Salaam friends!
Welcome to the 8th issue of The Creative Muslimah.
In today’s newsletter I want to focus entirely on a question I get asked VERY often.
“How did you make sales on Etsy?”
A few weeks ago I hit a milestone on Etsy: 2000 sales, alhamdullilah. This is how I did it:
First, I decided on a niche. There are probably thousands of shops on Etsy selling prints. What would make me different?
Well, the first thing was that my target audience was muslims. And secondly, I wanted to create products for children. But I also wanted the prints to be beautiful and visually appealing to children and adults alike (not garish or tacky!)
So there it was, my niche. Aesthetically pleasing wall art for muslim kids.
I started by already having an audience on Instagram. This isn’t essential for Etsy, but it can get the ball rolling and will most likely get you your first sales. And only IF the audience is engaging and interested in your work. It doesn’t need to be a huge audience either! You might look at my audience now and think it has always been this way, but I actually had about 3000 followers on Instagram when I opened my shop.
I set competitive prices for my prints. But the prices were still high enough that I could offer free shipping - this is always enticing for potential customers. Nobody likes paying for shipping! So I was determined to figure out a way to offer my prints worldwide but not at a extortionate cost to me or my customers. Shipping can be very expensive and it’s not always possible to offer free shipping as a small business. The only way I could do this was by using print on demand services with locations worldwide. It costs me a lot more but it means my products are available worldwide which opens up my business to a lot more people.
My prices are reasonable but they take into account costs of producing the product, time and the value of my art. It always helped to ask myself the question: “would I buy this at this price?”
I also used mock-ups as the images for my shop. I tried taking photos of the prints, but found it difficult to show the artwork clearly without any glare from the frame. Mock-ups are easy and look clean and professional, as long as they are done well.
When setting up my shop, I made sure to relevant keywords in listing titles, descriptions, and tags. For example
“Islamic, Wall art, Kids, Children, Muslim, Gift, Play Room, Kids Room”
This helps my products show up in Etsy's search results. For example, if you search “Islamic Kids Prints” “Wall Art for Muslim Kids” my prints should appear.
I also ran ads on at the very beginning to get noticed on Etsy, but once my shop was established it wasn’t required any more.
I also made sure to offer excellent customer service - I would respond to messages quickly and ensure packages were shipped out in time. This in turn encouraged my customers to leave a positive review.
Speaking of reviews, they are extremely important. I currently have 413 verified customer reviews.
I truly believe the success of my shop boils down to the growing number of positive reviews. I encourage my customers to leave reviews with my automated message they receive after placing an order. And if they don’t leave a review, I would drop a message to send a gentle reminder. It doesn’t require much effort for the customer - it takes them a few seconds to click on five stars! And a minute or two if they want to leave a couple sentences. But it makes a BIG difference to my shop, and I’m open and honest about this with my customers.
I also kept a close eye on my shop stats using Etsy’s analytics tools. For example, if a particular print was selling well, I’d made another version of it in a different colour, or another language (my arabic prints sell well!)
I hope you found these tips helpful.
And that’s it!
In a few days I’ll be sharing the next newsletter which will feature a very talented baker who runs a very successful business right here in Dubai. Stay tuned!
I hope you enjoyed this newsletter and I look forward to sending you the next one insha’Allah.
Love and duas,
Maryam