimes I'm kind of like ok, so If you are attracting someone with my muted tones of your branding and they don't like colourful products then there's a disconnect between the two. 

It's the same with branding versus price point. If you have high end products but your branding doesn't look high end, again you are attracting the wrong kind of clients with your brand but you are actually selling something that is meant for a different type of person - there is a disconnect. 

4. Pricing 

I would say 85%  of people I am actually working with are underpricing! The vast majority of you guys reading are probably under charging for your products. 

I don't want to hear, 'but there are people selling it for like £3 and I'm charging £5' or 'People are charging £50 and I'm only charging £20'. They are not your competitors as they are attracting a different target market to you.

Let's say you make bridal headbands and someone is charging £12 and you're charging £30 for like different designs obviously because its handmade, and you're like Oh that's why I'm not making sales! Chances are that's NOT why you're not making sales, it's probably the other three things, the trio that I mentioned earlier. 

I've never gone into a shop and gone, 'oh its the pricing', its too expensive, your not getting orders because your pricing is too high. 

You don't see Bentley going oh we charge like £130k for our cars and yet KIA are out here charging £14k! We need to lower our prices! Yes they are both cars but they are both in a completely different wheelhouse, they are attracting different people? 

So......

• Is it high end, or low cost
• Is it formatted properly
• Are you using the .99 or .95 pricing 

Studies have shown that prices that are .99 or .95 have and probably always will convert better as our brains see like £19.99 at £19 rather than £20. If you price it at the whole price of £20 it's not going to convert as well.

5. Categories

On Etsy, down the left hand side of your shop you have different categories where you can sort out the different varieties of your listings. 

Let's say you sell jewellery, and have a range of different styles, colours etc. are customers shopping according to the categories that you have sorted your shop into?

I thought customers would be shopping for jewellery in rose gold, silver and gold so added these categories, but they weren't they were looking for different occasions instead because my shop is very much geared towards gifts. So check your categories as I made this mistake. 

So.....

• Are you using the right categories
• Are they keyworded well? you want to use words people are actually looking for.
• Do they fit in with occasions and uses and reasons why people are on your shop looking to buy? 

5 things to get you started on your Etsy Shop Audit:

1.  Overall Branding
2. Target Market
3. Products 
4. Pricing 
5. Categories 

Go through the categories and score it from 1-10, does this work, does that work. Scoring things can really highlight your work is never done, there is always some improvement that you can make. 

Your Questions answered 

"Do you ever edit peoples shops?" 

No, I don't edit shops. There is an IP addresses so if you ever get people who can say they can log into your shop, do not do it because if the have logged into their wifi with a shop that has been closed down, your shop could then be at risk by association of getting closed down also. 

'Is your planner good for vintage items and not makers?'

Basically I would say if you have a physical product then it would work. It is aimed more at the handmade product type business but when someone asked that same question a few weeks back, I went through the whole planner and there is not one section that wouldn't be applicable for you guys. 

'How many listings would you recommend for you shop?'

So there is no magic number as to how many listings you should have. However, I would personally. aim to have over 100 listings, that's not products, listings because that is going to enable you to get across lots of different searches. If you can't get to100 then get as close to it as you can, but there is no magic number.

If I was pushed into a corner I would say between 50 and 100 is the ideal number. I have a lot more than that because I am in a saturated niche which does make a difference.

'I find branding really hard because I like bright colours but my customers like muted tones'

I am the same, but this is when we have to remember we are making our business for our target market not for us. 

'If you duplicate a listing and add it to different categories are you breaking up the sales and not taking advantage of the snowball effect?"

If it was me I would duplicate the listing and change the keywords and put it into a separate category. 

You're not negating the snowball effect because you are listing using different keywords which you would have missed out on anyway if you hadn't duplicated it so its not affecting the snowball effect. 

If you'd prefer me to visually teach you this blog post, then you can watch it HERE.

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