The Etsy Seller Handbook: All Our How-To's About Selling
Sellers! Want to get the most out of Etsy? Make sure you’ve signed up for the Etsy Success newsletter, join us over on the Etsy Success Team and check out upcoming live workshops. Below you’ll find a handy index of all the useful how-to’s about selling on Etsy. We’re calling it the Seller Handbook, and we first posted it on The Storque in September of 2007. We continue to add new how-to’s for sellers to this index and bump up the post when we do. In this way it’s a living document. You can also search the Storque tags for “Seller Handbook” for a chronological list of all our published how-to’s related to Selling. Your Shop 101: How-To’s for Getting Started on Etsy Start with this one: Etsy Success for Beginner Sellers! Please also see the Setting Up Shop Help Guide, Selling Dos and Don’ts, Selling FAQs, Listing an Item Help Guide, Etsy Guide to SEO.
- A Beginner’s Guide to Starting a Shop on Etsy
- The Quick-Start Guide to Selling on Etsy
- Creating a Brand Identity for Your Shop
- Critique Your Shop
- FAQ : How do I send a Paypal invoice directly to my buyer?
- FAQ : What is Kiss and Make Up? How does it work?
- FAQ : Can I block a specific block buyer from making purchases from my shop?
- Customer Care Series
- The Etsy Seller Basics: Get a Jumpstart on a Stellar Shop
- Etsy Success Tips: Make Your Shop Work for You
- Forum Questions Answered: Loosewirestudio
- Guidelines & Tips: Tagging on Etsy
- Community Advice: Tagging Woes
- Hitting the Sweet Spot with Etsy’s Most Relevant Search
- Holiday How-To: Offering Services
- Holiday How-To: Sagittariusgallery’s Top 10 Tips for Newbie Sellers
- How to Offer Gift Certificates in Your Etsy Shop
- How-To Use Etsy: sagittariusgallery’s Ultimate Newbie Guide 4
- Increasing Your Item Views
- Launching a Product Line
- PayPal Podcast from the Etsy Virtual Labs (1st edition)
- PayPal Workshop in the Virtual Labs (2nd edition)
- Quit Your Day Job: 5 Tips from 50 Who’ve Done It
- Seller How-To: Fostering Repeat Business
- Seller How-To: Guiding Buyers with Shop Sections
- Shop Makeover Series
- Shop Makeover Series: What’s in a Name?
- Shop Makeover series: Tagging for Success
- Shop Makeover Series: The Fine Print
- Shop Makeover Series: Introducing a New Line
- Shop Makeover Series: Crafting a Profile Page
- Shop Makeover Series: Hello Brand New World
- Shop Makeover Series: Google PageRank Tips for Your Etsy Shop
- Shop Makeover Series: Are Your Photos Frontpage Worthy?
- Shop Makeover Series: Feature Friendly Photos
- Shop Makeover Series: Broaden Your Target Audience with Tiered Product Lines
- Shop Makeover Series: Photogenic Collaborations
- Shop Makeover Series: 2009 Intro
- Shop Makeover Series: Stretch Your Boundaries
- Shop Makeover Series: Before and After Rearrange Your Shop
- Top 10 Graphic Designs to Give Your Shop the Edge
- Welcome to Your Online Presence
- Ask Daniellexo: Breaking the Rules
- Ask Daniellexo: Front Page Woes
- Banners
- Seller How-To: Banner Tips
- Writing & Text
- Best of the Etsy Forums: 20 Questions Your Buyers are Asking
- Getting To Know You: Tips and Tricks for Writing an Engaging Profile
- Making the Most of Your Descriptions
- Most Relevant Workshop Recap: Tags, Titles, Descriptions and Most Relevant Search
- Optimizing Your Etsy Shop for Search Engines
- Writing for an Online Audience: How-To
- 5 Tips for Item Descriptions
- Putting Your Shop on Top : Etsy’s Most Relevant Search
Image by worksofwhimsy
Product Design- Finding Your Etsy Niche with tortillagirl
- Finding Your Niche with DiffractionFiber
- Label Maker: Don’t Orphan Your Micro-Brand
- Earth Tones: Selling Green
- Fearless Creativity
- Holiday How-To #3: Creating Labels and Hang-Tags
- Merchandising for the Holidays
- Pikaland’s 9 Tips to Be More Creative
- Sellers: What’s Your Point of Difference?
- Shop Makeover Series: Broaden Your Target Audience with Tiered Product Lines
- Word on the Street: Crowdsourcing and Your Etsy Business
Image by Artsy- Before and After With Etsy’s Old Timers & Full-Timers
- Before and After With Photoshop
- Bright Light, Big Color: Using EV and White Balance to Make Your Photos True to Life
- Color Theory Applied to Your Shop
- Etsy Holiday How-To #4: Photographing your items
- Etsy Pets in Vogue: Getting The Right Shot
- Etsy’s Guide to Photography
- Give Props: How to Style Your Photos
- How-To: Brighten Your Photos with Paperama
- How-To Photograph Jewelry: Get the Basics with Vadjutka
- Hot Tip: Resizing your photos the easy way!
- Jenlo262 Presents: The Basics of Color Theory
- On The Level: Make Your Photos Pop with Histograms and Levels
- Photography Tips With heidiadnum, Part 1
- Photography Tips With heidiadnum, Part 2
- Photographing 2D Artwork
- Printing Digitally: Producing Beautiful D.I.Y. Photo Prints
- Setting Up the Shot with a Tripod
- Shop Makeover Series: Feature Friendly Photos
- Shop Makeover Series: Makeover Your Listings with Color
- Shop Makeover Series: Photogenic Collaborations
- Shop Makeover series: Photographing for Success
- Staying Sharp: Achieving Clarity and Crispness in Your Photos
- The Right Camera
- Trix of the Trade: Gemmafactrix
- Setting Up the Shot with a Tripod
Image by CarolinaCottage
Etsy International - Etsy’s Guide to Selling From Europe: Part 1
- Etsy’s Guide to Selling From Europe: Part 2
- How-To Etsy in Italiano
- Internationalize Those Measurements
- International Survey Results (2009)
- International Tagging, Yeah Baby!
Image by - FAQ : How do I create a listing reserved for a specific buyer?
- Customer Care Tip: Privacy and Custom Orders
- Etsy’s Guide to Custom Work
Image by moxiethrift- Seller How-To: Shipping
- Can I still get this by Christmas?
- FAQ : Why is the shipping amount wrong on the Paypal Invoice?
- Customer Care Update: Shedding Light on Etsy’s Non-Delivery Complaint Process
- Etsy Holiday How-To #1: Packaging
- Etsy Holiday How-To #2: Branding your Shipping Materials
- Etsy Holiday How-To #5: Shipping
- Fabulous Packaging and Wrapping With Rikrak
- Packaging for the Holidays
- Packaging Ideas
- Pretty as a Package
- Scanning and Shipping Made Easy with USPS SCAN Form’s Proof of Shipping
- Service Tips for Sellers: Packaging and Shipping
- Shipping How-To: Custom Forms, Duties and Taxes
- Shipping How-To: the Final Frontier
- Your Shop 101: Getting It There In Time
- Handmade Code: Etsy Lovers and ShipSaver
Image by missplum- 13.5 Questions about Showcase
- A DIY-Friendly Guide to Advertising Online (Part One)
- A DIY-Friendly Guide to Advertising Online (Part Two)
- Etsy Cooperative Advertising Pilot Program
- Holiday How-To’s: Online Marketing Tips
- I Heart Marketing My Etsy Shop and You Will, Too! Part 3 (off-Etsy Marketing)
- Seven Steps to Understanding Online Advertising
- Showcase Deconstructed: Why We’ve Augmented Etsy’s Cooperative Advertising Program
Image by Earmark- Art of Pricing Series
- The Art of Pricing: Understanding Your Costs
- The Art of Pricing: Staying Competitive
- The Art of Pricing: Price, You Get What You Pay For
- The Art of Pricing: Theories in Discounting
- The Art of Pricing: Preparing for Wholesaling
- The Art of Pricing: Bundle Up on Your Way to Higher Sales
- The Art of Pricing: Tiered Pricing
- The Art of Pricing: Three Helpful Pricing Exercises
- Reevaluating Your Prices
- Beating Creative Burnout
- 3 Small Business Tips from CEO Melissa Helmbrecht
- Business Growth: Separating Your Personal and Business Finances
- Confessions of “Jan”: Finding Your Way in the Middle
- Cracker Crumbs and Packing Peanuts: Insights from Work-At-Home Moms to Boost Your Productivity
- Craft-onomics 101: When Recession Hits
- Daily Worth:
- Etsy Pets: Paws for a Cause — Listing Items for Animal Charities
- Etsy Seller Inventory Worksheet
- Holiday How-To: Notes on Cyber Monday From DiffractionFiber
- Holiday How-To: Organizing for the Holidays (and Beyond)
- Holiday How-To: Top Ten Financial Tips for the Holiday Rush
- Holiday How-To: Wholesale on Etsy
- Ins and Outs of Consignment
- LittleputBooks Top 10: Keeping up with the Holiday Rush
- Modish Biz Tips for Your Etsy Shop
- Present Yourself to the Press
- Seller Resources: Unanimous Craft
- Service Tips for Sellers Series
- Service Tips for Sellers: Introduction to a New Series
- Service Tips for Sellers: Communication
- Service Tips for Sellers: Packaging and Shipping
- Service Tips for Sellers: Community Chatt Roundup, June 13, 2008
- Service Tips for Sellers: Promoting Repeat Business
- Service Tips for Sellers: Creating Policies That Work
- Service Tips for Sellers: Everyone Isn’t Your Sweet Aunt Kate
- Service Tips for Sellers: Top 10 Customer Service Strategies
- Service Tips for Sellers: Building Bridges
- Service Tips for Sellers: What We Can Learn from Great Service Companies
- Six Success Secrets With the When I Grow Up Coach
- Etsy Success Challenge: What’s Your Biggest Strength?
- Maya Penn on the DIY Business Conference
- The Bulldozer’s Guide to Selling on Etsy
- Taxes
- Tech Update + How-To: Download your Sales and Billing Data to a Spreadsheet
- Best of the Etsy Forums: Ten Things I Learned the Hard Way
- The Numbers Game: Ratios and Your Shop’s Popularity
- The Numbers Game: Ratios and Your Shop’s Inventory
- The Numbers Game: Sales per Day
- Web Analytics: Get It Straight from Google
- Web Analytics Recap: Seller Chat in the Virtual Labs
- Web Analytics Tips
- Writing a Business Plan
- Wholesaling
Image by NewDuds- A Dude’s Perspective: How to Market to Men
- Top 5 Twitter Tips for Stress-Free Tweeting
- A Different Thing Entirely: How-To Distinguish Yourself from the Mass Market
- Dispatches from B-School: Marketing Communications, Part 1
- Dispatches from B-School: Marketing Communications, Part 2
- DIY Video How-To: Five Basic Tips for Making a Video
- Don’t Order Another 1,000 Business Cards!
- Ecouterre’s Tips for Snagging a Feature on Design Blogs
- Etsy Guide to SEO
- Etsy Success: Work It on Kaboodle
- Gain Media Exposure With Ellie Tennant of Ideal Home Magazine
- Global Microbrand: Further Resources
- Handmade Cults: An Interview with Douglas Atkin
- Holiday Season Marketing: How to Engage Your Buyers
- How-To Sell Sell Sell 365 Days a Year: Make Everyday a Holiday
- How to Sell Your Story With Johnny B. Truant
- I Heart Marketing My Etsy Shop and You Will, Too! Part 1 (Branding)
- I Heart Marketing My Etsy Shop and You Will, Too! Part 2 (on-Etsy Marketing)
- I Heart Marketing My Etsy Shop and You Will, Too! Part 3 (off-Etsy Marketing)
- Making Your Mystery
- Ask Daniellexo: Front Page Woes
- Putting Your Shop on Top : Etsy’s Most Relevant Search
- Etsy Success : Shop Stat Insights
- Moo
- Participate in Weekend Deals
- Promoting Your Etsy Shop: Contest Alternatives!
- Promoting Your Men’s Gifts for Father’s Day
- Online Marketing Tips
- Seller How-To: Promoting a Site Wide Sale on Etsy
- Seth Godin on Marketing to the Male Shopper & Thinking Big about Small
- The Sampler: What is it, and who can get one?
- Tweeting for Dollars
- Using Father’s Day to Increase Sales
- Your Shop 101: Marketing on a Shoestring Round-up
Image by DancingMooney- Craft Show Applications Unraveled
- Craft Show Display Tips & Must-Haves
- Cross-country Craft Fair: Lessons Learned
- Get Connected in Your Area: IndieCraftShows.com
- How-To Get Ready for a Big Show with the New New Team
- How-To Network Offline: Increase Online Sales in Five Easy Steps
- Let’s Trade: Behind the Scenes at the National Stationery Trade Show
- Penny-wise Product Pushing: Do a Craft Show without Breaking the Bank
- Rocking Holiday Craft Shows
- Seller How-to: Craft Fair Tips
Image by photohale
Gallery Go-getter Series (Fine Art & Studio Craft) 
Image by MonkiVintage
Vintage
Image by MiNDJACKET- Common Blog Terms (From the book The Handmade Marketplace)
- Connecting With Twitter
- Top 5 Twitter Tips for Stress-Free Tweeting
- Etsy’s Guide to Blogging
- Handmade Comments: How Not to Spam While Being Active Online
- How to Effectively Use Social Media to Market Your Business: Sister Diane’s I Heart Art Workshop
- How-To’s from the Seller Blogosphere: greenbeanbaby’s 10 Steps to a Successful Shop
- Getting Started in Video
- Link It Up
- Pimp Your Shop for 2009
- Podcasting Series
- Seller How-To: Get Noticed by the Blogosphere
- Seller How-To: Want to Meetup?
- Team Tips: Etsy Teams Blog Rings
- Team Tip: How to Twitter
- Team Tip: Improved Etsy Teams Blog Ring
- Team Tip: Is Blogging Important?
- Tweeting for Dollars
- Want to Meetup?
- Writing for an Online Audience: How-To
Image by growbots- Handmade Code: How to Safely Use Apps That Connect to Your Etsy Account
- “Etsy Addict” iPhone Application
- BigCrumbs (a rewards site for shoppers)
- Craft Cult (a site that let’s you track your hearts and where you’ve been featured, plus more)
- ColorMatch from 26OliveStreet (a tool that suggests items that fit along your color palette)
- ESeller Ads (an ad builder for sellers)
- EtsyHacks (a suite of tools for sellers — “Copy Listing” is particularly handy)
- EtsySaver (promote your coupon codes)
- Handmade Spark
- Metricly
- Morecloth (an application that lets you browse fabric on Etsy by color)
- Pocket Shop
- Sellit.com (a service that helps you spread the word about your shop)
- Soopsee (an easy-to-use website building service that enables you to feed in your Etsy shop, blog, etc.)
- Statsy (a variety of tools helping sellers glean information about their shops and items)
- Statsy Clockbot and ShipRush
- Tag Finder Tool from Craftweasel.com (one of this developer’s many applications the Tag Finder gives sellers insights into what tags might be appropriate for their items)
- Webs.com
- Handmade Code: Etsy Lovers and Shipsaver
Image by houseofharriet Legal Info for Artists- All about Etsy FAQ Series: Legal Info
- Big Brand Copycats
- Etsy, I See Copyright Infringement
- Etsy’s Copyright Policy
- Etsy Trademark Permissions Program: This ain’t no Cease and Desist
- Fan Art and Fair Use: One Truth and Five Myths
- Fraud and Internet Safety
- How-To Research Trademarks
- Legal Info for Artists: Electronic Copyright Registration Now Available
- Legal Mumbo Jumbo: What’s SarahSays Saying?
- Poor Man’s Copyright
- Safety First: California’s Lead in Jewelry Law
- SarahSays: Contest Law
- Sarahsays Copyrights: Creative Commons Licensing
- SarahSays Copyrights: Register for U.S. Copyright Online
- SarahSays: Trademarks
- Selling Your Edibles on Etsy
- Trademarks, Copyrights, Patents, Oh My!
- Using Fabric in your Creations: Not All Fabric is Created Equal
Image by jessgonacha- Earth Tones How-To: Tagging Your Eco-Friendly Items
- Hitting the Sweet Spot with Etsy’s Most Relevant Search
- Guidelines & Tips: Tagging on Etsy
- Seller How-To: International Tagging, Yeah Baby!
- Seller Tagging Tips: “A Semi-Epiphany on Tags”
- Shop Makeover series: Tagging for Success
- Shop Makeover: Titles, Descriptions and Tags
- Tagging Tips for Sellers: Kids, Baby, and Maternity
- Tag-o-rama with Descriptive Keywords
- Team Tip: Team Tags!
- Vegan Tagging: A How-To for Sellers
- What’s the Word? Etsy-centric Terms and Acronyms For Shoppers (Part 1)
- Community Advice: Tagging Woes
Image by Anda
Team Tips Handbook See all the how-to’s relating to Teams, groups of sellers who self-organize by location, craft, or interest. Here’s a great place to start:
Image by iheartmoustaches- All about Etsy FAQ Series
- About Community on Etsy
- Coupon Codes for Your Etsy Shop
- Get Involved in the Voter
- Getting to Know the Etsy Teams
- Legal Info
- Meet Customer Support
- Meet the Etsy Content Team
- Playing by the Rules
- The Ins and Outs of Engineering
- The Lifecycle of a Site Feature Idea
- Welcome to the Etsy Labs
- New & Improved Help!
- All about RSS
- Web Analytics: Who’s Found You Through the Taste Test?
- Can’t Get Enough Etsy? Sign up for Our Etsy Email Lists!
- Holiday How-To’s: Sellers, Wrap It Up with Gift Wrap!
- How-To: Sell Local
- Printer-Friendly Etsy Invoices
- Rearrange Your Shop Tool
- Report this Forum Post
- Seller How-To: Making Category Suggestions
- Tech Updates: Etsy Mini
- TimothyAdamDesigns’ Etsy Mini How-To Video
- Let’s Get Focused: A New Home for Seller Education
- Titles, Descriptions and Tags
- Ask Daniellexo: Front Page Woes
- Putting Your Shop on Top : Etsy’s Most Relevant Search
- Etsy Success : Shop Stat Insights
- The Treasury
- Handmade Code: Etsy Lovers and Shipsaver
