#99 - How to Start Selling on Etsy in 5 Simple Steps (Etsy Shop for Beginners Step by Step Walk Through)

Want to start selling on Etsy but feel completely overwhelmed by SEO, fees, rules, and everyone shouting different advice at you?

In this video, I’m walking you through how to start selling on Etsy in 5 simple steps, without melting your brain, overthinking your shop, or feeling like you need a business degree to get started.

This is a calm, beginner-friendly Etsy setup guide for 2026 and beyond, especially if you’re:

• Brand new to Etsy
  
  
• Stuck in research mode and not actually opening your shop
  
  
• Confused about what you’re allowed to sell
  
  
• Worried about SEO, pricing, or “doing it wrong”
  
  

We’ll cover:

• What you can (and can’t) sell on Etsy
  
  
• How to set up the business basics without a massive faff
  
  
• Opening your Etsy shop without obsessing over perfection
  
  
• Creating products that actually have a chance of selling
  
  
• Writing listings and starting marketing so people can find you
  
  

By the end, you’ll know exactly what to do next, instead of spinning in circles on Pinterest and Facebook groups.

I’m Steph. I’ve been a full-time handmade business owner since 2016, and I now coach makers through Etsy, marketing, and turning side hustles into proper income.

☕ Grab a cuppa, hit play, and let’s get your Etsy shop open.

🔗 Need help keeping up with social media once your shop is live?

My Social Media Sidekick membership gives you plug-and-post captions, Canva templates, hooks, hashtags, and a full content calendar built for handmade sellers:

👉 Join the SMS today 

👍 Like, subscribe, and check the next podcast once your shop is open and ready to grow.

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Join before 5th February at 8pm and you’ll also get exclusive bonuses worth over £1,200, all designed to save you hours every month and help your content actually get you sales, not just likes.

This isn’t about posting more.

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Transcript

If you want to start selling on Etsy, but every time you look into it, you end up overwhelmed by SEO fees and 50 different opinions in Facebook groups. Stay with me because in this video, I'm going to walk you through five simple steps to get your Etsy shop open, set up properly and ready to make sales without needing a business degree or just a full, uh, mental breakdown. So if you're sat there thinking, where do I even start? What if I mess up and Etsy bans me forever? Or do I really have to understand SEO before I list one thing? You are exactly who I made this video for. So hello, if you're new here, my name is Steph and I have been a full time and I have been a full time handmade business owner since 2016 and I've made all the mistakes so you don't have to. And basically here now I'm, um, I'm basically now I'm coaching you through all of the. And basically now I coach makers through the whole journey from tiny side hustle to Whoa. This actually pays like proper money and I can pay my bills with it. Now, today we are going to keep it super simple and super calm and we are going to go, and we're going to go through these points step by step. Number one, what you are actually allowed to sell on Etsy. Number two, how to set up the business side without the faff. Number three, opening your shop and not overthinking that very first listing. Number four, creating products that actually have a chance of selling, not just taking over your dining table or spare room. And number five, writing listings and starting your marketing so people can actually find you. By the end, you are going to know exactly what to do next. Instead of spinning on circles, instead of spinning yourself in tons of circles. So if this sounds good, I'm gonna get myself comfy. I'm gonna bring up my bullet point notes, give this video, uh, a very quick like and subscribe. Because every single week I do videos just like this one. All right, step one, decide what to sell and check if it's allowed. Before you touch logos, banners, or spend three hours choosing a really cool font in Canva, we need to answer the most basic question. Question. What are you actually selling? P.S. this is Etsy. I know you know this, but Etsy is not Amazon. You cannot just resell random bulk bought stuff from big retailers and hope that no one notices because they will. Broadly, Etsy allows four different types of things. Number one, handmade by you. You physically make the item or finish it off. For example, candles, jewelry, art, ah, crochet, ceramics, hair accessories, all those kinds of things. Number two, designed by you. You create the design and someone out. You create the design and someone else prints or produces it or you sell it as a digital download. That's going to be your things like print on demand mugs, T shirts, art prints, digital planners, SVGs, knitting patterns, etc. Number three, vintage, hand picked, actual vintage, not I bought it five years ago, so therefore it's vintage. No, no actual vintage. Nature finds, curated bundles, all those kinds of things. Number four is supplies, craft supplies, party supplies, blanks that allow other people or other shops to be creative. What you cannot do is chuck a load of AliExpress Tat on Etsy and call it handmade. I'm sorry, but you can't do that. Etsy is getting so much stricter on that every single week. They're getting more and more and more shops closed down. So for you, I want you to now pick one main category to start with and write it down in one sentence. For example, for example, handmade soy candles for cosy bookish people, or printable planners for busy mums, or minimal gold jewelry for everyday wear. If your brain is kind of at this point going, oh, but I could also do mugs and keyrings and dog bandanas and cool, put that aside, we're not doing those today. We start with one lane so that you can get momentum in that niche instead of building a chaotic general gift shop, market, store or whatever that, let's be honest, doesn't really stand for anything. As we know the value of your business is in your brand, which is therefore attached to your niche, which is therefore attached to your target audience. Now, please do not worry about any of those terms. If you're a bit like, oh my God, just follow along with this video. But please just know that we have to find our one niche, our one type of product first before we move on. All right, step two, setting up your business foundations without living in company's house. Step two is the unsexy bit. That future you is going to be very grateful you did. We are not going to be turning you into an accountant or a bookkeeper, but we are going to give your business an actual skeleton. Step one, choose a business name. Now, you want something that is going to be easy to spell, easy to say, and gives a hint of what you sell. So if your name is Moonlight Dream Sparkle Boutique Co and you sell plant pots, we might need to do a quick rethink. So here are your quick name Checks. Number one, Etsy search. Is the name already taken or is there, or is there another seller that has a name very similar, which is quite confusing. Number two, check your Instagram, slash TikTok handle, slash Threads, whatever you want to just make sure that that name is available on social media platforms. And the third thing which is very important actually is check your domains. This is basically if you want a website later and you want www.insertyournamehere.com, you want to be making sure that you are buy soon as you are like, right, I've decided this is my business name because if someone else gets in there before you, that's when this whole thing of, oh, they want to sell me that domain, sure, but it's like 5G, you know what I mean? So we really want to be making sure that we are making that decision and we're going to go and future proof all of the future decisions that we might make. Number two, we want to do some light branding. Now, branding at this stage does not mean spending £2,000 on a designer to make a logo for you. It means one logo or even just for now, your shop name in a nice readable font, two or three colors that really feel like your vibe and one or two fonts for your graphics. We just basically want enough that it looks consistent, not like five different mood M. People, not five different people made it at 3am um, type of vibe. Now, I am going to say here that it's very likely that you are going to rebrand in maybe six months to a year. That is completely normal. All we want is to give our business a springboard so that we don't feel like this is a major speed hunt that then puts us off getting this stuff done. Number three, basic admin. Now this is stuff to sort early. Now, this is stuff to sort early on. Number one, a separate bank account or at least a separate pot so that you're not mixing like grocery money with Etsy fees. Number two, please do check if your product needs any specific safety stuff, for example, candles, cosmetics, toys, these things all have rules. You don't have to become a lawyer to do this, but please do check and don't wing anything that is going near people's skins, kids, anything like that. Number three, decide where you are going to store receipts and track your income. You could use a notebook, you could use a spreadsheet app, just not all in a random box and I'm jotting it down on my phone notes. Like, we really want this to be as streamlined as we Possibly can. M. Think of this whole process like building a kitchen before you begin cooking. You could technically, like, fry an egg on a camping stove in the garden, but it will get old very, very quickly. So these foundational things are really important. Step three, open your shop. But don't freak out about that very first listing. Step three is where a lot of people freeze. I'm going to be real with you. So we're going to make this as simple and as calm and as effective as we possibly can. Opening your shop is basically these things. Creating an Etsy account as a seller, following their little setup wizard to put in your currency, bank details, etc. Creating one listing so that it counts as an open shop. Then going back and customizing everything properly. Now here's the important bit. That very first listing that you create during setup, uh, please do not make it perfect. It's purely just a placeholder listing. It's purely going to be almost like a placeholder listing really. So once you are done with the setup and trust me, the wizard is going to walk you through it. Uh. I'm not talking about like the wizard of Oz or anything, but like their setup wizard is truly going to walk you through everything you need here. So once you've done that, you want to go to the shop manager and here's three things you're going to want to do. You're going to want to add a profile picture and a simple banner. It doesn't have to be your forever design. Keep it simple for now. Number two, fill in your about section with a short human. Please don't use AI for any of this paragraph. That talks a little bit more about who you are and what you make. Number three, use Etsy's policies templates to set up shipping returns, payment policies and all those kinds of things. You can totally tweak any of this later if needed. We just want to get you set up. And, and a side note here, if you are a visual learner, which spoiler alert, the majority of us are, you are only going to. You're only going to learn how Etsy works by having listings live and actually using the platform. The goal of this is not to set up a perfect shop and have everything spangly and sparkly before people start buying. Actually, the goal of any business just starting up is, my shop exists, it is open now, I can add products and improve as I go. You are never going to be 100% ready. And please ignore any advice that tells you either. And please ignore any advice that tells you otherwise. Because honestly, like we learn by doing, not by thinking about doing. Step number four, create your product and check it has a chance at being found, being sold, being ranked, all those good things that you hear about. Now we are on to the fun bit. What you're actually selling and whether anyone actually wants it. Which sounds harsh, I know, but that's a simple way of putting it. So we are going to do some product and trend research before you bulk buy 4,000 meters of fabric that no one likes. Step one, find your niche. Go onto Etsy. Type in a phrase that describes what it is you want to sell. For example lavender eye pillow or minimal birthstone necklace or weekly printable planner. Then you want to look at how many results there are, what the best sellers really look like, what common styles, colors and price points are that you see. Then you want to ask yourself, where would I fit into all of this? What feels like it's missing? What am I naturally drawn to? Making your niche, which I've spoken about a lot throughout this video, is your type of product for this type of customer with this twist. Okay, so if you're struggling with niche, the type of product for this type of customer with this twist. All right, step two here is we want to decide your offer type. If you are handmade, if you are handmade, list the materials that you need. Find wholesalers to get these find wholesalers to get these materials from not just normal retail shops like we don't want you going to like Hobby lobby Hobbycraft Michaels to get this stuff. We are a business, therefore we need to get the best possible rate we can for our raw materials. And if you don't, what will end up happening is that you'll look at your profit margins and they will gradually dwindle over time. And then the third thing here is we simply want to order enough for a small first batch, not a full warehouse. So that is if you are selling handmade, if you are doing print on demand or Pod Pod for short, you are going to want to choose a provider. Connect your Etsy shop, decide where you're going to design, whether that's Procreate, Illustrator, Canva, etc. And start with a small number of designs so that you can test what actually sells. And lastly, if you are selling digital, here's the things that you're going to want to do. Decide the file types that you're going to offer, whether that's PDF, JPEG, PNG, etc. Research common sizes on Etsy for your niche. For example a 4 US letter size 5 x 78 x 10. Like, you want to actually research the sizes that people want the files in, then you want to make sure that your customer knows how to use and print the file. The general rule for the, the general rule for if you're selling handmade, pod or digital is this. Start smaller than you think because honestly, you do not need a hundred products to open. Yes, you might have seen my other advice, my other videos saying, hey, you need like a decent amount of listings. But to start off with, do yourself a favor and do not put that type of pressure on yourself, especially on a new budding business. Because as a new budding business owner, we want you to be creative. We want you to think outside the box. We do not need your creative brain bogged down with all of these rules and things that we have to do. Basically all of this to say is you. Basically all this to say is that you need a handful of solid, well thought out products that you can photograph nicely, describe clearly and actually fulfill. I think really the honest answer is go with the safest option here. All right, we're on to step five now and this is where we're going to create our listings and start marketing. Uh. Once you've got the products, we turn those products into, into listings that can actually be found in Etsy search and bought. Now, just a side note here at this point is that it might take you four to six months to get your first Etsy sale. Please don't think that means anything about you, anything about your products, anything about your pricing. It does not. That is extremely normal, especially for a new business. But I don't want you like losing the faith, losing the will to live because you're waiting for your first sale. Yes, I know it's so frustrating and maybe you're a little bit impatient with it and you're wanting to get that money in. You're wanting to kind of get that proof that people want what you sell. The issue here is, is that it takes between 60 to 90 the issue here is that it takes between 60 to 90 days for Etsy to even crawl your listing, for Etsy to even decide where your listing is going to sit within the search results based on how people interact with it. So therefore, all this to say it does take a long time for you to kind of. So all this to say it does take a long time for your Etsy listing to kind of see where it's going to sit in the larger Etsy ecosystem. And this whole process can literally take three to four months in and of itself. Now I've said my little bit. Let's get into number one, which is SEO Basics. Please don't panic with all the letters. SEO basically means Search Engine Optimization. That probably doesn't really help you, but the true, true meaning of it is help Etsy understand with words what this is and who it's for. That is it. We basically want your listing titles, your listing tags and your listing descriptions to use the same kind of words and phrases that your customer would genuinely type into the search bar. So instead of the Sophie Collection or the Luna Collection, don't use collection names and things like that because our, uh, is. Because is your average Joe person going to be typing that in the search bar? They're just not. So instead of that, uh, you'd have something like Lavender eye pillow for sleep and headaches, comma, Organic cotton heat pack, something like that. You can still really, you can, you can honestly still use those cute collection names in your description or photos. But the SEO important bit, the title, the tags and the description needs to do the heavy lifting. Now a quick note on tags, use all the spaces with relevant phrases. So think of occasion, material, color, recipient. And also bear in mind that if you have a tag phrase that's longer than 20 characters, feel free to split it up. It will still work in the same way. Now, onto your descriptions. All you want to do here is simply explain what it is, who it's for, what's included, size, care, instructions, how it will arrive. Talk like a human, not like a. Not like a robot. I think as well, my rule of thumb here is not to use AI for any of this, because unless your AI chat is extremely trained and it knows exactly who you are, you've spent some genuine time talking to it, which sounds bizarre. I know it's gonna come out very robotic and Google has begun picking up on that. So use AI, please. Use it sparingly because it's actually going to tank your stuff more than you think it is. If you're just literally going on to ch GPT, create me a description for this product and then it just spits out some random robotic crap. All right, let's move on to point number two. Photos and video. Think of your photos as your handshake for new customers. Here's the things that you need. At least one clear, bright photo that shows the whole product. Close ups of details and textures and things like that. Photos that show scale. So in a hand, next to a mug, on a desk, something like that. And number four, lifestyle shots, if you can manage them. If you are Selling digital or pod print on demand. Good mock ups are your best friend. But, and here is a huge but, you need to make sure that they don't look like a mock up. People now are very, very, very aware that the Etsy shops use mock up. So if it's a bad mock up or a mock up that honestly does look like a mock up, then people are going to sniff that out a mile away. Like we actually want to use ones that look realistic, not hovering decal on a weirdly shiny wall. Do you know what I mean? I think if you are in doubt, go on Etsy, do a search for what you sell and see if you can spot the mock ups. Because if you can spot it as an Etsy shop owner, you bet your bottom dollar your customers can spot it a mile off too. You also want to add a short video if you can. You moving the product around with your hand, flipping pages, showing it in use. It does not have to be cinematic. Like, honestly, using your phone is absolutely fine. All right, number three, let's talk about the good bit, the exciting bit. Pricing for profit. Do not, do not, do not, do not pick your pricing by what's the cheapest on page one. Oh yeah, I'm gonna do that. You need to include materials, packaging, Etsy fees, your time and a bit of a buffer in there as well. Otherwise you'll get busier and poorer at the same time. Like, you'll be making sales and orders, but your revenue and your profit will be like nothing. So all this to say you want to price your products in the right way, which does not mean being the cheapest. And yes, our brains might be going, but Steph, if I'm not priced cheaply, how am I going to get sales? Because people buy based on cost, based on price, right? No, they do not. People purchase based off of emotion, not based off of price. Yes, if you're making a commodity purchase, such as milk or bread, yeah, you are going to look at the price because bread is bread, milk is milk. Or so you would hope. But if it's a handmade product that demands a premium in and of itself, think of handmade chocolates and handmade cars. All right, point number four is to start your marketing. This is where it gets exciting. Opening the shop is the start, it is not the finish line. You want to gently start telling people that you exist. So, uh, this is where you want to pick your home hub. And I do have a podcast episode and a YouTube video talking all about how to choose your home hub. But what this Is is one social media platform. That's it. We just want to choose one. Whether that's going to be a simple in whether that's gonna, whether that's gonna be a simple Instagram profile or Facebook page showing your making process finished products or whether it's going to be basic TikToks or reels, packing orders, creating, showing befores and afters or whether it's going to be an email list. Maybe you start collecting emails from day one. Even if it's just like with a link in your bio and a little freebie or a discount code, you want to choose your main place where you are going market your products. You do not do Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Blue Sky, Twitter, uh X, whatever it's called and a bunch of others like you do not need to be doing that. And that is the fastest way that I see honestly shops failing is that they look at their marketing and they think oh my God, I've got to be on this. And this is you do not trust me. You can get to a six figure Etsy shop just using one social media platform and obviously your Etsy shop itself. Okay? So please, please, please take time. Choosing your home hub. And your home hub should be a place that you yourself enjoy and like making content for maybe something that you doom scroll something that you use as a consumer yourself. And it also should be a place that your target audience is on. So don't choose Facebook if all your audience is on Instagram. Um. And when you are ready, and that might be now, it might be later down the line but when you are ready for help with keeping up with social media without wanting to throw your phone in a bin, that is exactly what my social media that is exactly what my social media Sidekick membership is for. Each month you get plug and post, each month you get your social media pretty much done for you. All you have to do is go on the plan, grab the visual, grab the template, grab everything, tweak it a little bit, schedule it and you are done. It is literally like a social media strategist and a designer in your pocket each and every month. I'm gonna, I'm gonna leave the link for that below. It's handmadebosses.com forward/s SMS M. Hammybosses.com forward/sms M. It's a thing you can join all the time, but it is really the premier handmade business marketing tool every single month social media done for you. So if you want to just kind of tick this off your list and move on Then that is a place you want to be. Throughout this whole process of setting up shop. We want to be super duper self aware. I I often say that starting a handmade business is the biggest self reflection journey because you learn a lot about yourself, you learn a lot about how your brain works, you learn a lot about how you manage stress, you learn a lot about just yourself in general and also the people around you. So now we want to bring in Sam and Lydia, two comparative characters, so that you can begin to see how different people react. Sam is overwhelmed, underpriced and stuck. So Sam wants to sell handmade jewelry, right? She spends three weeks choosing a business name, another four weeks designing what she thinks is a perfect logo and a whole after afternoon scrolling Etsy help groups until her brain is just like mashed potato. She opens her shop, sure, but she never finishes that first listing properly because she's scared it's going to be wrong. When she does finally list something, her photos are dark and a little bit blurry. Her title is Moonlight Collection comma star necklace and her description is literally two lines long. She sets her prices by copying the cheapest person on page one. She posts on Instagram twice. She gets 12 followers, decides it's not working, and then disappears for six months. Six months later, after doing this whole process, she has a nice logo, a half empty shop, and the story Etsy is saturated. It doesn't work rolling around in her brain, which, spoiler alert, that's complete bs. Lydia is simple, focused and steadily growing. Lydia also wants to sell handmade jewelry. She watches this kind of video twice, once when she finds it and another one. She grabs her notebook and she takes some notes. She does the five steps. She chooses a simple name that she can easily spell. She sets up her shop using Etsy's templates, policies, all those kinds of things. She starts with five necklace designs, all for the same type of customer, by the way. She spends more time on good clear photos in natural light. Titles like Dainty Gold Birthstone, uh, Necklace and descriptions that actually answer questions. Anne is more than two lines long. She finds jewelry, wholesale supplies so her costs make sense. She sets her prices so that she can pay herself, even if it means it's mid range but not the cheapest. She picks her home hub, her one social media platform and posts three times a week. In month one, she gets her first order. In month two, she gets a few more orders. In month three, she actually starts to get some people coming back to her, some returning customers. So therefore she starts adding matching bracelets in month six. No, she's not a millionaire. She's not selling like 50 orders a day. But she does have a clear brand, regular sales and data to make decisions with. Same platform, same products. Sam stays in chaos and cheapness. Lydia kept it simple, kept it consistent and kept it profitable on purpose. All right, let's land this with some homework so that this does not become cool, cool, cool. Nice video. I'm going to save it and never watch it again. No, we actually have homework to do here. Number one, write your one sentence what I sell line. So this is I sell type of product for type of customer with your twist that is going to be your niche. Pick a name and open your shop. Even if that means you only have one draft listing ready. Number three do 15 minutes. I actually set a timer on your step. Three do 15 minutes. Actually set a timer on your phone of Etsy Research. Okay, search your main product phase, look at the products that sell the best and note down prices, styles and what the good photos actually look like. Number four make or finish one product and take pictures of it. Doesn't have to be your forever range, just get one item ready to sell. Number five post one piece of content. A simple hi, I'm starting my Etsy shop. This is what it's about. This is what I'm going to be making on whatever home hub you have chosen. And if you want some help on that last bit, do not forget to check out the social media Sidekick because that is going to make your marketing life so much easier. Whilst you're juggling all of this new stuff. If this helped calm your Etsy starter brain, give it a like subscribe and then go uh and watch some of my other videos. I have one titled Etsy SEO for Complete Beginners. Things I do differently if I started my Etsy shop again there is hundreds of videos completely free for you to go and watch. I would recommend to have a little Netflix style binge on my channel because there's going to be so much helpful stuff there for you. But for now my loves, thank you so so much and I will see you all in the next one. Bye.